Proud Mary Lyric
Left a good job in the city
Workin' for the man every night and day
And I never lost one minute of sleepin'
Worryin' 'bout the way things might have been
Big wheel, keep on turnin'
Proud Mary, keep on burnin'
Rollin'
Rollin'
Rollin' on the river
Cleaned a lotta plates in Memphis
Pumped a lotta pane down in New Orleans
But I never saw the good side of the city
Until I hitched a ride on the Riverboat Queen
Big wheel, keep on turnin'
Proud Mary, keep on burnin'
Rollin'
Rollin'
Rollin' on the river
If you come down to the river
Bet you gonna find some people who live
You don't have to worry
'Cause ya have no money
People on the river are happy to give
Big wheel, keep on turnin'
Proud Mary, keep on burnin'
Rollin'
Rollin'
Rollin' on the river
Rollin', rollin'...
Song Notes : "The phrase "Proud Mary" reminded John Fogerty of a domestic washerwoman, which is what he started writing the song about. When he wrote the music, the first few chords reminded him of a paddle-wheel going around, and he thought of the Mississippi River. Instead of "Proud Mary" being a clean-up lady, "she" became a boat"
Fogerty wrote the lyrics based on 3 song title ideas- "Proud Mary," "Riverboat," and "Rolling On A River."
"Fogerty carried around a notebook with titles that he thought would make good songs. "Proud Mary" was at the top of the list"
John Fogerty (about how the guitar riff came about): "I don't know where the germ started. I can kind of remember writing the chords at the beginning of the song. Believe it or not, I was playing around with the famous riff from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. I used to tell people that the song sounds like what it's about. I thought, by the way, that the opening riff sounded just like the wheel at the back of a boat. 'Proud Mary' is not a side-wheeler, it's a stern-wheeler."
This was a #4 hit in the US for Ike and Tina Turner in 1971, and a highlight of their live shows. Tina Turner recalled in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine in 1971 how they came to record this on their Workin' Together album: "When we cut the album, we were lacking a few tunes, so we said 'Well, let's just put in a few things that we're doing on stage. And that's how 'Proud Mary' came about. I had loved it when it first came out. We auditioned a girl and she had sung 'Proud Mary.' This is like 8 months later, and Ike said, 'You know, I forgot all about that tune.' And I said let's do it, but let's change it. So in the car Ike plays the guitar, we just sort of jam. And we just sort of broke into the black version of it. It was never planned to say, 'Well, let's go to the record shop, and I'd like to record this tune by Aretha Franklin'... it's just that we get it for stage, because we give the people a little bit of us and a little bit of what they hear on the radio every day."
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