“Bad Moon Rising” was written by John Fogerty and released in 1969 by Creedence Clearwater Revival as the lead single from their album Green River. It was a major hit, reaching the top of the charts in Britain and near the top in the United States.
The song is built on a sharp contrast that Fogerty noticed as the band learned it: a bright, bouncing melody set against words of dread — rising bad moons, earthquakes, lightning, rivers overflowing. Fogerty has said he was thinking of apocalyptic upheaval, the song partly sparked by a storm scene in an old film. That tension between sunny sound and ominous text has kept it endlessly singable.
“Bad Moon Rising” has been recorded across many genres, and its three-chord drive and dark-edged lyric sit comfortably in bluegrass. The Seldom Scene, long known for drawing on rock and pop material, recorded it on their 1996 album Dream Scene.
