A dusky benediction for the end of a side—Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Walk on the Water” turns a scrap of mystery into steady courage, the kind you find when the house goes quiet.
Let’s anchor the facts before we follow the feeling. “Walk on the Water” is the album closer on Creedence Clearwater Revival (Fantasy, released May 28, 1968). It runs about 4:35, was written by John Fogerty and Tom Fogerty—the only John–Tom co-write to appear on a CCR studio album—and it was re-recorded for the LP from an earlier Golliwogs tune. Sessions were cut at Coast Recorders (San Francisco) across October 1967 and February 1968. Later in 1968, it also served as the B-side to the band’s single “I Put a Spell on You.” The album itself peaked at No. 52 on the Billboard 200 and went RIAA Platinum in the U.S.
That earlier life matters. Before the name change and the run of smashes, the group—still the Golliwogs—issued “Walking on the Water” as an A-side single in 1966 (first recorded in August 1966, released that fall), credited to John and Tom; period labels even used their publishing pseudonyms (“Rann Wilde” and “Toby Green”). CCR didn’t just lift the tape to their debut; they cut it again—tighter groove, clearer stance, the sound of a band about to know exactly who they are.
Placed at the very end of the debut, the track behaves like a nightcap. Side two has already walked you through the righteous strut of “Ninety-Nine and a Half (Won’t Do)”, the taut originals (“Get Down Woman,” “Porterville,” “Gloomy”), and then “Walk on the Water” lowers the lights without losing the spine. You can hear the house code that CCR would keep for the next three years: Doug Clifford’s dry, unblinking snare; Stu Cook’s bass nudging the bar line forward; Tom Fogerty’s rhythm sawing steady; John answering his own lines with short, flinty guitar phrases. No fanfare, no grand solo—just air around a pocket that reassures more than it insists. That’s why it closes the record so well: it settles you instead of dazzling you.
The lyric—kept simple here—leans on biblical imagery not for sermon but for temperature: the dreamlike sight of someone “walking on the water” becomes a way to talk about fear, calling, and the moment you’d rather run. CCR’s trick is to make the image feel local. This isn’t cathedral music; it’s front-porch dusk, a hard day cooling off while the radio glows in the kitchen window. Older ears know the feeling: the world asks more of you than you thought, and you keep going anyway—one sure backbeat, one square breath at a time.
You can also hear the distance traveled between 1966 and 1968. The Golliwogs’ single is a good garage-era relic; the CCR remake is a statement of method. The band pares away frills until what remains is touch—Clifford’s certain pulse, Cook’s patient center, Tom’s unshowy engine, John’s voice left with enough room to sound human rather than heroic. That’s the difference between a regional group and a national one, and it’s the same ethic that made the coming run of albums feel lived-in from the first bar.
For the discography train-spotters, a neat twist: when the band issued “I Put a Spell on You” as a single in October 1968, “Walk on the Water” rode the flip—an apt pairing, really. One side is a cover turned CCR; the other is CCR turning a piece of their own past into the sound of their future. On LP, the track order seals the idea: after the long burn of “Susie Q” and the raw nerves of the originals, this is the last word—an invitation to flip the record and live in their world a little longer.
What does it mean, especially to listeners with a few decades’ dust on the boots? To me, it’s CCR’s earliest example of their useful kind of mystery: not the kind that hides, but the kind that steadies. The band doesn’t explain the vision; they inhabit it. The groove says, If you can’t make sense of it, keep your time—sense might catch up. That’s the quiet power of the cut, and it’s why it fits so naturally beside CCR’s later benedictions—songs that don’t fix your day so much as hold it together.
Scrapbook facts, neat and true
- Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival
- Song: “Walk on the Water” — 4:35; album closer on Creedence Clearwater Revival; writers: John Fogerty & Tom Fogerty; recorded Oct 1967 / Feb 1968 at Coast Recorders (SF).
- Origins: A remake of the Golliwogs single “Walking on the Water” (recorded Aug 1966; released fall 1966), originally credited under the Fogertys’ pseudonyms “Rann Wilde” / “Toby Green.”
- Single note: Served as the B-side to CCR’s “I Put a Spell on You” (Oct 1968).
- Album performance: Billboard 200 peak: #52; RIAA Platinum (U.S.).
Play it again tonight and notice the little mercies: the snare sitting a breath behind the beat, the bass that escorts rather than shoves, the guitars that witness and then step back. The song doesn’t try to make a miracle out of you. It offers something sturdier: a pulse you can trust—and at the end of a long day, that’s miracle enough.