Creedence Week No 5: (Wish I could) Hideaway
Unusually we have had a whole week of tracks by a major artist with all of the chosen tracks being fairly well known. But this is a terrific track you may not have heard before.
And you must have thought that I was going to finish in a blaze with the glorious "Proud Mary", which I once jumped up on a stage and sung in my first experience of lead singing with a scratch French band in a campsite in Frejus, Provence, in a desperate attempt to win a girl that I was visiting. Won the girl, but was too shy to do much about it (incredibly after singing to a couple of hundred Frenchies).
Realising afterwards that I'd missed a glorious romantic opportunity, and in doing so made something of a fool of myself, I remember wishing I could hideaway.
I've talked a lot about John Fogerty being gloomy and doomladen, and transcending to redemption through the magical intensity of his vision.
Here he's mystical alright, but there's not much redemption, just gloom and enigma, and the usual rain - and I love it.
Off the album "Pendulum" and past the peak of their great "Cosmo's Factory", this is a wonderful contemplation on life - or is it death? The pendulum slowly coming to a halt.
What's that you say? We're all bound for the graveyard; Oooh, I wish you well. Think it's gonna rain, Oh, what's the difference, Is there some way I can help?
and then resignation:
Well, I know you really never Liked the way it all goes down; Go on, hideaway.
and departure:
Hold on, give yourself a chance, I can hear the leavin' train.
farewell - even if he's just seeing someone off at the train station, it still seems very terminal:
All aboard! Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye! Oooh, I wish you well. See you soon, maybe tomorrow. You never can tell;
sorrow:
"Cause you know, I'm gonna miss you When you're gone Wish I could hideaway
This is Fogerty at his best, tough, tender, apocryphal, fading away into the sands of time, old and careworn, wise and weary, ready for a bit of peace. Hideaway, hideaway, hideaway, hideaway,
hideaway, hideaway, hideaway,
hideawaaaaaay.