John Fogerty (1945- ) was watching television late one night and came across the 1941 movie The Devil and Daniel Webster, based on a 1936 short story by Stephen Vincent Benet. It is an intense movie, filled with temptation by the devil himself, all sorts of wickedness, ruin, death, hell, and, a violent storm (Fogerty’s hurricane). After watching the movie, Fogerty wrote Bad Moon Rising for the band he led, Creedence Clearwater Revival. CCR was one of the most popular bands in the country at that time, and the song became a hit, rising to #2 on the charts. It has ominous lyrics about troubling times, but it has an engaging and happy melody. Here it is:
“Bad Moon Rising,” Creedence Clearwater Revival, 1969
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I see a bad moon rising
I see trouble on the way
I see earthquakes and lightning
I see a bad time today
Refrain: Don’t go out tonight
It’s bound to take your life
There’s a bad moon on the rise
I see hurricanes a-blowing
I know the end is coming soon
I feel the rivers overflowing
I hear the voice of rage and ruins. / Refrain
Hope you have got your things together
Hope you are quite prepared to die
Looks like we’re in for nasty weather
One eye is taken for a lie. / Refrain x 2
It’s coming, it’s coming, it’s coming
There’s a bad moon on the rise
Bad moon bad moon bad moon
There’s a bad moon on the rise!…
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“I see a bad moon rising, I see trouble on the way.” Is there any trouble ahead for you? Anyone have a bad moon looming in their life? We all have our daily problems, which are usually more than enough, but there are also those things just out there on the horizon; those storms that haven’t hit yet, but are on the way. There are, you know, three types of people. There are those who are in trouble right now, there are those who are just coming out of trouble, and there are those who are heading into trouble. Everyone alive is in at least one of those three conditions. There is always trouble somewhere in the past, present, future, or all three. For you, it might be aging parents who will soon have to give up the car keys and move out of the old house; it might be a rebellious teenager you are worried about; it might be the mentally ill husband of your sister who has a violent streak that worries you; or it might be those every six-month check-ups to see if the cancer has returned. There is always trouble, for everyone. Not only that, be we are all, always, in the valley of the shadow of death. There is a bad moon on the rise for everyone, all the time.
It is not surprising that Bad Moon Rising was so well received in the late 60’s, with the prospect of going to Vietnam looming before many young men, and with American cities and campuses filled with unrest and violence. So John Fogerty sings, “Hope you have got your things together; hope you are quite prepared to die.” That is good Biblical advice, but I don’t know what John Fogerty meant by it. He has never given an indication of having any religious faith, or any hope of anything beyond this life. What’s there to prepare for?
We who believe in Jesus pray in the words he taught us to pray, “Thy Kingdom come.” God always wants us to open our eyes to that larger perspective, that eternal kingdom. St. Teresa said, “From heaven, even the most miserable life will look like one bad night in a cheap hotel.” Or as the song Rock and Roll Heaven sings, “If you believe in forever, then life is just a one-night stand.”
With faith in Jesus, we always have a fallback position. If I am enjoying good health, I will thank God for it. If I am sick, I will pray to get better. If I am not going to get better, I will take comfort in the faith that Jesus is preparing a place for me. That is how you become “quite prepared to die,” to use the words from the song.
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Job 5:7 — Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.
Joel 2:30-32a — I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
John 14:1-3 — (Jesus said), “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”
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Thy Kingdom come. –Jesus in Matthew 6:10
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For several previous meditations using old song hits go to:
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