Posted On: Saturday - January 24th 2026 8:22PM MST
In Topics: Internets Music History Americans Race/Genetics Guns
Back before Christmas, I posted a CCR - Creedence Clearwater Revival - song, one of many great ones but my very favorite, Up Around the Bend. That got me looking at wiki pages for the 7 great albums the band made (under that name) all within the 4 years spanning June of 1968 through April of 1972. Then I looked at wiki pages for some of the songs…. this is what the www does to us, even without TikTok Instagram, X, and MySpace. (Wait, what?)
Because the song has been in movies, video games, what-have-you, within American culture, it’s pretty natural that most Americans would figure the song Run Through the Jungle, from the Cosmo’s Factory album, was about the Vietnam War. Just over 6,000 American men were killed in Vietnam that year. CCR’s span of existence under the name* nearly overlapped the most intense time in the war for Americans. Per this page that I’ve viewed before, from the Military Factory site, with the deaths of American men (almost all men, besides the 8 women) categorized in various ways, roughly 30,000 of these casualties out of the 58,193 total occurred during the career of CCR.**
The one lyric line goes Two hundred million guns are loaded. Satan cried “Take aim”. I remember when I first heard the song thinking that the 200 million had to do with the number of Americans at the time. The www says that, yes, the US population had just topped 200 million, at 203.3 million from that year’s decennial census. So, yeah, that part was about America, not Vietnam.
The wiki page for the song (linked to above) has the following quote of John Fogerty (lead singer, lead guitarist, primary songwriter) from 2016:
The thing I wanted to talk about was gun control and the proliferation of guns... I remember reading around that time that there was one gun for every man, woman, and child in America, which I found staggering. So somewhere in the song, I think I said, '200 million guns are loaded.' Not that anyone else has the answer, but I did not have the answer to the question; I just had the question. I just thought it was disturbing that it was such a jungle for our citizens just to walk around in our own country at least having to be aware that there are so many private guns owned by some responsible and maybe many irresponsible people.Well, I can give him an answer to his question, or what I assume it is, albeit 10 years later and 56 years since he wrote that song. If the question is why is America such a “jungle” for its citizens “just to walk around in our own country”, I’ve got the answer in one word: Blacks. No charge, John Fogerty.
Could John Fogerty have not understood this in 1970, but even in 2016? He was from El Cerrito in the Bay Area of California, and there is a place there called Oakland, just south of Berkeley, south of Albany, just south of his El Cerrito. I could give him a break for those thoughts in 1970, as the big gun control push - starting with the 1968 Act - was on, and perhaps the media narrative had a lot of that “those rednecks shooting each other”, and without Steve Sailer and his stats, whaddya’, whaddya’?? Plus he was young and naive then. But by 2016 when he said the words above, come the hell on, Fogerty, you know who the irresponsible people are. You know very well where and why you can’t walk around in our country and where is that jungle in your song.
It just so happens that soon after I thought of this post during my wiki binge last month, one statistic came out. Per the National Shooting Sports Foundation, Armed American Citizens Own Over 500 Million Guns! Half a billion guns is now about 1.5 per
I’ll confess here that some of us have more than our 1.5 gun share. I have friends out in Lost Wages right now, and I believe they went in part to attend the SHOT show. There’s no turning back on this.
I write that thankfully. What’s been going on in Minneapolis, something the Communists behind it plan for New York City and other locales soon enough, has us all wondering if the most basic purpose for the ownership of these 500 million not-all-yet-loaded guns per the US Constitution will be understood by all soon. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
BTW, whaddaheck are these AWFUL “Minnesotans” doing outside in -9F weather?! Is keeping murder, rape, and thievery by illegal aliens in their cities THAT important to them?
Well, Run Through the Jungle is still associated with the Vietnam war just due to the time and other songs CCR wrote (Fortunate Son), so I don’t think it matters much what John Fogerty was thinking and what he thinks now. This is a great song musically, which is what matters, after all.
Best voice in Rock music EVER. The video could have used a little more
Have a happy Sunday, Peakers. Thanks for reading and writing in!
* I’ve been adding this as a caveat, as they played for 4 years prior as The Goliwogs and 4-5 years prior to that as The Blue Velvets.
** By calendar year, 1968 was the worst, with 16,592 men having been killed. Being maimed for life is another story…
Comments:
Moderator
Sunday - January 25th 2026 8:07AM MST
PS: Alarmist, I’ve started to think that there’s no way just pure ideology has people outside in -13F weather. I believe that you’ll only be out there if you’re getting paid. “No agitation, no bucks”, say the RATS.
Moderator
Sunday - January 25th 2026 8:04AM MST
PS: Ha, the Singing Nun - heard of the Flying Nun from around those years, but not the Singing Nun. When it comes to Pop music from my time, not just Rock, I would put Gerry Rafferty up for best male voice. This is indeed debatable though ..
Yep, I remember your stories of doing that work. For me, it was varied jobs, the library (not the prison one), running the dishwashing machine at a restaurant (they were training me on cooking, but then I wasn’t going to be there long), pizza delivery, etc. It didn’t cover all of college, but some other jobs paid at least tuition.
I never heard of the power hose idea to simulate surf. It sounds like the water is your home, SafeNow. From a town known as Long Beach, Long Island… came a boy with a 6-pack in his hand…
Yep, I remember your stories of doing that work. For me, it was varied jobs, the library (not the prison one), running the dishwashing machine at a restaurant (they were training me on cooking, but then I wasn’t going to be there long), pizza delivery, etc. It didn’t cover all of college, but some other jobs paid at least tuition.
I never heard of the power hose idea to simulate surf. It sounds like the water is your home, SafeNow. From a town known as Long Beach, Long Island… came a boy with a 6-pack in his hand…
The Alarmist
Sunday - January 25th 2026 4:54AM MST
PS
I guess the cold addles peoples’ minds to the point where a guy will charge into a group of well-armed LEOs to interfere with an arrest, scuffle with them, and only then decide to produce his weapon.
The Left might be arming up, but you can’t buy common sense.
No doubt the RATS (Rockefeller Foundation (R), Arabella network (A), Tides Foundation (T), and Soros Foundation (S)) will be training-up the insurgents for future engagements, but there is some comfort in the fact that most of the 500 million guns will be on the other side.
I guess the cold addles peoples’ minds to the point where a guy will charge into a group of well-armed LEOs to interfere with an arrest, scuffle with them, and only then decide to produce his weapon.
The Left might be arming up, but you can’t buy common sense.
No doubt the RATS (Rockefeller Foundation (R), Arabella network (A), Tides Foundation (T), and Soros Foundation (S)) will be training-up the insurgents for future engagements, but there is some comfort in the fact that most of the 500 million guns will be on the other side.
SafeNow
Saturday - January 24th 2026 10:09PM MST
PS
“Best voice in rock music EVER”
Mr. Moderator, I’m afraid they didn’t give you quite enough information.
With all due respect to your featured vocalist, and I mean that, I will surprise you with this voice, which was billboard number one for four weeks in 1963:
https://youtu.be/EO7cD6qmydo?si=wXwIpFSiI-ElSsZr
PS
“I’ve got the answer in one word, Blacks” - Mr. Moderstor
Agreed. See you in your job in the prison library, when I’m there to borrow a book. My own prison job will be at the pot sink; as readers familiar with my posts on Sailer know, for four years at my college cafeteria my job was being up to my elbows at the pot sink. Buzz was an assistant chef (kudos!), earning his board at his own college cafeteria.
Btw, for the record, regarding summer jobs held by boomers, my own was as an ocean lifeguard, at Long Beach, Long Island. I did this for my four college summers… the summer before college first year, and the next three. I had gotten ocean-certified during the autumn of my senior year in high school, most of it at an indoor pool with a power hose simulating ocean surf. Ten Saturday mornings. This gave me a skill for my four college summers.
“Best voice in rock music EVER”
Mr. Moderator, I’m afraid they didn’t give you quite enough information.
With all due respect to your featured vocalist, and I mean that, I will surprise you with this voice, which was billboard number one for four weeks in 1963:
https://youtu.be/EO7cD6qmydo?si=wXwIpFSiI-ElSsZr
PS
“I’ve got the answer in one word, Blacks” - Mr. Moderstor
Agreed. See you in your job in the prison library, when I’m there to borrow a book. My own prison job will be at the pot sink; as readers familiar with my posts on Sailer know, for four years at my college cafeteria my job was being up to my elbows at the pot sink. Buzz was an assistant chef (kudos!), earning his board at his own college cafeteria.
Btw, for the record, regarding summer jobs held by boomers, my own was as an ocean lifeguard, at Long Beach, Long Island. I did this for my four college summers… the summer before college first year, and the next three. I had gotten ocean-certified during the autumn of my senior year in high school, most of it at an indoor pool with a power hose simulating ocean surf. Ten Saturday mornings. This gave me a skill for my four college summers.