'Cause someday never comes."
I'm all wound up and tied in knots today.
I'm looking for a reason not to go.
When the morning comes, I'll be on my way."
Mardi Gras is the seventh and final album by Creedence Clearwater Revival, released on April 11, 1972. Behind the scenes, there was friction between John Fogerty and his bandmates that started to rear its ugly head after the release of their prior album Pendulum. With John assuming a bulk of the band's songwriting and production duties leading up to this, his brother Tom quit the band after a dispute to assume greater creative input, and afterwards John agreed to split his duties roughly evenly between the remaining members. By the Summer of 1971 they released the single "Sweet Hitch-Hiker" with Stu Cook's "Door to Door" as the B-side. After another recording session the following January, the album finally saw release, selling well enough to be certified Gold but not stopping the band drama. The following October, Creedence Clearwater Revival dissolved for good, with Fogerty not in talking terms with the surviving members of the band to this day
"Someday Never Comes" was also released as a single around the same time of the album, peaking at #25 in the Hot 100.
Tracklist:
Side One
- "Lookin' for a Reason" (3:28)
- "Take It Like a Friend" (3:00)
- "Need Someone to Hold" (3:01)
- "Tearin' Up the Country" (2:15)
- "Someday Never Comes" (4:01)
Side Two
- "What Are You Gonna Do" (2:42)
- "Sail Away" (2:28)
- "Hello Mary Lou" (2:14)
- "Door to Door" (2:09)
- "Sweet Hitch-Hiker" (2:59)
Principal Members:
- Doug Clifford: vocals, drums
- Stu Cook: vocals, bass, guitars, keyboards
- John Fogerty: vocals, guitars, keyboards, harmonica
Tropin' up the country with a song:
- Break-Up Song: "Someday Never Comes" is about the breakup of John Fogerty's parents. He was also undergoing one at the time.
- Cover Version: The cover of Ricky Nelson's "Hello Mary Lou".
- Disappeared Dad: "Someday Never Comes", where the father in the song was a deadbeat that left the family.
- Distracted by the Sexy: The narrator of "Sweet Hitchhiker" was too preoccupied gazing at a beauty to focus on what's in front of him on the road, that he hit a ditch and fell off his motorbike.
- Generation Xerox: The narrator of "Someday Never Comes" ends up abandoning his son just as his own father had done to him, and even offers up the same false assurance that "someday, you'll understand".
- Intercourse with You: Stu's "Door to Door", which describes sex using analogies and wordplay about a travelling salesman doing a fabric cleaner demonstration ("first, you pull the curtain while I spread some here"), and John's "Sweet Hitch-Hiker", about a driver picking up a girl and getting oral sex, then later crashing his rig, hitching a ride with another girl and getting some more. Needless to say, this was a departure for the band, who until then primarily wrote songs about heartbreak and tender love (their few sexually charged tracks like "Good Golly Miss Molly" had mostly been covers), and never got any less ambiguous than "chooglin'".
- Parental Abandonment: Done by the narrator's father, then the narrator himself, in "Someday Never Comes".
- Perspective Reversal: "Someday Never Comes"
- Step Up to the Microphone: The only album with vocal output from Stu Cook ("Take It Like a Friend", "Sail Away", "Door to Door") and Doug Clifford ("Need Someone to Hold", "Tearin' Up the Country", "What Are You Gonna Do") in roughly equal contributionsnote . If you believe Doug and Stu's account, John threatened to quit the band and made them write and sing the songs. If you believe John, the two wanted more creative input and he was happy to oblige them.
- Take That!: "Take It Like a Friend" and "Sail Away" are both songs Stu wrote in reaction to what he perceives as John's lording over the rest of the band.Spent a long time listening to the captain of the sea,
Shouting orders to his crew; no one hears but me.
