Creedence Clearwater Revival’s classic gets most of its airtime around Halloween, maybe for obvious reasons: its association with John Landis’s great 1981 horror film An American Werewolf in London. Interestingly, in the film the song doesn’t get played in its entirety. Instead, the soundtrack plays just a few lines from the opening — almost as a joke — leading into the onscreen (and non-CGI) transformation of actor David Naughton from cute and charming lad to homicidal creature of the night.
“Bad Moon Rising” is also a favorite of disaster groupies, maybe for even more obvious — literal — reasons. Natural calamities have figured prominently in the news of late, and that business about rivers overflowing, earthquakes and lightning, well, it’s almost too perfect.
(If you’ve not been following the extinction-level-disaster/government-coverup-conspiracy chatter about the comet and/or brown and/or “dark” star Elenin, well, oh dear. You may have missed your last chance to survive. I recently saw a lengthy YouTube video, uploaded a few months ago, with a timeline of coming events. The fellow who made it claims that August 1 was the cutoff date — the last practical day to head for a cavern in the Ozarks to join with other believers prepared to live underground for at least a year. Even if you left on time, though, if you don’t arrive with an RV or U-Haul full of food, tough. They have no room for hungry, screaming, latecoming leeches.)
[Below, click Play button to begin Bad Moon Rising. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 2:20 long.]
Lyrics:
Bad Moon Rising
(Creedence Clearwater Revival)I see the bad moon arising.
I see trouble on the way.
I see earthquakes and lightning.
I see bad times today.[chorus:]
Don’t go around tonight,
Well, it’s bound to take your life,
There’s a bad moon on the rise.I hear hurricanes ablowing.
I know the end is coming soon.
I fear rivers over flowing.
I hear the voice of rage and ruin.[chorus]
All right!
Hope you got your things together.
Hope you are quite prepared to die.
Looks like we’re in for nasty weather.
One eye is taken for an eye.[chorus]
[repeat chorus]
And for those who haven’t seen American Werewolf in London, here’s the five-minute lead-in to the transformation scene, right up to the point where Landis (having had his little laugh) abruptly cuts off the song:
The transformation scene itself took a little over two minutes, and you can find several clips of that here and there around the Web. (This one superimposes the full song over the scene, which in fact simply included sound effects and the character’s, um, vocalizations.)
Froog says
Ah, I loved American Werewolf. That came out just as I was starting college.
I don’t think that transformation scene has yet been topped.
Do you know Peter Cook’s ‘End Of The World’ sketch? Originally it was part of of the Beyond The Fringe revue which was a huge hit in the West End and on Broadway in the early ’60s, but here’s a slightly expanded version from the end of The Secret Policeman’s Ball, a charity show for Amnesty International from the late ’70s or early ’80s: http://youtu.be/-hJQ18S6aag
Nance says
Inspired choice for this week!
Strange days, strange days. I’m not a fan of End Times talk, but history has always been its most fascinating right around the tipping points and, if this isn’t one, I don’t know what is.
Jayne says
I simply don’t want to wake up to what’s coming. I get enough of that in my dreams.
Anyway, the media hype that surrounds each and every event on this earth trumps all End Time talk! (And my kids know exactly when the sun will burn out. So.)
John says
Froog: American Werewolf remains the only horror film I’ve ever seen which left me so jangly and shaken when it was over. (But I was still laughing, too.) I’ve never been remotely tempted to see any of the sequels.
Speaking of which, The Missus yesterday told me of a coming remake of Straw Dogs, with James Marsden and Kate Bosworth* in place of Dustin Hoffman and Susan George. In response to which news I could only think, No no no no no no noooo…!
Here’s that Cook skit video:
Haven’t found a complete transcript of that version, but this — from the shorter Beyond the Fringe version — gives a good sense of its flavor.
____________
* Kate Bosworth: I could’ve sworn she was on your Fantasy-Girlfriends list. Wasn’t she the one who… no, wait. I’m thinking of Kate Beckinsale. Never mind!
John says
Nance: I’m not an Apocalypse kinda guy, either. I can’t get past what is the central question, which goes something like: No matter what’s happening, no matter whether or how it’s about to end, how should I live now? (Personally, I think that question answers itself.)
As you might guess, the folks The Missus works with are very liberal: rationalists and secularists all. One of them, who left a few years ago but stopped by for a visit this week, believes that we’re heading for an Apocalypse not ecological, not political, and not even remotely theological in nature: an utter world-wide Dark-Ages-scale economic collapse. (He says that maybe the reason why our leaders don’t seem to be doing anything remotely effective to head this off is that nothing anyone can do can head it off.)
It’s enormously to this guy’s credit, I think, that he does not have any plans to move to a bunker, stock up on food and water and ammo, and learn to build a fire. He’s continuing to do the work he does. There is no “in the meantime…” aspect to it. It’s what he does, who he is, which has nothing to do with whether the world is ending in any way.
John says
Jayne:
Something about that line made me crack up.
And when will the sun burn out? (I just keep hitting the “Snooze” button on the alarm.)