Desire set to a porch-swing groove—Fogerty turns everyday attraction into a small catechism of human nature
The gently insistent “Natural Thing” sits in the back half of John Fogerty’s 2007 album Revival, where it plays like a smile you can hear: easy backbeat, warm organ, and a lyric that treats attraction not as drama but as weather—inevitable, familiar, and a little bit holy. First released on October 2, 2007 as track 8 (running 4:00), the song itself wasn’t pushed as a single, so there’s no standalone chart entry to report. Instead the album did the talking, debuting at No. 14 on the Billboard 200, and finding especially strong footholds abroad—No. 5 in Sweden and No. 6 in Norway, with a modest No. 80 in the U.K. It’s a classic case of a deep-cut charmer living inside a record that announced a late-career renaissance.
A few nuts-and-bolts details, because they matter. Revival was tracked primarily at NRG Recording Studios in North Hollywood and produced by Fogerty himself. The personnel list is a quietly perfect fit for the song’s glow: Kenny Aronoff on the pocket; David Santos anchoring the bass; and Benmont Tench—yes, from the Heartbreakers—laying Hammond B-3 on “Natural Thing,” which gives the track that benevolent Sunday-afternoon shimmer. Fogerty wrote, arranged, and produced the cut, and the finished take reflects his lifelong faith in clear lines and sturdy rhythm.
Backstory and placement. By 2007, Fogerty had returned to Fantasy and was writing with a looseness that felt earned. Revival mixes broader broadsides (“Long Dark Night,” “I Can’t Take It No More”) with porchlight songs about ordinary life and stubborn hope. “Natural Thing” arrives right after “Summer of Love” and just before the hiccup-quick “It Ain’t Right,” a sequence that moves from reminiscence to values check to everyday wisdom. In that flow, “Natural Thing” becomes a pivot: a little reminder that beneath politics and posture there’s the unarguable physics of the heart.
What the song says (and how it says it). Fogerty builds the lyric out of simple pictures—flowers and bees, the high and mighty leveled by a glance—then returns to that title phrase like a refrain of acceptance. The language is plain on purpose: the fewer the flourishes, the closer it feels to something you already know. Critics at the time heard it the same way: a “jumpin’” tune, light on its feet but keen-eyed about human need. You can hear Fogerty grinning as he sings it, not to show off, but to testify to a small truth that keeps the world spinning.
Musically, it’s all feel. A relaxed mid-tempo groove gives Fogerty space to lean a syllable or two behind the beat, and Tench’s B-3 draws a soft circle of sound around the vocal, the way afternoon sun warms a kitchen table. The guitars don’t grandstand; they chime and answer, content to carry the melody forward. That restraint is part of the charm. Fogerty has written anthems that shake the rafters; here he writes a song that opens a window. It breathes. And for listeners who’ve traveled with him since the Creedence days, that breathing room feels like a homecoming of its own—proof that the old craftsman still trusts melody, meter, and a good human image more than any studio trick.
Chart context at release. Because “Natural Thing” stayed an album track, its fortunes rode with Revival. In the U.S., the album’s No. 14 bow put Fogerty back in the national conversation; in Scandinavia it did even better, hitting Top 10 and sticking around for weeks. The U.K. result was more reserved, but the cross-territory picture is unmistakable: there was an audience ready for him to sound like himself again. (The record’s roll call of players and the easy authority of cuts like “Gunslinger” didn’t hurt.)
Meaning, for those who’ve lived a little. If you’re an older reader who remembers transistor radios and river towns, “Natural Thing” lands with a particular kind of comfort. It doesn’t argue about love; it recognizes it—how attraction can humble the proud and lift the tired, how it arrives like weather you can feel in your bones. Fogerty sings it with the steadiness of someone who’s seen storms blow through and decided to keep the porch light on anyway. That’s part of the song’s warmth: it honors desire without dressing it up, and in doing so it honors the listener, too.
Why it still works. The track is modest, and that’s its power. Years after the head-down charge of “Fortunate Son” and the comeback blaze of Centerfield, Fogerty uses smaller tools—organ, backbeat, a handful of everyday images—to make something durable. You don’t need a chart number to measure that; you feel it in the way the chorus settles, in the way the band never hurries, in the way the last chord leaves the room a touch brighter than it found it. That, too, is a natural thing.
Key facts at a glance: Song — “Natural Thing” (4:00); Artist — John Fogerty; Album — Revival (released October 2, 2007, Fantasy); Personnel highlights — Benmont Tench (Hammond B-3 on the track), Kenny Aronoff (drums), David Santos (bass); Single status — album track only; Album chart peaks — US #14, Sweden #5, Norway #6, UK #80.
If you haven’t spun it in a while, cue up Revival and let “Natural Thing” find you again. It won’t shout for your attention. It will simply move the air a little—like a screen door in late summer—and remind you that the heart prefers the truths it already knows.