As the vocalist, lead guitarist and principal songwriter for Creedence Clearwater Revival, John Fogerty has helped shape the sound of American music. But for decades, he was embroiled in a public legal battle with his label over the publishing rights to his music catalogue.

That changed recently when the 80-year-old rock legend decided to take a page out of Taylor Swift’s book by re-recording new versions of his early hits. His latest album, Legacy: The Creedence Clearwater Revival Years, consists of 20 re-recorded tracks, including classics like Proud Mary, Fortunate Son and Bad Moon Rising, as well as a few deep cuts.

In an interview with Q guest host Garvia Bailey, Fogerty reflects on his new chapter by looking back on some of his biggest hits. For instance, he says when he wrote Proud Mary — the first full song he ever completed — it came as a total surprise to him. He wasn’t even sure who or what “Proud Mary” was at first.

WATCH | John Fogerty on writing Proud Mary:

It was the summer of 1967 and Fogerty had just come home from active duty in the Army Reserve. Vowing to take his songwriting more seriously, he started jotting his ideas down in a binder he bought at a local drug store. 

“A couple of days after [buying the binder], a thought came to me: the words ‘Proud Mary,'” he recalls. “I didn’t know what Proud Mary meant, but I went over to my book and I wrote the words on the very first page — the first entry in that book is Proud Mary.”

The following summer in 1968, Fogerty was overjoyed to receive his honourable discharge from the army. That’s when he finally felt free to pursue music full-time.

“I went right into my room in my apartment, picked up my guitar [and] started strumming some chords,” he says. “The first line I wrote down on a piece of paper was, ‘Left a good job in the city / Workin’ for the man every night and day.’ Well, I had just gotten out of the army, and that’s what that’s referring to.”

Not long after that, Fogerty came up with the song’s famous chorus: “Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ on the river.”

“I thought, ‘Wow, this sounds pretty solid,'” he says. “‘This is startlingly good compared to whatever I had written in my life before…. What’s this song about? Where’s this thing going?'”

It wasn’t until Fogerty went back to look at his song book that he was reminded of the words he wrote on the very first page a year earlier.

I mean, who writes a song about a boat?- John Fogerty

“I look at that and I think, ‘Oh, Proud Mary is the name of a boat! It’s a boat name, like a river boat. Wow.’ So I finished writing this song — I mean, who writes a song about a boat, you know? Anyway, I got it done, and it was really catchy to me…. I realized I had crossed a mark, crossed a line into some place where this was truly a great song. Here’s a couple of thoughts that were in my head: number one, I realized I was the only person in the whole world that knew this. I was alone. And the second thing was, ‘Oh my God, I hope I get to do this again!'”

Watch more of our interview with Fogerty on our YouTube channel, where he also reveals the origin of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Fortunate Son and how he realized the band would split.

The full interview with John Fogerty is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with John Fogerty produced by Vanessa Nigro.