Lodi

A vibrant song about mood, texture and life. There is a Lodi in everybody's life - be it a physical location or a state of mind.

I believe that John Fogerty actually passed thru Lodi while driving around in Nor Cal and saw things as they were - dry, desolate and like many central valley towns, not a nice place to visit & certainly not a place to aspire to live in.

However, being an outsider from the culturally rich area of the SF Bay (as a resident during CCR - I don't know where he is from originally) he probably felt like he entered the void as he stopped in that town.

Like most genius artists (if my assumptions are correct) he allowed himself to let go and drink in any creative inspirations with this town - good or bad, not with the intent of writing a song necessarily but just to simply experience something vastly different from his life in SF. ( For perspective -throughout the 60’s and into the 70’s SF was a Mecca for exceptional & outrageous creativity in all areas of art and the experiential ground for LSD - it was free love, sex, drugs and rock 'n roll in such extremes as never seen before in the world).

My guess is that he spent a few hours in a local bar probably talking to patrons to get a sense of (their) reality. Then probably drifted mentally at some point imagining playing music for them on some beer stained make shift stage trying to entertain like a local. When the Lodi experience completed, he drove back to Berkeley and took a final look into the rear view mirror and contemplated his blessings and twists of fate not only for himself but for all of us.

i live in Lodi, CA. this song was written about my town. and yes, i am stuck here too, John, wishing i could get out

Sounds like fun... any vacancies?

Why has NOBODY addressed the fact that these lyrics are NOT the lyrics to Lodi?! These are the lyircs to Molina!

this is my favorite song by CCR, just evokes good feelings

John Folgerty said himself in and interview - the Lodi is not about anything or anyplace in paticular .e.g. Lodi California. this song is about a man being stuck in life, feeing trapped with no real way out. he goes on to say, that he had traveled northern california and had came across a town called Lodi..which looked like to him no place he would ever want to be from. yes, perhaps Lodi Cali inspired the song tittle, Art imitating LIFE. Folgerty wrote from personal refference, and sometimes with in writting lyrics one needs something to tie everything down to and exact theme, i believe Folgerty- who at the time was being sued by his own brother and his band mates, wrote Lodi from Deja' vu - like damn, here i am again Stuck. like i pointed out, durring CCR popularity FOLGERTY WAS BEING SUED BY EVERYONE. stop over anal lyzing this mans music. this song is not what you think it is, or what i think it is..it is whatever it is. Lodi is a metaphor of which you never want to be stuck in. IT IS NOT ABOUT LODI CALIFORNIA- tho Folgerty had passed through that town in his travels. that part is pure coincidental.

Marziano, I feel for you. I actually got stuck in Lodi in the summer of '00 when my car broke down on the way home from Tahoe. It was something like two million degrees outside, my boyfriend had gotten e-coli from the hyatt, and was sick all over...whew. I can tell you, being stuck in Lodi sure isn't fun.

I always wondered what Lodi really was, I kinda thought it might be a place.

Great song, one of my CCR favorites.

I know Joh Fogarty's from California, so he's referring to Lodi, California. But, there's an even sadder Lodi in New Jersey.. My old girlfriend's dad owned a bar there. A real dump in a real dump of a town.

When the great blues guitarman Freddie King covered this tune it was given the title "Lowdown in Lodi" probably because Freddie didn't realize Lodi was a location and sings "Stuck in lowdown again". He keeps the basic melody but makes an overall impressionist interpretation of the song, conveying the "musician fallen on hard times" sentiments while straying from the original CCR lyrics.