The song was based on a childhood vacation spot of John Fogerty's.[7][8] In an interview Fogerty gave to Rolling Stone in 2012, Fogerty stated:
What really happened is that I used a setting like New Orleans, but I would actually be talking about thing from my own life. Certainly a song like "Green River" – which you may think would fit seamlessly into the Bayou vibe, but it's actually about the Green River, as I named it – it was actually called Putah Creek by Winters, California. It wasn't called Green River, but in my mind I always sort of called it Green River. All those little anecdotes are part of my childhood, those are things that happened to me actually, I just wrote about them and the audience shifted at the time and place.[9]
Fogerty added that the "actual specific reference, 'Green River,' I got from a soda pop-syrup label... My flavor was called Green River."[8]
Although the song seems to be mostly about idyllic memories, in the last verse a character named Old Cody Junior warns the singer that he's going to find the world smoldering but can always come back to Green River.[10] The name Old Cody Junior was a reference to the fact that Buffalo Bill Cody had owned the cabin by the creek that inspired the song.[11]
As to the music, Fogerty said that:
"Green River" is obviously a tip of the hat to the Sun Records sound, but I can't think of any real specific song. Actually, with the loping beat of the acoustic guitar and then the bass kind of doing that rocking beat on the one and the four, I tend to think of something like "Dream Baby" by Roy Orbison. Yet "Green River" was much more rocking than that song, but the rhythm treatment fit."[11]
Reception
Billboard described the single as "a driving rocker in the same vein as" Creedence Clearwater Revival's previous single "Bad Moon Rising."[12]Cash Box described it as developing "the bayou-rock style of the CCR in a slower than 'Bad Moon Rising' track that could steal the spotlight."[13]Cash Box ranked it as the No. 19 single of 1969.[14]Record World said it was "great."[15]Ultimate Classic Rock critic Cliff M. Junior rated "Green River" as Creedence Clearwater Revival's 7th greatest song.[10]
During the lawnmower race in the television series King of the Hill, the episode being titled "Hank's Back Story"
In the first scene of the 2017 film The Post, directed by Steven Spielberg with performers Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks, with it being noted that the scene during the Vietnam War that the song accompanied was dated 1966 (meaning Spielberg made anachronistic use of the song three years before its actual release)
^Molanphy, Chris (February 28, 2019). "The Bad Moon on the Rise Edition". Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia (Podcast). Slate. Retrieved August 20, 2023.
