"Fortunate Son" is a song by Creedence Clearwater Revival on their album Willy and the Poor Boys in 1969. It was released as a single, together with "Down on the Corner", in September 1969. The title words are not actually sung in the recording until the sound fades at the end. This song reached #14 on the United States charts on 22 November 1969, the week before Billboard changed its methodology on double-sided hits. The track and the reverse side, "Down On The Corner", combined to climb to #9 the next week, on the way to peaking at #3 three more weeks later, on 20 December 1969. It won the RIAA Gold Disc award in December 1970. Pitchfork Media placed it at number 17 on its list of "The 200 Greatest Songs of the 1960s".
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Famous quotes containing the words fortunate and/or son:
“What we learn for the sake of knowing, we hold; what we learn for the sake of accomplishing some ulterior end, we forget as soon as that end has been gained. This, too, is automatic action in the constitution of the mind itself, and it is fortunate and merciful that it is so, for otherwise our minds would be soon only rubbish-rooms.”
—Anna C. Brackett (1836–1911)
“However patriarchal the world, at home the child knows that his mother is the source of all power. The hand that rocks the cradle rules his world. . . . The son never forgets that he owes his life to his mother, not just the creation of it but the maintenance of it, and that he owes her a debt he cannot conceivably repay, but which she may call in at any time.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)