You don’t make a chart-topping, award-winning record without a little bit of hard work, which would explain how the tongue-in-cheek album title for Creedence Clearwater Revival’s fifth album, Cosmo’s Factory, came to be. CCR was riding high on hits like “Proud Mary”, Bad Moon Rising”, and “Fortunate Son”, and while those kinds of career highs are certainly impressive feathers to put in one’s cap, it can also put intense pressure on the band to keep up the good work.
So, that’s precisely what frontman John Fogerty did: worked. This intense rehearsal and preparation schedule is ultimately what led to the title of one of the band’s most beloved albums.
How ‘Cosmo’s Factory’ Came To Be
Unless you were a diehard CCR fan in the early 1970s, you might not have realized that the band’s drummer, Doug Clifford, went by Cosmo. (Such is the plight for musicians who aren’t the frontperson.) If you did, you might have caught the connection between their fifth album’s title and the man behind the kit. But what was the factory supposed to be? A reference to Clifford’s production levels? Perhaps an allegory for the music industry as a machine?
None of the above. It was a tongue-in-cheek joke Clifford used to make about frontman John Fogerty’s rigorous rehearsal schedule. The band practiced at a warehouse in Berkeley, California, nearly every day of the week. Fogerty’s intense workflow obviously helped the band create an airtight set, but it also opened the door for jokes from other bandmates about Fogerty overworking them.
Clifford began nicknaming the warehouse “The Factory” because of how hard they were working in the rehearsal space. As for the Cosmo bit, Clifford later said, “[Cosmo’s Factory] was fun because John was more of an introvert, and I was an extrovert. John knew the press would be all over us for the album, so he said that he would name the album after me, and that I would have to deal with it. He wanted the pressure off of him. It was our biggest album ever. I tell people that they named it after me, so it had to be a hit,” he laughed.
Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Hard Labor Paid Off
Creedence Clearwater Revival’s fifth studio album, Cosmo’s Factory, certainly sounded like a band that spent nearly every waking moment playing together. With songs like “Run Through the Jungle”, “I Heard it through the Grapevine”, and “Lookin’ out My Back Door”, it became an integral and long-celebrated part of the band’s discography. Indeed, the album was a notable peak before the band’s contentious split two years later in 1972. Listening to that record, you would have never known that CCR was heading toward a breakup.
The GRAMMY Hall of Fame inducted Cosmo’s Factory into its ranks in 2014. By 1990, the album had received a four-time platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America. Had he known what sort of accolades would befall the band following the release of their fifth album, Doug “Cosmo” Clifford might not have teased John Fogerty about their intense rehearsal schedule so much. But then again, if he hadn’t, what would they have called the record?
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