Posted on : Jan 3 2010 1:20AM by : Add Today

Jerry Brown was running for President again. I was helping out in his campaign office by singing songs to the volunteers on their breaktime, and opening for him before he gave his fiery speeches on the road and on college campuses. One of his favorite songs besides one that I had written, "Eve Of Destruction", was "Bad Moon Rising" by John Fogerty & Creedence Clearwater Revival. It was the day of the night of the election. I had put together a band to play for the party at the campaign Headquarters. Jerry asked me to sing "Bad Moon Rising" as many times as possible during the evening. I said," Fine". The only problem was I didn’t know the lyric, and didn’t have a copy of the song as far as I could remember. I could have gone to one of the mega-record stores, but it didn’t occur to me then! I had a few errands to run before the party and one of them was going to the bank. I had been a customer there for a few years and never had a problem with any of the tellers, okay? This day was different! I stepped up to the window and the teller, an attractive lady, said to me, "Go over to the coffee bar and sit down!" I said, "I’m sorry, why should I do that?" She just repeated what she had said a moment before, extremely curt and cold, I thought. I shook my head, rolled my eyes and walked over to the coffee bar that was a couple of couches, a table and an instant coffee maker. Okay. I poured myself a cup of coffee, sat down on the couch, and kept looking at the teller. The bank was unusually empty, but everyone seemed very busy. She didn’t accept my questioning glances. With time on my hands I started looking thru the stacks of magazines on the coffee table. They were old copies of the usual, Time, Newsweek, People and a copy of Song Lyric magazine, circa 1978. On the cover it said: lyrics to this song and that song and "Bad Moon Rising"! You know you can feel the adrenaline flow when something hits you over the head! I hurriedly copied the lyric down, though at first I thought I would just try and memorize it. I have to tell you that any moment I thought the magazine would vanish in my hands. After successfully writing it down I re-approached the teller and she told me the computers had failed, and now they were up again. I had this feeling that the faster I write the better it will be for all. Well, the party went off as scheduled. We sang "Bad Moon Rising" for Jerry a number of times during the night. His bid for the presidency was not successful, but I think Jerry knew it, and his asking me to sing "Bad Moon Rising" may have been his way to let the volunteers know. I don’t know for sure. But I believe we need more men of integrity like Jerry Brown in politics if the younger generations are going to become interested at all in ending the corruption and greed that has afflicted our system for too long.