Summertime usually stirs up the urge to leave work behind and hop in the car, top down and windows open, to speed through the desert, mountains and along the coast.
The first official music video for Creedence Clearwater Revival's 1969 hit "Fortunate Son" is, appropriately, exactly that — taking you down the Pacific coast and across the South. It's an idyllic picture of the pool halls, river rope swings, vintage cars and beguilingly worn-out cities of the U.S. — and a representation, however stylized, of the Americans who aren't in the top one percent.
Creedence's anti-Vietnam War anthem was originally released as a critique of elitism and class privilege: "It made me so angry that the rich old men make the war, and the poor young men have to fight it," frontman John Fogerty reiterated to Pitchfork in 2007.
The theme of anti-elitism is represented in the video by the array of American people finding joy in each other, in simple acts and in the places they call home — a salute to the unsung, modern-day American.
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