Bad Moon Rising
by Creedence Clearwater Revival
- 178
- BPM
- D major
- Key
- 10B
- Camelot
- 65
- Danceability
- 6
- Acousticness
"Bad Moon Rising" came out on April 16, 1969, four months before the album Green River. It peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 on June 28 and spent three weeks at number one in the UK that September. It was the band's second Gold single. In 2013 John Fogerty recorded it again with the Zac Brown Band for Wrote a Song for Everyone.
Fogerty reportedly wrote it after watching the 1941 film The Devil and Daniel Webster. In one scene a hurricane wrecks the crops of several farms but spares those of Jabez Stone, who has made a deal with the devil. Fogerty said the song is about the apocalypse that was going to be visited on people. He did not notice how cheerful the tune sounded against the hurricanes in the words until the band was learning it.
It plays in An American Werewolf in London as David nears his change, and Sonic Youth named a 1985 album after it. Manchester United fans adapted it as "Stretford End Arising".
Bad Moon Rising runs at 178 BPM, the tempo of drum and bass and jungle. In classical terms it sits in presto territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.35 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 337 ms. It is in D major, Camelot 10B, which shares its notes with B minor and mixes cleanly with G major and A major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.