The song was first released on January 5th, 1969 with the band’s second album. The song was written by John Fogerty, the lead singer of the band “Creedence Clearwater Revival”.

Lyrics

Left a good job in the city,
Workin’ for the man ev’ry night and day,
And I never lost one minute of sleepin’,
Worryin’ ’bout the way things might have been.

Big wheel keep on turnin’,
Proud Mary keep on burnin’,
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ on the river.

Cleaned a lot of plates in Memphis,
Pumped a lot of ‘pane down in New Orleans,
But I never saw the good side of the city,
‘Til I hitched a ride on a river boat queen.

Big wheel keep on turnin’,
Proud Mary keep on burnin’,
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ on the river.

Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ on the river.

If you come down to the river,
Bet you gonna find some people who live.
You don’t have to worry ’cause you have no money,
People on the river are happy to give.

Big wheel keep on turnin’,
Proud Mary keep on burnin’,
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ on the river.

Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ on the river.
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ on the river.
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ on the river.

At the beginning, “Proud Mary” had nothing to do with a riverboat. John Fogerty envisioned it as the story of a woman who works as a maid for rich people- “She gets off the bus every morning and goes to work and holds their lives together,” he explained. “Then she has to go home.”

The song came together on the day that John Fogerty got his discharge papers from the US Army.

“Proud Mary” attracted 35 covers in the year 1969 alone. Over 100 have been made since. The most famous among them was performed by Ike & Tina Turner in 1971.

On February 19th, 1987, John Fogerty went to the Palomino Club in North Hollywood to see Taj Mahal, an artist Fogerty calls “an American treasure.” As told in Fogerty’s memoir, while trying to remain incognito and listen to Taj, he noticed that Bob Dylan was doing the exact same thing in the corner of the venue. Fogerty went to Dylan and learned that George Harrison was there as well.
Someone let Taj know who was in the house, and Taj promptly called them all onstage.

Dylan played one of his songs. Harrison played “Honey, Don’t” and then they all preformed “Twist and Shout.” At that point, Dylan called out that Fogerty had to do “Proud Mary.”
At that point in his life, Fogerty had sworn off all of his old CCR material, out of bitterness and spite against both his old band and his old label. So Fogerty said he didn’t want to play the song, but Dylan responded, “If you don’t do ‘Proud Mary,’ everybody’s gonna think it’s a Tina Turner song.”
With that, Fogerty ripped into the song and had a great time playing it. When he was done he said, “Eat your heart out, Tina.”

The End