- Writer: John Fogerty
- Producer: John Fogerty
- Recorded: 1984 at the Plant Studios in Sausalito, California
- Released: January 1985
- Players: John Fogerty — all vocals and instruments
- Album: Centerfield (Warner Bros., 1985)
- Also On:
Premonition (Warner Bros., 1999)
The Long Road Home: The Ultimate John Fogerty/Creedence Collection (Fantasy, 2005) - The title track of Creedence Clearwater Revival leader John Fogerty’s 1985 “comeback” album reached Number 44 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
- It’s had a strong afterlife, however, being played in baseball stadiums and sports broadcasts since its release.
- In the song, Fogerty used baseball as a metaphor to announce his return to active music making: “It was my way of stating that I was going to be back in showbiz, but I used the metaphor of baseball. To me, as a kid, the greatest place you could be in baseball was playing centerfield in Yankee Stadium. I always had that as a metaphor in my own heart, at least. One day I put those two things together.”
- The Centerfield album was Fogerty’s first after a decade of relative seclusion. He said the writing and recording began organically, and he was urged to continue after playing his initial songs for Warner Bros. President Lenny Waronker: “I was worried. What if they just listened and went, ‘John, you’re stuck in the ’70s and this is the ’80s.’ I was ready for them to tell me anything, because all I was doing was what I know. Not only did they not say anything like that, they said ‘Man, this is great. This sounds really good… Go back and finish the rest of it and let’s go for it.’”
- Centerfield was a true solo album, with Fogerty playing all the instruments and doing all the vocals — as he did on his previous solo releases in 1973, as the Blue Ridge Rangers, and 1975.
- The Centerfield album was an undeniable success, hitting Number One on the Billboard 200 and selling more than two million copies.
- Centerfield also made Fogerty one of just five performers to have a Number One album in three decades — the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s.
- Despite that, Fogerty has mixed feelings about the album: “There were really three songs on that album, the song ‘Centerfield,’ ‘Rock And Roll Girls,’ and ‘Old Man…’ I think I was pretty well back in my game, but I think I was still somewhat confused about who I really am. I always thought Centerfield was a good pop album, but I thought it was kind of like a Whitman sampler — I was hitting all around but really wasn’t definitive about who I am, what kind of a musician, what kind of a writer, what my true persona was.”
FAST FORWARD:
- Fogerty was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Creedence in 1993, though he angered his former bandmates by playing not with them but with an all-star pickup band that included Bruce Springsteen and Robbie Robertson.
- In fact, Fogerty’s relationship with his old bandmates seems irreparably strained. He waged an unsuccessful court battle to keep bassist Stu Cook and drummer Doug “Cosmo” Clifford from using the name Creedence Clearwater Revisited.
- After another solo album in 1986, Fogerty spent another decade away before returning with the Grammy-winning Blue Moon Swamp in 1997. After the subsequent live album Premonition, he went back into seclusion until 2004, when he released Deja Vu All Over Again.
- In 1987, Fogerty ended his boycott of not playing any Creedence material in his live act, and sang eight of his former band’s songs in a show for Vietnam veterans.
- In 2005, he finally settled his long-standing feud with Creedence’s former label, Fantasy Records, and released a compilation titled The Long Road Home that combined his band and solo material.
- In 2005, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall Of Fame.