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.)