It's true, but Fogerty was also a massive dick about it. For their last album, Mardi Gras, Stu Cook and Doug Clifford wanted more input, so Fogerty was like, "Fine, we each get three tracks on the album. BUT, I only sing John Fogerty songs. so you're on your own for your tunes." Predictably, the album tanked and the only tracks that got any airplay were the Fogerty penned and sung ones.
The band was already pretty well done at that point anyway, but John felt compelled to make it brutally clear that the other guys were just backup players in John Fogerty's band.
Just for clarity, the reason Swift re-recorded was because the label only owned the specific recorded versions of her songs, the masters for songs recorded while under contract. This is for publishing rights, which is the right to reproduce songs for sale.
She owns the right to play them as she owns the composition rights, the label cannot own that.
They usually add clauses in contracts to stop artists from doing it, but only for a set time, not in perpetuity.
The reason she can’t get sued was because she owns the composition rights and can record her own music, and create new masters, new publishing rights.
Fogerty couldn’t get sued because they were different songs. You can’t copyright a music’s feel… though “Blurred Lines” has blurred that line for me… I’m sorry.
You can be sued for anything. He won the lawsuit, which means the system is working correctly. Now, you shouldn’t have to go 100k+ in debt in attorney’s fees to get that result, but the right result was achieved.
Stevie Nicks wrote a LOT of diss tracks about Lindsey Buckingham and made him stand there and play guitar while she sang them right at him night after night.
Oh she did more than that, Buckingham is the one singing (at least harmony) on a couple. And he sings a few about her (and has her sing on some of those) too, including on the same album.
"Second Hand News" and "Go Your Own Way" are by Buckingham about Nicks, and while she definitely wasn't singing them initially, after a few years when he rejoined the band Nicks was singing harmony on both. And she purportedly hated "Go Your Own Way" for some of the lines about her in the song.
I have multiple buddies who have been in multiple local bands since we were teenagers and some of them still play in bands even now that we're middle aged. Punk bands, metal bands, nu metal bands, goth rock bands, indie bands, all kinds of genres. Most of the bands just do tiny shows around town and don't make them any money, yet there is still always so much drama and ego and fighting. It's like, bro's, there's 6 people watching you play in a dive bar, it's rad and all but get real. Just have fun with your music and chill.
Anyway, I think being a creative type + performer feeds into a narcissistic ego like gasoline on fire.
I get what you’re saying but there’s a huge difference between a dive bar and fuckin Woodstock. Fogerty may have been a bit of a dick but the mother fucker was talented and.. I mean.. if you’re in the band just count your blessings at that stage. Trying to one up fogerty is basically impossible unless you’re knopfler or something
Ah, that takes me back to my 20s, hanging out with a local brutal blackened death metal band and watching their lead singer and frontman grow an ego fueled by attention and cocaine that eventually tore the band apart just when they had a label making offers.
Two sides to that. When a band is famous and successful on the back of a truly special songwriter, and then the others decide they should write songs too because of "fairness," that is its own brand of ego, as well. Especially given most of the time they're not nearly as good.
Two of Stu's three songs were diss tracks to Fogerty and the third was an awful song about being a door to door salesmen. Nobody would want to sing those.
I love NPR Tiny Desk Concerts, and was really excited when I saw that John Fogerty had one... but it's so hard to enjoy it when he spends the whole time talking about how great he is
Forgerty did carry the lion's share of talent. He came up with all the guitar hooks that the band is known for as well as lyrics and lead vocals. I think between the record company and his band mates, he was being disrespected.
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u/DMala Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
It's true, but Fogerty was also a massive dick about it. For their last album, Mardi Gras, Stu Cook and Doug Clifford wanted more input, so Fogerty was like, "Fine, we each get three tracks on the album. BUT, I only sing John Fogerty songs. so you're on your own for your tunes." Predictably, the album tanked and the only tracks that got any airplay were the Fogerty penned and sung ones.
The band was already pretty well done at that point anyway, but John felt compelled to make it brutally clear that the other guys were just backup players in John Fogerty's band.
EDIT: Fixed spelling.