"Down on the Corner" is a song by the American band Creedence Clearwater Revival. It appeared on their fourth studio album, Willy and the Poor Boys. The song peaked at No. 3 on the BillboardHot 100 on 20 December 1969. The flip side, "Fortunate Son", reached No. 14 on the United States charts on 22 November 1969, the week before Billboard changed its methodology on double-sided hits. In Canada, the single reached No. 4 in December 1969, and No. 5 in New Zealand.
Content
The song chronicles the tale of the fictional band Willy and the Poor Boys, and how they play on street corners to cheer people up and ask for nickels. John Fogerty explained how the song lyrics were derived. “ was kind of inspired by seeing an advertisement in the paper one day,” he says. “It was an ad from Disney that said in great big letters ‘Winnie the Pooh’. Something in my brain said ‘Winnie the Pooh and the Pooh Boys’. Obviously that was close to ‘Willy and the Poor Boys’. As I began to develop this idea it turned into music in that weird mystical, almost uncontrollable way, music comes to songwriters. Winnie the Pooh is still my favorite character who I’ve shared with my daughter Kelsy since the day she was born, though she’s growing out of it. But I’m not.” The song makes reference to a washboard, a kazoo, a Kalamazoo guitar, and a gut bass. In a 1969 appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, the band performed the song as Willy and the Poor Boys. Stu Cook played a gut bass, Doug Clifford the washboard, and Tom Fogerty the Kalamazoo, which mimicked the appearance of the band as they appear on the album cover.
Covers and samples
Bo Diddley recorded a version of the song, on his album Another Dimension
Jerry Reed recorded a version of the song, which appeared on his 1982 album The Bird.
The Mavericks recorded a cover of this song on the album King of the Hill: Music From and Inspired by the TV Series.
The rock group Big Country released a version of this song on the 2001 covers album, Under Cover.
Adam Harvey performed a duet of this song with Leo Sayer on the Both Sides Now album.
Beastie Boys sampled the song in the track "Time to Get Ill" from their Licensed to Ill album.
D.O.A. mostly replaced the lyrics but kept the melody for their 1986 protest song "Billy and the Socreds"
La Portuaria covered the song on their 2005 album Rio.
Popular Finnish artist Kirka covered the song in 1970 with lyrics translated to Finnish.
In 1989, Malcolm McCullum, Chris Lloyd, Armando Hurley, and Jamie Rigg covered the song for the ABC For Kids0–9 Series of albums. It appeared on album No. 8 and was one of the songs from the project to be promoted with a music video using clay animation.
In 2014, Bryan Adams covered the song for his 2014 album Tracks of My Years.
Certifications
Appearances in other media
Games
The song is available as downloadable content for the Rock Band series of music video games.
Television
The song has been featured in Walgreens commercials since 2012, with the tagline "At the Corner of Happy and Healthy". This version of the song is a rearrangement by Matt Downs of Dogwalk Music.
The song was featured in the 1991 video ABC for Kids Video Hits Vol. 1, with an animated music video.
