John Fogerty wrote, “Who’ll Stop the Rain” and is often thought of as a protest of the Vietnam War (like “Fortunate Son”).
However, when John Fogerty performed the song way back in 2012 at the Arizona state fair, he told the crowd a story about when he had been at Woodstock, he watched the rain coming down and watched the festival-goers dance in the rain muddy, naked, and cold as it kept raining. So that’s when a few days later he went back home and wrote “Who’ll Stop the Rain,” making the song not a protest song against the Vietnam War, but instead, the experience he recounted during the Woodstock Festival 1969.
The song was released as the B-side to “Travelin’ Band” and it’s just the many singles to stall at the No. 2 on charts.
When Fogerty was asked by the Rolling Stone magazine:
“Does ‘Who’ll Stop The Rain’ contain lyrically specific meanings besides the symbolic dimension?”
He responded with:
“Certainly, I was talking about Washington when I wrote the song, but I remember bringing the master version of the song home and playing it. My son Josh was four years old at the time, and after he heard it, he said, ‘Daddy stop the rain.’ And my wife and I looked at each other and said, ‘Well, not quite.'”
The line from the song, “I went down Virginia, seekin’ shelter from the storm,” is where Bob Dylan got the title for his 1975 song “Shelter From The Storm.”
Keep going and listen to the song below: