proud mary riverboat history

• Songwriter Interviews
• Song Writing
• Fact or Fiction
• They're Playing My Song
• Songfacts Pages
• Songwriting Legends
• Songfacts Podcast
• Amanda Flinner
• Bruce Pollock
• Corey O'Flanagan
• Dan MacIntosh
• Laura Antonelli
• Leslie Michele Derrough
• Maggie Grimason
• Nicole Roberge
• Roger Catlin
• Shawna Ortega
• Trevor Morelli

Proud Mary by Creedence Clearwater Revival

Songfacts®:

• In the beginning, "Proud Mary" had nothing to do with a riverboat. Instead, 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." It was Stu Cook who first introduced the riverboat aspect of the song. The idea came to him as the group watched the television show Maverick and Stu made the statement, "Hey riverboat, blow your bell." John agreed that the boat seemed to have something to do with the song that had been brewing in his mind for quite some time, waiting to take conscious shape. When he wrote the music, he made the first few chords evoke a riverboat paddlewheel going around. Thus, "Proud Mary" went from being a cleanup lady to a boat.
• Fogerty wrote the lyrics based on three song title ideas: "Proud Mary," "Riverboat," and "Rolling On A River." He carried around a notebook with titles that he thought would make good songs, and "Proud Mary" was at the top of the list.
• The song came together on the day that John Fogerty got his discharge papers from the US Army. Fogerty had been drafted in 1966 and was part of a Reserve unit, serving at Fort Bragg, Fort Knox, and Fort Lee. His discharge papers came in 1967. Fogerty recalls in Bad Moon Rising: The Unofficial History of Creedence Clearwater Revival by Hank Bordowitz: "The Army and Creedence overlapped, so I was 'that hippie with a record on the radio.' I'd been trying to get out of the Army, and on the steps of my apartment house sat a diploma-sized letter from the government. It sat there for a couple of days, right next to my door. One day, I saw the envelope and bent down to look at it, noticing it said 'John Fogerty.' I went into the house, opened the thing up, and saw that it was my honorable discharge from the Army. I was finally out! This was 1968 and people were still dying. I was so happy, I ran out into my little patch of lawn and turned cartwheels. Then I went into my house, picked up my guitar and started strumming. 'Left a good job in the city' and then several good lines came out of me immediately. I had the chord changes, the minor chord where it says, 'Big wheel keep on turnin'/Proud Mary keep on burnin'' (or 'boinin',' using my funky pronunciation I got from Howling' Wolf). By the time I hit 'Rolling, rolling, rolling on the river,' I knew I had written my best song. It vibrated inside me. When we rehearsed it, I felt like Cole Porter." So it was that an all-American classic was born from the pressure-cooker atmosphere of the late 1960s. Fogerty suspected right away that his "Tin Pan Alley" song was a radio-friendly hit, and he was right. The song hit #2 in the US, reached #8 in the UK, and #1 in Austria.
• This was the first of five singles by Creedence that went to #2 on the US chart; they have the most #2 songs without ever having a #1.
• Despite popular belief, John Fogerty was not writing from experience when he wrote this. Thanks to his military commitment, he hadn't ventured further east than Montana. After the song was recorded, he took a trip to Memphis so he could finally see the Mississippi River.
• The original CCR version peaked at #2 in March 1969. In June, Solomon Burke's rendition hit #45. His was the first to include a spoken into: I know a lot of you folks would like to know what the old Proud Mary is all about Well, I'd like to tell you about her She's nothing but a big old boat You see, my forefathers used to ride the bottoms of her as stokers, cooks, and waiters And I made a vow that when I grew up, I'd take a ride on the old Proud Mary And if you'd let me, I'd like to sing about it Burke then sings, " looking for a job in the city," as opposed to "left a good job in the city."
• This was a #4 hit in the US for Ike & Tina Turner in 1971, and a highlight of their live shows. Tina Turner recalled in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine in 1971 how they came to record this on their Workin' Together album: "When we cut the album, we were lacking a few tunes, so we said 'Well, let's just put in a few things that we're doing on stage. And that's how 'Proud Mary' came about. I had loved it when it first came out. We auditioned a girl and she had sung 'Proud Mary.' This is like eight months later, and Ike said, 'You know, I forgot all about that tune.' And I said let's do it, but let's change it. So in the car Ike plays the guitar, we just sort of jam. And we just sort of broke into the black version of it. It was never planned to say, 'Well, let's go to the record shop, and I'd like to record this tune by Aretha Franklin'... it's just that we get it for stage, because we give the people a little bit of us and a little bit of what they hear on the radio every day."
• "Proud Mary" attracted 35 covers in the year 1969 alone. Over 100 have been made since. These are the US charting versions: Creedence Clearwater Revival (#2, 1969) Solomon Burke (#45, 1969) Checkmates, Ltd. feat. Sonny Charles (#69, 1969) Ike & Tina Turner (#4, 1971) Glee Cast (#115, 2009)
• The line, "Pumped a lot of pain down in New Orleans" is actually "Pumped a lot of 'Pane," as in propane. He was pumping gas.
• The Checkmates, Ltd. did a horn-powered, gospel inflected version of this song that was produced by Phil Spector and featured Sonny Charles on lead vocals. Running 4:30, it's substantially longer than the 3:07 original, and went to #69 in November 1969. This arrangement was clearly an influence on the Ike & Tina Turner version, which they started performing soon after. There was speculation that Spector, who produced Ike & Tina on their 1966 single " River Deep - Mountain High ," brought this version to Ike Turner's attention.
• When CCR recorded this song, John Fogerty wasn't happy with the harmony vocals, so he recorded them himself and overdubbed them onto the track. This caused further tension in his already-tenuous relationship with his bandmates. The group split up in 1972.
• Fogerty came up with the famous chord riff on guitar when he was playing around with Beethoven's " 5th Symphony ." That one goes "dun dun dun duuunnnnn...," but Fogerty thought it would sound better with the emphasis on the first note, which is how he arrived at " do do do do." This part reminded him of the paddle wheel that impels a riverboat. "'Proud Mary' is not a side-wheeler, it's a stern-wheeler," he explained.
• Even though Creedence Clearwater Revival was from El Cerrito, California, many people thought they were from New Orleans or some other part of the South because of their swamp rock sound. They helped feed the rumor by naming their second album Bayou Country .
• Tina Turner recorded a solo version for her 1993 album What's Love Got To Do With It , which was the soundtrack to her biopic of the same name. In the film, it was lip-synced by Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne (who played Ike and Tina), but on the recording, Tina's sax player Tim Cappello did Ike's bass vocals. By recording her own version with no trace of Ike, it made sure he could not profit from its use in the film or soundtrack - an important distinction considering Tina's accusations of spousal abuse. When Tina performed the song live, she would usually do a variation on the spoken part, but without the male vocal.
• Ike & Tina Turner's version charted for the first time in the UK on the chart dated October 2, 2010 after it was performed on X-Factor by auditioneees Diva Fever. This version was credited to Tina Turner only.
• Ike and Tina performed their version on the Season 2 premiere of Soul Train in 1972, becoming the first big act to appear on the program. The show became very popular its first season because of the dancers, but they were able to book many famous guests in subsequent seasons.
• The first time Fogerty heard Ike and Tina's version he was in the car. He told Spinner : "When it ended, if they had a camera and came back to me it'd be like, when Shrek and the donkey go to Far, Far Away and they push the button for that little arcade machine and it tells the whole story of their town! And the Donkey's like [Eddie Murphy impression] 'Let's do that again!' That's how I felt when that ended. I loved it, and I was so honored. I was like, 'Wow, Ike and Tina!' I had actually been following their career for quite some time. Way back in the day, when Janis and Grace Slick started to get known by the kids who were my age, I'd be like, 'Man, Tina Turner, c'mon!' She finally got her due, but for a while there, she wasn't noticed. It was a really good version, and it was different. I mean, that's the key. Instead of the same thing, it was really exciting."
• On February 19, 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 had gone there, too. 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 did "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 occasion didn't inspire Fogerty to start regularly performing CCR songs again, but it did break it for that one evening as four legends of rock jammed together.
• According to the book Bad Moon Rising , Bob Dylan called "Proud Mary" his favorite song of 1969.
• A film about a hitwoman titled Proud Mary was released in January 2018. Not only does the action movie take its name from the song, but altered lyrics from the tune appear on the poster promoting it, with the tagline, "Killing for the Man every Night and Day." John Fogerty took to Twitter to complain: "I wrote the song 'Proud Mary' 50 years ago, and I was very excited to have written such a good song. In fact, it was my very first good song. My songs are special to me. Precious. So it irks me when people seek to capitalize on the popularity of my music and the good will it has earned with the public for their own financial gain. Over the years, I have often found myself directly opposed to these uses. This movie has nothing to do with me, or my song. They simply picked the title and wrote a completely fictitious story around it." He added: "No one ever asked me about using my song this way, or even about the meaning of Proud Mary." The film, as well as the trailer, features the Tina Turner version of the song. Fogerty lost the rights to his CCR songs in 1973, so there was nothing he could do about having a cover version of the song used in the film.
• Leonard Nimoy, who played "Mr. Spock" on Star Trek , recorded an infamous cover of this song. Near the end, he sings the chorus Elmer Fudd style - "Big wheel keep on toynin', Pwoud Mawy keep on boinin'..." It is included on a CD called Golden Throats .
• This song was used to disastrous effect to open the 1989 Academy Awards ceremony in a bit where host Rob Lowe sang it with an actress playing Snow White, with the lyrics changed to be about Hollywood: Klieg lights keep on burnin' Cameras keep on turnin' Rollin' Rollin' Keep the cameras rollin' It got a better treatment in 2024 when Fantasia Barrino sang it to honor Tina Turner.
• Tina Turner sang this song for nearly 40 years, performing it until she retired in 2009. Many of her hits were ballads, so "Proud Mary" was an opportunity to electrify the crowd with a high-energy number that let her show off her impressive dancing.
• More songs from Creedence Clearwater Revival
• More songs with girls' names in the title
• More songs that were hits for more than one artist
• More songs about commitment or respect
• More songs performed at Woodstock
• More songs covered by the Glee cast
• More songs that are also the names of movies
• More songs from 1969
• Lyrics to Proud Mary
• Creedence Clearwater Revival Artistfacts

Comments: 66

• Mephilis Eric, it's not tane, you barbarian. The word you are thinking of is Tang. Poontang.
• Annabelle from Eugene, Or I clearly hear, "Pumped a lot of pane". Want some proof? https://youtu.be/kKC3SexQ01k
• Eric from The Virginia Swamp Not “pumped a lot of Pane”. It’s “pumped a lot of Tane” So the double meaning of Octane or Poo-tane, can carry forward. Rolling Proud Mary… that’s Mary Jane, The green stuff. Devils weed.
• Barry from Sauquoit, Ny On this day in 1969 {December 13th} Andy Williams performed "Proud Mary" on his NBC-TV musical variety program, 'The Andy Williams Show'... In the calendar year of 1969 three versions of "Proud Mary" made Billboard's Top 100 chart, CCR's original version peaked at #2 {for 3 weeks} in March, Solomon Burke's covered version reached #45 {for 1 week} in June, and the Checkmates' covered version peaked at #69 {for 1 week} in October... Between 1956 and 2007 the Wall Lake, Iowa native had forty-six records on Billboard's Top 100 chart, eight made the Top 10 with one reaching #1, "Butterfly", for three weeks on March 14th, 1957... He just missed having a second #1 record when his "Can't Get Used to Losing You" peaked at #2 for 4 weeks in 1963, during it's first two weeks at #2, "He's So Fine" by the Chiffons was at #1, and for it's 3rd and 4th week at #2, "I Will Follow Him" by Little Peggy March occupied the top spot... Howard Andrew 'Andy' Williams passed away at the age of 84 on September 25th, 2012... May he R.I.P.
• Yuk from Usa Pumped a lot of propane in New Orleans in the sixties? More likely it was 'tane (octane, in gasoline)
• Kawa from Tokyo, Japan Hi Music lovers, I think that the idea of the lyrics if the song 'Proud Mary' came from the theme song of TV series 'Rawhide' in 50s to 60s. 'Rawhide' was an American Western TV series aired from 1959 to 1966. It was a very popular TV series and it was aired in Japan, too. I think the songwriter of the song,'Proud Mary', John Fogerty, must have been watching this TV series at that time. Because the lyrics of the song has including a very impressive phrase 'Rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river'. It reminds me of the theme of 'Rawhide'. REALLY! I think that John as a kid thought the theme of 'Rawhide' was very cool and that he wanted to write a song like this someday in the future. And he did in 1969 as writing the song 'Proud Mary'. By the way, I think that the intro of 'Proud Mary' came from the intro from the song 'Sunshine Of Your Love' written and played by the British rock band called 'Cream' in 1967. So let's take a look at both 'The theme of Rawhide and 'Sunshin Of Love' compairing the song 'Proud Mary' AND sing!
• Jennifur Sun from Ramona LOVE this song because I LOVE LOVE LOVE old paddlewheeleers. Have rode the two in Tahoe and didn't want to get off. Am not crazy about the Tina version either but that's ok. Thanks John for such a great tune.
• Sam from Nyc hmmm, aren't these the same guys who wanna know if you ever seen the rain? lol uhhh yea, this song is about smoking a joint. if anyone ever seen a pot rolling machine, you'll know what they mean by "big wheel keeps on turning". If you haven't seen a pot rolling machine, you can just drop in on any smoke shop and ask to see a Zig Zag.. cost you around 10 bux lol. then you too will find yourself "rollin, rollin rollin" and understand why your "proud mary keeps on burning" lol. Have a good day.
• Barry from Sauquoit, Ny On January 16th 1969, Creedence Clearwater Revival was one of the acts* to appear at the Fillmore West in San Francisco, California... Three days later on January 19th CCR's "Proud Mary" would enter Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart at position #62, a little over six weeks later on March 2nd it would peak at #2 for three weeks... {See 11th post below}... * Other acts on the bill were Fleetwood Mac and Albert Collins.
• Johnny from Boston, Ma I love this song as I do all John Fogerty songs and I think the guitar solo is one of the best of all time--short and sweet.
• Garett from Il Alas, it is sir Walter Scott as author of the poem. My apologies sir W.
• Garett from Il Proud Maisie, by Longfellow, preceded the riverboat. Maisie, as a name, dropped from history, mostly, for practical reasons. I can hear the children taunting: Don't see Maisie She is crazy Mind is hazy Will is lazy If you fancy Go see Nancy Soon you'll learn to Do her pants - eee! Still in the oral tradition, our culture replaced the name with Mary, and it is a short poem. In the poem, Mary is so proud, too proud, that she learns her only marriage bed will be her grave, and the shovel is mentioned that digs it. A steamboat broiler looks like hell itself, the overwhelming fire and heat. Mean work for any man. What deserves to be shoveled into hell itself? Someone with an intractable sin, like Proud Mary. Hey let's name the boat that. She should keep on burnin after all, right?
• Bob Wallace from California "Proud Mary" is apparently riverboat slang for dried horse manure which was sometimes used as fuel on steamboats. It burns hot and clean (think buffalo chips for the pioneers and dried cattle manure commonly used South Asia). http://www.steamboats.org/forum/steamboats-history/2273-steamboat-terminology-slang.html In an interview on American Roots with a riverboat captain the captain says that there were a number of things burned under boilers in order to get the temperature up quickly. Pine knots, hams and Proud Mary were some. Big wheel keep on turnin' Proud Mary keep on burnin'
• Markantney from Biloxe May 2015 Susan, I'm from the Deeep South (MS) and I'm amazed that CCR doesn't have a Southern Background? How their songs can sound as Southern as Lynyrd Skynyrd is freakin amazing to me:):) And to the folks harping on the "Drugs", say the song IS about Drugs, now what?
• Barry from Sauquoit, Ny On March 9th 1969, Creedence Clearwater Revival performed "Proud Mary" on the CBS-TV program "The Ed Sullivan Show"... At the time the song was in its second of three weeks at #2 on Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart, that would also be its peak position on the chart... {See fourth post below}.
• Barry from Sauquoit, Ny On January 16th 1971, a video of Ike & Tina Turner performing "Proud Mary" was aired on the ABC-TV program 'American Bandstand'... Eight days later on January 24th, 1971 the duo's covered version entered Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart at position #99 {See posts below for more chart info}.
• Susan from Atlanta, Ga Luke from Manchester, I think I love you! It annoys me no end that on virtually every song covered in this site, some proud soul showing off his or her new lobotomy declares the song to be about drugs. I love CCR, and John Fogerty is one of three concerts left on my bucket list. I remember being shocked to find that they were originally from California and not, as they alluded in various ways, the bayou area or somewhere along the Mississippi River. Thanks to whoever explained that faux "Cajun" accent John was trying to affect with "toinin'" and "boinin'" in this song.
• Markantney from Biloxi, Ms June, 2014: 1. I don't care if it's about Drugs, Dishes, Gasoline, Typewriters, or even Pet Rocks,..it's a great song, both CCRs and Ike and Tina's Versions. 2. I like to listen to CCRs and see Ike and Tina's performed. 3. Back to #1, based on the issues of the day (back then); it's hard to believe it's not about drugs but again, I could care less if it is or isn't.
• Barry from Sauquoit, Ny On March 2nd 1969, "Proud Mary" by CCR peaked at #2 (for 3 weeks) on Billboard's Hot Top chart... (See post below)... Was the quartet's first in a string of nine straight records to make the Top 10; after 'Mary' came "Bad Moon Rising (#2 for 1 week), "Green River" (#2 for 1 week), "Down On The Corner" (#3), "Travlin' Band" (#2 for 2 weeks), "Up Round The Bend" (#4), "Lookin' Out My Back Door" (#2 for 1 week), "Have You Ever Seen The Rain" (#8), and finally "Sweet Hitch Hiker" (#6)... On June 4th, 1972 "Someday Never Comes" peaked at #25 (for 2 weeks); and that broke their streak of Top 10 records... And four years later in 1976 their covered version of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" was their last Top 100 record, it reached #43.
• Barry from Sauquoit, Ny On January 19th 1969, "Proud Mary" by Creedence Clearwater Revival entered Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart; and on March 2nd it peaked at #2 (for 3 weeks) and spent 14 weeks on the Top 100 (and 7 of those 14 weeks were on the Top 10)... In its first week at #2, the #1 record was "Everyday People" by Sly and the Family Stone and for its 2nd & 3rd week, "Dizzy" by Tommy Roe was in the top spot... Was their first of five #2s on the Top 100... "Proud Mary" was track three of side two on the group's second studio album, 'Bayou Country', the album reached #7 on Billboard's Top 200 Albums chart... Tom Fogerty passed away on September 6th, 1990 at the young age of 48... May he R.I.P.
• Barry from Sauquoit, Ny On January 11th 1970 Ike and Tina Turner performed "Proud Mary" on the CBS-TV program 'The Ed Sullivan Show'... One year later on January 24th, 1971 it entered Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart; and on March 21st, 1971 it peaked at #4 (for 1 week) and spent 13 weeks on the Top 100... CCR's original version peaked at #2 (for 3 weeks) two years earlier on March 2nd, 1969... And also in 1969 two covered versions made the Top 100; Solomon Burke (#45) and Checkmates, Ltd. (#69).
• Luke from Manchester, United Kingdom Stop attaining songs to drugs unless they ARE about drugs. It's embarrassing for people with brains.
• Karl from Seattle, Wa I think this song very clearly draws connections to living an alternative lifestyle and doing drugs. It's about being a nomad, moving about a lot, experiencing the "high" life with drugs instead of the conventional finish highschcool maybe get a degree get a job get married, kids dogs and a house to live for the rest of your life in. It's about not fitting in the "system". And people who don't fit in are a lot more likely to smoke weed. "Proud mary keep on burning"? People who smoke weed are often very affectionate of it. There's a million songs out there who personalize marijuana as an object or a person i.e.e Mary janes last dance from tom petty. "Rolling, rolling, rolling"? Hard to believe a guy who probably smoked all day and was probably rolling a joint as he wrote the song didn't write this intentionally, right after proud mary keep on burning. Pumped a lot of painpane might just be a play on words. Heroin initially gives a high but i bet it can be painful for someone without resources to try to deal with the addiction when they are all out of money and need another dose, maybe living in the street. Maybe pain wasn't the ideal word to describe itbut he needed to make it ambiguous with pane. Now what really closes the deal " If you come down to the river, Bet you gonna find some people who live. You dont have to worry cause you have no money, People on the river are happy to give." meaning - If you decide to give the hippie community (general umbrella term for people who believe in alternative lifestyles, not specific people anywhere) a chance i bet you would leave with a good impression. I bet you are gonna find some people who live good lives despite not following the norm of society that is equating money with the ability to achieve happiness. River = river of life, the flow of the universe and everyday life, a river is constantly changing and every second its flow and format is different, thought sometimes it might seem slow and at other times fast. Like life. Now, i like other interpretations of the song too, and im not trying to put them down. Songs can have multiple meanings. But to think that the author didn't intentionally reference drugs in this song is like being in a room with an elephant and deciding to close yours eyes and say theres no elephant. It is there. Also, it doesnt matter what the band said or didnt say. There could be a million reasons why he would rather give an answer in an interview rather than another, and Rob, Novi, MI - Did you write this straight from the DEA's headquarters? On your lunch break maybe? "Stop thinking and just hear", oh dear.
• Meocyber from Alma, Co I've allways interpreted this as a blue collar working river man's song. He kind of spoke to the lonelines, along with romance of river life. For a Nocal guy Fogerty had to have a past life in the deep South. Has great empathy!
• Ernie from Bronx, Ny, Ny New York City --song had went to #1 for 1 week on radio station WMCA - which played rock & roll with more of local sound- --WABC --song went to #2 -which played National hit songs- this took wedding bands by storm-- when a band was asked to play a rock & roll song- they would always play "PROUD MARY"
• Barry from Sauquoit, Ny "Proud Mary" started the string of three consecutive records that peaked at #2; "Proud Mary" for three weeks, then "Bad Moon Rising" for a week, and finally "Green River" for one week!!!
• Rick from Belfast, Me this song should of been #1 for the year....at worst, definitely #2 for the year 1969
• Jeff from Panama City , Fl the intro doesnt instill the paddlewheel for me...its the lead riff in the middle...and the fills are phenomenal...very soulful...the single reason for me learning the guitar at an early age...the big one that put creedence on the map...forever indebted to stu, doug, tom, and of course john for giving me the inspiration to follow a music career...advocation
• Luke from Saint Augustine, Fl do you know that i always thought this song was about a semi truck driver, for example rolling down the river, proud mary keep on burnin' which i thought he ment truck wheels keep on burnin down the road, even though everyone says proud mary was a boat i still like to think its a truck :)
• Garrett from Phenix City, Al Hello Jose from Barcelona, How can I find the Conway Twitty album "I Love You More Today? Is it still In Print? If you have an answer, let me know por favor.
• Garrett from Phenix City, Al Marta, I tried going to the direct YouTube address that you have sent. I could pull up the song itself, but I couldn't find Conway's version When I tried typing it in the youtube search box it just gave me all of his other songs. If you know what page number in the listings it would be on, or anywhere else that has it for sure, or if there is anyone else that knows the about this please let me know I appreciate it. God Bless!!!
• Marta from Szczecin, Poland http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z4lmF8PNGc :)))
• Garrett from Phenix City, Al Does Anybody know where I can find Conway Twitty's version of proud Mary? If you do, please tell me. I have looked on the web and can not find it anywhere. Thanks, Garrett Miles
• Garrett from Phenix City, Al First of all, I'd like to say the lyrics to the second verse are as follows; "Cleaned a lot of plates in Memphis, pumped a lot of 'pane or 'pain down in New Orleans." I used to think it was "Pumped a lot of tank down in New Orleans." Later, I heard a friend of mine's son singing the CCR version, and he said it was 'pane. Then I listened closely to Creedence Clearwater Revival's version, and it was clear that Fogerty was saying "'Paine" or "'pain," and not "tank as i thought it was, or even "'tane" as Ike & Tina Turner sang. So I asked several people what they thought it was and they all said it was "'pane" as a contracted form of propane. I have listened to the lyrical content of the song and clearly do not think it is about smoking dope. I have never heard heroine called "Pain." The song is about a riverboat going down the Mississippi. Now that i got that point clear, Yesterday I was reading some of the comments on this site, and I heard someone mension that Conway Twitty sang the song. I had heard that a long time ago, but had forgotten about it. I was wondering if you knew how or where i could find it, because I have looked all over the internet and I can't find it If you read this, and you have an answer, please let me know.
• Harry from Myrtle Beach, Sc To the person who made the comment about hating Tina's version - that's fine if you don't like it - Don't listen to it - But your excuse for a joke about Ike hitting her is apalling. Grow up a little!
• Marion from Houston, Texas, Tx OOPS! That should be JOHN Fogerty.
• Marion from Houston, Texas, Tx I am probably much older than any of you who posted comments and believe I can safely say have known Jim Fogerty and his music much longer than you have. Do not presume to second guess this great artist. He says what he means and means what he says. Instead of arguing about the words of any song, why not just buy the sheet music?
• Kevin from Chicago, Il I'm surprised most people don't draw the connection this song makes to marijuana. "Proud Mary keep on burnin?" I would say that is a pretty obvious reference to smoking some "Mary Jane"
• Kris from Wichita, Ks I hate Tina Turner's version of this song. It's prolly the reason Ike beat her,"Damn Tina you messed that song up *Smack* Don't do it again!"
• Marge from Blue Grass, Ia I'm doing Memorial Tribute's in memory of an uncle who passed away that who used to work on the river as a deckhand years ago. My husband John has worked on the river for 31 years. He's a Captain on a lineboat. He thought this song "Proud Mary" would be the perfect song to put on the Memorial. We always loved this song. It's a good song and I don't know why people have to talk trash about such a great song! Marge,BG,IA.
• David from Wilson, Ny i used to think it was about the boat queen mary when i was younger.
• Gare from St. Paul, Mn I am disappointed to realize that I have had the lyrics wrong all these years - I thought the song said "pumped a lot of tang' down in New Orleans" as in poontang. Damn! I'm still gonna sing it that way, it's much more interesting that-a-way! A great song sung by anyone is still a great song!!!
• Mark from Byrdstown, Tn It kills me when someone posts 'so and so did an awesome cover of this song'.I mean why would you want to hear anyone cover this song when you can hear CCR doing it? I mean hell, Fogerty himself is still playing in a traveling band and doing this song.Even Tina Turner sounded like crap trying to do this song.
• David from Baden-baden, Germany John always had a book with him in which he wrote down feelings or experiences he made on journeys or something. He wrote lyrics with the help of this book.
• Street Strategist from Hong Kong, Hong Kong "Proud Mary" is number 8 in the list called "Sounds at the Speed of Music: 50 Rock Anthems at 100 kph"
• Ken from Louisville, Ky On an NPR interview, Fogerty was asked to pronounce the words "turning" and "burning". Fogerty was amused when the host was shocked that John didn't pronounce them "toinin'" and "boinin'". He said he sang the song in a cajun accent, which, being fron Northern California, he had to fake.
• Linda from Omaha, Ne I read that John Fogerty wrote "Proud Mary" because he was happy about having been rejected for service in Vietnam. Can't believe everything you read though.
• Teresa from Mechelen, Belgium Ike and Tina Turner didn't ruin the song, it's just different but very good also.
• Paul from Warren, Mi This is a great song. It tells of a riverboat sailing down the Mississippi River with the paddlewheels going full force. Ike&Tina Turner ruined the song by speeding up the beat and now every musician follows the Turner way instead of doing it the way John Fogerty wrote it, the way the son was meant to be.
• Caitlin from Upper Township, Nj Cool song. nice rhythmn. i danced to this song in my jazz class last year.
• Teresa from Mechelen, Belgium I loved this song when it came out and still love it now, the version of Ike and Tina Turner is also very good. I can't say which one I prefer because they are so different.
• Jeff from Staten Island, Ny Heroin is called Boy & Coke is called girl because heroin or Dope = (D) & Coke = (C) (its code/slang) because a boy has a 'D' a girl has a 'C' (think of private parts) the word "Man" doesn't fit the equation
• Joe from Charlotte, Nc I saw Fogerty in Chrlotte, NC. He's still doin' it. The "Man" in this song is heroin. "Workin for the man every night and day." If you want proof, watch the movie 'Ray' with Jamie Fox. They refer to coke as the lady, and heroin as boy. The river is referred to in thousands of rock songs. If you listen to any classic rock song and replace any word relating to water with heroin, they all make sense.
• Mitchell from Melbourne, Australia Yeah I saw him in Melbourne too. Terrific sing/songwriter and an excellent performer. Every there loved the entire show and was going crazy. I'm 14
• Jolene from Melbourne, Australia Just saw Fogerty two nights ago in Melbourne and when he did this song the crowd was jumping around and acting real crazy which is a surprise cause the crowd was made up of people from 15 to 75! Mind you we were going crazy to just about every song, incredible concert. If you get a chance to see him live, take it.
• Diane from Nyc, Ny It's a big person who can admit when they are wrong. I am (was) wrong. Straight from the horse's mouth: "Sometimes I write words to songs because they sound cool to sing. Sometimes the listener doesn't understand what I'm singing because I'm dedicated to singing the vowel, having fun with the word sounds coming out of my mouth. 'Cleaned a lot of plates in Memphis, pumped a lot of pain down in New Orleans,' is a good example. I think Tina Turner sang 'tane' instead of 'pain,' as in a contracted form of octane. But I knew what she meant," Fogerty said.
• Diane from Nyc, Ny the lyric is pumped a lot of 'pane (propane) gasoline. it's funny how people project themselves on to perfectly harmless and obvious song lyrics.
• Jose from Barcelona, Spain there is an outstanding version of Proud Mary (country style) by Conway Twitty from LP "I Love You More Today". I do have it in MP3 Benitez
• Ross from Independence, Mo This is #155 on Rolling Stone's list of 500 greatest songs.
• Ken from Louisville, Ky One reason people thought CCR was from Louisiana was the song on the flip side of this single, "Born On The Bayou". In fact, CCR had orginally intended that song to be the A-side, but U.S. disc jockeys kept playing "Proud Mary" so often that the record company made it a "double A side" 45, as was sometimes done in the 1960's.
• Rob from Novi, Mi Good job, Cody. It seems to some people that every single song has some hidden meaning. Just listen to the music.
• Kelly from Burbank, Ca Best CCR song. Hands down. Well in my opinion at least. My dad is a really big Credence fan and listens to them a lot, so I got to know them well too. But I always though this was the best one.
• Michael from Toronto, United States I always associated "pumped a lot of pain" with cranking heroin. I think it's great that the good songwriters' lyrics are open to interpretation.
• Johnny from Hilo, Hi i believe the lyric goes "pumped a lot of 'tain', down in new orleans", as opposed to "pumped a lot of 'pain', down in new orleans". it would make more sense that one could pump "tain" ( slang for octane, or gasolene ) at a low paying job, that would be compared to washing dishes. that, i can see being pumped, "pain" on the other hand, not so much.
• Cody from San Antonio, Tx Why does everyone want songs to be about marijuana? Sometimes its not about pot guys. Come on.
• Jude from Db, Ca Trenyce sang this song very well on "American Idol."

More Songfacts:

Electric Avenue Eddy Grant

The "Electric Avenue" in the Eddy Grant song is a real street. It got its name because it was the first street in London with electric lights.

He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother The Hollies

The motto for Boys Town, which was a Nebraska home for troubled youth, inspired the song "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" by The Hollies.

Cathy's Clown The Everly Brothers

The first single to simultaneously top the UK and US charts was The Everly Brothers' "Cathy's Clown" in May 1960.

Doo Wop (That Thing) Lauryn Hill

"Doo Wop (That Thing)" by Lauryn Hill was the only US #1 hit of the '90s entirely written, produced and performed by a female singer.

Jump Around House of Pain

The horn flourish at the beginning of "Jump Around" comes from Bob and Earl's "Harlem Shuffle"; the squeal throughout the song might be a Prince sample.

Suck It and See Arctic Monkeys

The Arctic Monkeys 2011 song "Suck It and See" is titled after a British saying meaning you should try something to see if you like it.

Editor's Picks

Songs Discussed in Movies Song Writing

Bridesmaids, Reservoir Dogs, Willy Wonka - just a few of the flicks where characters discuss specific songs, sometimes as a prelude to murder.

We Will Rock You (To Sleep): Pop Stars Who Recorded Kids' Albums Song Writing

With the rise of Kindie rock, more musicians are embracing their inner child with tunes for tots - here, we look at pop stars who recorded kids' albums.

Director Nick Morris ("The Final Countdown") Song Writing

Nick made some of the biggest videos on MTV, including "The Final Countdown," "Heaven" and "Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)."

The Untold Story Of Fiona Apple's Extraordinary Machine Song Writing

Fiona's highly-anticipated third album almost didn't make it. Here's how it finally came together after two years and a leak.

Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne Songwriter Interviews

The guy who brought us "Stacy's Mom" also wrote the Jane Lynch Emmy song and Stephen Colbert's Christmas songs.

Desmond Child Songwriter Interviews

One of the most successful songwriters in the business, Desmond co-wrote "Livin' La Vida Loca," "Dude (Looks Like A Lady)" and "Livin' On A Prayer."

Songfacts® Newsletter

A monthly update on our latest interviews, stories and added songs

Information

• Terms of Service
• Our Privacy Policy
• Google Privacy Policy
• Songfacts API
• Music History Calendar
• Song Licensing
• Affiliate Disclosure
• Privacy Manager
• X (Twitter)

Contribution

• Message Boards
• Songfacts Writers

©2024 Songfacts, LLC

How “Proud Mary” Made Tina Turner a Household Name

The late singer’s rendition of “Proud Mary” put her and then-husband, Ike Turner, on the map and became one of their most famous songs.

We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back.

The song was written by the frontman for Creedence Clearwater Revival

While many still only associate “Proud Mary” with Tina’s rasping growl and horn-packed 1970s arrangement, the song was actually written by Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman John Fogerty on the day he received his discharge papers from the army in 1967. In a celebratory mood, he began strumming the guitar, and his blues-rock anthem was born.

“‘Left a good job in the city’ and then several good lines came out of me immediately. I had the chord changes, the minor chord where it says, ‘Big wheel keep on turnin’/Proud Mary keep on burnin,’” Fogerty recalls in Bad Moon Rising: The Unofficial History of Creedence Clearwater Revival by Hank Bordowitz. “By the time I hit ‘Rolling, rolling, rolling on the river,’ I knew I had written my best song. It vibrated inside me.” Released in early 1969, the song peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Leaving a steady but low-earning job behind, the subject of “Proud Mary” bids farewell to the city and hitches a ride on a “riverboat queen” where the people “are happy to give” even “if you got no money.” The song portrays a new life available on the river; the promise of like-minded camaraderie and the chance for rebirth as an individual whose life exists on the ever-moving river.

Ike and Tina found success covering “Proud Mary” and other songs

Ike and Tina, who had been musically linked since the late ’50s, began covering “Proud Mary” on stage, reimagining the song Tina had loved since first hearing it on the radio in 1969. Tina and Ike’s rendition blew up Fogerty’s original arrangement in favor of a grittier, funkier version perfectly matched to Tina’s earthy then soaring vocals.

As an opening act for the Rolling Stones in Europe and again for the band’s 1969 U.S. tour, Ike and Tina discovered first-hand the instant appeal their cover versions of songs such as “Proud Mary,” the Beatles ’ “Come Together” and the Stones’ “Honky Tonk Women” had for audiences.

Released in 1971, Ike and Tina’s “Proud Mary” rendition was the second single from their album Workin’ Together (1970). That it was ever recorded and included on the LP was fortuitous. While cutting the album, the duo was still in need of more songs when Tina suggested recording a few things they were currently enjoying success with on stage.

“And that’s how ‘Proud Mary’ came about,” Tina told Rolling Stone in 1971 , recounting how hearing an earlier audition performance of the song lead them to reconsider the recent hit. “Ike said, ‘You know, I forgot all about that tune.’ And I said let’s do it, but let’s change it. So in the car, Ike plays the guitar, we just sort of jam. And we just sort of broke into the black version of it.”

After the success of “Proud Mary,” the relationship between Tina and Ike collapsed for good

Ike and Tina’s “Proud Mary” sold more than a million copies, reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 5 on the R&B chart in 1971, a mere two years after the Creedence Clearwater Revival original charted. Accompanied by the hip-swiveling back-up singers the Ikettes, the song became a staple of the duo’s live shows and earned the Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Group in 1972.

Its success would embolden Tina to write the 1973 semi-autobiographical “Nutbush City Limits,” one of the final hits Ike and Tina would have together. By the time “Proud Mary” had charted, Ike’s substance abuse problems had increased, as had his physical violence towards his wife.

In 1976, shortly after getting into a physical altercation while en route to a Dallas hotel, Tina fled her abusive situation. The mother of four hid at a friend’s house before she began slowly rebuilding a new life with little more than her performing name as collateral. Their divorce was finalized in 1978, and Tina would never again meet publicly with Ike, who died in 2007 from a cocaine overdose at age 76.

Tina went on to have a hit solo career

Throughout the late ’70s and early ’80s, Tina performed small clubs and hotels as she created a new professional and personal life. Her cover of Al Green ’s “Let’s Stay Together” was an unexpected hit in 1983 and led to the recording and release of the album Private Dancer (1984), which contained the title track as well as “What’s Love Got to Do With It.” The album was certified Platinum five times in the United States and has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide.

No longer a nostalgia act trading solely on past hits, Tina became a global phenomenon, packing arenas and stadiums with fans new and old who came to respect her ongoing personal journey as much as her evolving musical prowess. But the songs of her past were as much a cherished part of Tina’s onstage work as ever, with her mixing covers in amongst her latest hits.

“Proud Mary” would become a staple of her live shows—often the penultimate song prior to encores—up to and including her farewell tour which culminated in a final live bow at the U.K.’s Sheffield Arena on May 5, 2009.

What the song represented to Tina no doubt changed depending on time and circumstance, but “Proud Mary” remained a visceral connection to her six-decade career. Its influence on musical stars of today continues to endure. Beyoncé performed the classic track in 2005 when Tina was recognized at the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C. “I’ll never forget the first time I saw you perform,” Beyoncé said in her speech as she gazed up at Tina seated in the balcony. “I’d never in my life seen a woman so powerful, so fearless, so fabulous.”

In 2020, Tina was asked by Haute Living magazine to play a word association game, saying what came to mind when she was reminded of her hit song titles. “The Best” was all about “the power of authenticity.” “Private Dancer” related to “dreams come true.” And “Proud Mary”? Tina only had one word for the song that had been a constant almost her entire life: “Freedom.”

Rock Musicians

Elvis and Priscilla’s Turbulent Relationship

2024 Grammys: The Major Winners and Takeaways

Tracy Chapman

Sinéad O’Connor

How Austin Butler Landed the Part of Elvis

11 Rare Vintage Photos of Lou Reed

Elvis Presley’s Family Tree

Elvis Presley

How The Rolling Stones Were First Formed

Bruce Springsteen

The Meaning Behind “In the Air Tonight”

The Meaning Behind The Song Proud Mary

Some songs are so good and so catchy that folks sometimes sing along to them — generation after generation — without even knowing what they mean. Such is the case with "Proud Mary," written by John Fogerty and performed by  Creedence Clearwater Revival for their second album, 1969's "Bayou Country," and famously covered by the late and legendary Tina Turner . But make no mistake: Turner knew exactly what the song meant. When she and then-husband Ike released their version of "Proud Mary" in 1971 — a romping, rollicking, frolicking interpretation — it wisely placed the endlessly energetic Turner and the Ikettes in the forefront. It also helped elevate Turner's career to higher heights of stardom, as Biography explains, heights that never really waned all the way to Turner's 2023 death.

While we might not know precisely what Tina Turner was thinking when she chose to cover "Proud Mary," we can glean as much from the song itself. "Proud Mary," simply put, is a tale about leaving the daily stress of city life behind to seek a quieter, happier, and more peaceful life, as Extra Chill describes. The song's riverboat imagery is symbolic of continuing to roll, roll down the river of life and not worry along the way. Refinery29 adds another layer to the story by telling us that Fogerty imaged "Proud Mary" as a female domestic servant for the well-to-do. "She gets off the bus every morning and goes to work and holds their lives together. Then she has to go home," Fogerty is quoted as saying in the book "Bad Moon Rising: The Unofficial History of Creedence Clearwater Revival."

Keep on burnin'

In 2018, "Proud Mary" writer John Fogerty talked to Rolling Stone about the purpose of his song. He said, "I wrote the song about a mythical riverboat, cruising on a mythical river, in a mythical time. Perhaps, the setting was 'back in time' on the Mississippi River. It was obviously a metaphor about leaving painful, stressful things behind for a more tranquil and meaningful life." Such sentiments are universal, and might contribute to the light, ebullient feeling that "Proud Mary" communicates even if listeners don't know the song's precise meaning, or mistakenly believe that the song is about rolling up a joint, per Extra Chill. At the time of writing "Proud Mary," Fogerty had recently left the National Guard and captured his sense of freedom in the song.

Freedom, lightness, and tranquility might have been exactly what Tina Turner herself wanted when she covered "Proud Mary" back in 1971. It's also the spirit she embodied every time she performed the song. In 1978 Turner divorced her husband and performance partner Ike Turner , and revealed that he'd been physically abusive, a chronic cheater, and heavy into drugs, per Biography. It was during that time that Turner got on stage, rocked a song about liberation from woes, and then continued to champion that song all the way to her final, 2009 tour, watchable in part on Turner's YouTube channel . It's doubtful that anyone could better embody the lyrics, "Big wheel keep on turnin' / Proud Mary keep on burnin'."

The Mythical Meaning Behind “Proud Mary” by Tina Turner

by Glenn Rowley August 25, 2023, 3:25 pm

“Listen to the story now…” With those five words, Tina Turner invited listeners in 1971 to sit back, buckle up, and experience the rock and roll tale of “Proud Mary.”

Videos by American Songwriter

Left a good job in the city/ Workin’ for the man every night and day/ And I never lost one minute of sleepin’/ Worryin’ ‘bout the way that things might’ve been,” she sings over the teasing vamp of a guitar before launching into the song’s famous chorus of “Big wheel keep on turnin’/ Proud Mary keep on burnin’/ And we’re rollin’/ Rollin’ yeah/ Rollin’ on the river, complete with its signature, arm-waving choreography.

Creedence Clearwater Revival

Two years before Turner unveiled her indelible take on the “Proud Mary,” Creedence Clearwater Revival released the original 1969 version as the lead single off their sophomore album, Bayou Country . The song was something of a breakthrough hit for the quartet — though their earlier single “Suzie Q” had peaked just outside the top 10, “Proud Mary” became Creedence Clearwater Revival’s first of five eventual singles to land at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100.

CCR’s take on “Proud Mary” stuck to its rootsy origins as frontman John Fogerty spun the tale of hitching a ride on the riverboat queen. Turner, however, injected a propulsive dose of soul into the proceedings, pushing “Proud Mary” from “nice and easy” in the spoken word intro to a rough and wild finish — her powerful voice holding the horns, percussion, bass, guitar and more together as the song barrelled to its explosively joyful conclusion.

The song inevitably became as synonymous with Turner and her legacy as, say, “Nutbush City Limits,” “River Deep, Mountain High” and “What’s Love Got to Do with It.” And though dozens of big-voiced artists and reality TV hopefuls would attempt to cover “Proud Mary” in the intervening years, no one could ever hope to match the intensity, attitude, and pure magic of her interpretation.

The Meaning of the Lyrics

But what are the barn-storming lyrics to “Proud Mary” actually about? For that answer, we have to go back to Creedence Clearwater Revival and the song’s original author: John Fogerty.

Many fans may assume upon first or second listen to Turner’s famous recording that “Proud Mary” tells the story of a struggling, low-wage worker actually named Mary. Or, given CCR’s place within the counterculture movement of its time, that it’s a thinly veiled reference to marijuana. But only the former would be partly correct.

When constructing the song, Fogerty found inspiration in bits of different ditties he was already toying with in his notebook. In the liner notes of the 40th anniversary edition of Bayou Country , writer Joel Selvin explains that the singer-songwriter had , in fact, been working on an idea about a washerwoman named Mary in addition to multiple other songs.

“He began to link the songs he was writing to a mythical Deep South,” Selvin wrote, “a South this California kid had never seen, but could only imagine. It was a deceptively simple set of material. In addition to the three major pieces [in his notebook], Fogerty also had a couple of suitable blues and a concert rouser under his belt…and his ripping Little Richard impression was well-practiced.”

In a 2020 interview with American Songwriter , Fogerty proudly described writing “Proud Mary” as “that moment when songwriting truly started for me.” According to the rocker, the idea for the song’s title and first line came to him shortly after he’d been honorably discharged from the U.S. Army National Guard in the summer of 1968.

“I was overjoyed,” he said of receiving the official paperwork marking the end of his time in the Army, according to a transcript of a 1993 sit-down with Rolling Stone . “Holy hallelujah! I actually went out on the little apartment building lawn and did a couple of cartwheels…That’s where ‘Left a good job in the city’ comes from. I just felt real good.”

Amid the tumult of that pivotal year in American history, Fogerty set out to get serious about his craft. “What happened played out over a period of several months,” he continued. “I decided to get it together and be professional and get a little more organized. So, I went through that energy of going out and buying a little binder and putting paper in it, and bringing it home and saying, ‘ This is my songbook !’

“And my first entry into it was a title. ‘Proud Mary.’ I didn’t know what it was.”

Fogerty and his bandmates — rhythm guitarist Tim Fogerty (his elder brother), bassist Stu Cook, and drummer Doug Clifford — released their self-titled debut album that same July, and when it came time to work on Creedence Clearwater Revival’s follow-up, the frontman turned back to his notebook. 

“Months and months later, being on the bridge of this thing coming out of me, I went back to my book, and looking at the first entry and then realizing, that’s it! It’s about a boat !” he said in 2020.

Though a real riverboat called the Proud Mary had yet to exist (one would eventually be built in 1981), Fogerty envisioned the titular “riverboat queen” making its trips up and down the giant waterway of what’s presumably the Mississippi River, all the while offering up a slice-of-life view at America’s heartland.

“Although I didn’t recall it at the time when I was doing ‘Rollin’ on the river,’ there is an old Will Rogers movie about these old paddle wheelers, and I believe at one point they actually sing, ‘Rolling on the river,’ he said. “I know that buried deep inside me are all these little bits and pieces of Americana. It’s deep in my heart, deep in my soul. As I learned in English 101, write about what you know about.”

It’s fair to say that the meaning behind “Proud Mary” could seem rather inscrutable at times based on how Fogerty cobbled the narrative throughline together from various sources. However, he distilled the song down to its essence just a few years ago in yet another sit-down with Rolling Stone .

“I wrote the song about a mythical riverboat, cruising on a mythical river, in a mythical time,” Fogerty concluded in 2018. “Perhaps the setting was ‘back in time’ on the Mississippi River. It was obviously a metaphor about leaving painful, stressful things behind for a more tranquil and meaningful life.”

Photo by Paul Natkin/Getty Images

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Only members can comment. Become a member . Already a member? Log In .

Oliver Anthony Responds to Song Being Used in GOP Debate

© 2024 American Songwriter

Artists - A-H

• & Young
• .38 Special
• Aaron Lewis
• Aaron Neville

Artists - I-P

• Iron Butterfly
• Iron Maiden
• Izzy Stradlin

Artists - Q-Z

• Queens of the Stone Age
• Queensrÿche
• Classic Rock

• Keyboardist Jim Beard, Known for His...
• 12 Rock Legends Who Openly Dislike...
• 10 Rock Stars Who Can’t Stand...

• Legendary Motorhead Frontman, Lemmy, To Be...
• Happy 76th Birthday Tony Iommi: How...
• Metallica Secures Best Metal Performance at...

• Unveiling Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Top 10...
• Album Review: “Two Steps From The...
• The Facts In The Early Life...

The Story Behind “Proud Mary” by CCR

via masterofacdcsuckaS/YouTube

It Stood The Test of Time

It was in the summer of 1967, two days after he was released from active duty in the Army Reserve, when John Fogerty started working on “Proud Mary”. It was in the middle of the Summer of Love . And when he got home in San Francisco, he went to a local drugstore and bought a cheap little vinyl notebook with a package of three-ring-binder paper and a pen. It was going to be his songbook.

On the first page, he wrote “Song Title.” Fogerty then said he “waited for something to happen.”

He shared in a Facebook post back in 2917, “After about a week, I finally had an inspiration and I wrote it down in my little music book. The inspiration was the words ‘Proud Mary.’ I didn’t write the song right away.”

He actually had no idea what it was about or what it meant.

He continued, “A few months later, right when I had received my honorable discharge from the Army, I was so happy and excited, I ran in the house and started messing with my Rickenbacker and some chords came together and some words came together and I realized I was writing a song about a river boat.

“I got my little song book and opened it up and right on the first page were those words, ‘Proud Mary.’ And, by golly, I decided that’s the name of the boat!”

In a separate post, he also wrote: “That title jumped off the page. Oh my—you mean this song is about a boat? Without saying anything, it said everything. It was female—ships are female. Proud. Wow, there it is! Proud Mary! At some point along the way I’m singing, “Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ on the river.””

Don’t Miss Out! Sign up for the Latest Updates

• Creedence Clearwater Revival

I Love Classic Rock

8 Worst Rock Guitar Riffs of All Time

20 Most Overrated Rock Anthems of All Time

Ross Valory Shares His Real Opinion About Leaving Journey

How Duff McKagan Survived A “Bad Trip” With The…

Bon Jovi Release New Song “Legendary”

Bon Jovi’s Bad News At Touring

Was Jim Morrison An Overrated Icon?

Premium partners.

Interested in becoming a partner?

Contact us for more info.

© 2024 Society Of Rock

• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

TUG THAT INSPIRED A SONG FACING UNCERTAIN FUTURE

MEMPHIS (UPI)—Proud Mary, a tugboat with a 73-year-old history that inspired a 1971 hit record, is no longer “roltin’ down the river.”

The tug, now called the Mary Elizabeth, has been tied to a Memphis dock for two years. It has a rusted hull, peeling paint, a fire‐wracked deckhouse and an uncertain future,

But J. L. Murphy, owner of the boat since 1973, does not want to abandon it.

“I don't know what I'm going to do with it,” Mr. Murphy said, “but I would like to refurbish it.”

The boat wasmade famous by the hlt song “Proud Mary,” by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Ike and Tina Turner made another popular recording of the song about two years later.

R. V. Warner, the boat's skipper and a former owner, said the Mary Elizabeth was built in Newburgh, N. Y., in 1905. Originally powered by steam, the tug was used to ferry prisoners from New York to Sing Sing prison.

Later, the vessel was equipped with a diesel engine and used as a ferry across Lake Pontchartrain to New Orleans, In 1928, Mr. Warner brought the boat to Tennessee. Until recently, it was used as a harbor boat in Memphis.

The MARY ELIZABETH was once referred to as the “Queen Mother of Memphis Towboats” for her service in the Memphis Harbor during the middle of the 20th century. Here’s how the story unfolds:

  She was moved south in 1911, after being sold to the St. Tammany Steamship Company of Covington, Louisiana. The OSSINING spent the next four years being operated as a Ferry Boat over the 630 square mile Lake Ponchartrain.

  Then in 1915 she was sold to Lyon Bros. of Greenville, Mississippi and used to run U.S. Mail from Greenville, upriver to Luna Landing, Arkansas. During this time, she was also converted from steam power to diesel power, which gave the OSSINING the distinction of being the first diesel power Ferry Boat on the Mississippi River.

  After a dozen years, she was sold in 1928 to Warner & Tamble Inc . of Memphis, Tennessee. At this time she was refitted and remodeled into a Tow Boat, and rechristened to it's more familiar name, the MARY ELIZABETH, in honor of a family member of the new  Memphis owner.

  In 1973, the MARY ELIZABETH was sold to Murphy Marine Service Inc. of Memphis. Murphy Marine ran her for a total of five years and then pulled her out of service.

  Hope of resurrection came in 1986 when the MARY ELIZABETH was sold to Proud Mary Restoration Inc. The hope grew as the first signs of restoration were seen in January, 1987. However, it was not to be. In 1988, during the all-time low of the river gage in Memphis (-10.7 in the second week of July), the MARY ELIZABETH began breaking up on the bank of the river and was hauled away for scrap........ once and for all.

  During the 1960s, at the height of the Rock ‘n’ Roll era in Memphis, a deck hand on the MARY ELIZABETH wrote and composed a song he entitled,  “Proud Mary”. The song describes his feelings and experiences, his life and times aboard his ship, the MARY ELIZABETH. The song was published and recorded by John Fogerty of Creedance Clearwater Revival, and was also performed by other artists such as George Jones and Johnny Paycheck, Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen and pop diva, Tina Tuner. Tina Turner’s  upbeat rendition was more in the early 1980s style of music and entitled “Rollin’ On The River”. The tune has become one of the most popular and enduring songs of our age and has been placed #155 on Rolling Stone's 2004 list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

  In 1993 my old friend, the late Capt. Jake Meanley (1948-2000) told me that in the 1970s when he was piloting ships  for the MEMPHIS QUEEN LINE excursion company, he quite often used the MARY ELIZABETH through a lease agreement from Murphy Marine. She was used to push the MEMPHIS SHOWBOAT (barge) on countless moonlight river cruises. We can only guess at how many times that the bands were asked to play Proud Mary.

  In the 1980s, while I was General Manager of Mud Island , a company by the name of Mid-South Concerts had a lease agreement to produce concerts in the 5,000-seat outdoor amphitheatre on the island each Summer. In August of  1986, John Fogerty decided to tour the country again. This time he performed as John Fogerty , a solo artist without the band members of Creedance Clearwater Revival. Previously, CCR and John had experienced a hard break-up with John even being sued and ordered to not sing the CCR songs, as he sounded too much like himself (!?). That was quite bitter for him and the impasse lasted quite a few years.

  While visiting with John, he told me that “Proud Mary” indeed was one of his favorite songs, and one of the reasons why he was determined to return to concert tours again was that so many people told him that the tune was now more popularly known as the upbeat 1980s version of “Rollin’ On The River” by Tina Turner, rather than as raw, gutsy sound of “Proud Mary” by John Fogerty of the 1960s. Now, that was also some kind of motivation for John.

  Today, the only remembrance of the PROUD MARY in Memphis is a beautiful color portrait in the main dining room of The Butcher Shop restaurant at 101 South Front Street in Downtown Memphis on Historic Cotton Row. The setting of the portrait is a calm day on the water of the Wolf River Harbor with the MARY ELIZABETH and the G.H. TAMBLE tied off side-to-side with a still reflection to the tow vessels in the water – an absolutely gorgeous painting. And probably 99.99% of the patrons who sit in this wonderful restaurant do not know the “rest of the story” of the history of those two junky looking harbor tow boats reflecting on that brown water with all those scrap trees and mud in the background!

“Cleaned a lot of plates in Memphis . . .”

Next “Detour” Coming Soon

FREE U.S. SHIPPING ON ORDERS $80.00+

Item added to your cart

Creedence clearwater revival - proud mary.

‘Proud Mary’ is a song by American rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival written by John Fogerty. It was released as a single in January 1969 by Fantasy Records and on the band's second studio album, Bayou Country. The song became a major hit in the United States, peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1969, the first of five singles to peak at No. 2 for the group, they have the most #2 songs without ever having a #1.

In the beginning, ‘Proud Mary’ had nothing to do with a riverboat. Instead, 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." It was Stu Cook who first introduced the riverboat aspect of the song. The idea came to him as the group watched the television show Maverick and Stu made the statement, "Hey riverboat, blow your bell." John agreed that the boat seemed to have something to do with the song that had been brewing in his mind for quite some time, waiting to take conscious shape. When he wrote the music, he made the first few chords evoke a riverboat paddlewheel going around. Thus, ‘Proud Mary’ went from being a cleanup lady to a boat.

In a 1969 interview, Fogerty said that he wrote it in the two days after he was discharged from the National Guard. In the liner notes for the 2008 expanded reissue of Bayou Country, Joel Selvin explained that the songs for the album started when Fogerty was in the National Guard, that the riffs for ‘Proud Mary’, ‘Born on the Bayou’, and ‘Keep on Chooglin'’ were conceived by Fogerty at a concert in the Avalon Ballroom, and ‘Proud Mary’ was arranged from parts of different songs, one of which was about a washerwoman named Mary. The line "Left a good job in the city" was written following Fogerty's discharge from the National Guard, and the line "rollin' on the river" was from a movie by Will Rogers.

The Proud Mary, more formally known as the Mary Elizabeth, was a real ship and was based in Memphis, Tennessee. The Proud Mary traveled along the Mississippi River from 1928 to 1978.

This was a #4 hit in the US for Ike & Tina Turner in 1971, and a highlight of their live shows. Tina Turner recalled in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine in 1971 how they came to record this on their Workin' Together album: "When we cut the album, we were lacking a few tunes, so we said 'Well, let's just put in a few things that we're doing on stage. And that's how 'Proud Mary' came about. I had loved it when it first came out. We auditioned a girl and she had sung 'Proud Mary.' This is like eight months later, and Ike said, 'You know, I forgot all about that tune.' And I said let's do it, but let's change it. So in the car Ike plays the guitar, we just sort of jam. And we just sort of broke into the black version of it. It was never planned to say, 'Well, let's go to the record shop, and I'd like to record this tune by Aretha Franklin'... it's just that we get it for stage, because we give the people a little bit of us and a little bit of what they hear on the radio every day."

Label – Fantasy Songwriter – John Fogerty Producer – John Fogerty

SONG LYRICS

• Choosing a selection results in a full page refresh.
• Opens in a new window.

The Explosive Song That Liberated Tina Turner

Fifty years ago, the Queen of Rock seized her crown—and sparked her rebirth—with her fiery rendition of “Proud Mary.”

Before a concert one night in 1968, shortly prior to recording the song that would launch her into superstardom, Tina Turner swallowed sleeping pills and lay down to die. “People backstage noticed something was very wrong with me and rushed me to the hospital, which saved my life,” she writes in her book Happiness Becomes You , published in the fall . “At first I was disappointed when I woke up and realized I was still alive. I thought death was my only chance at escape. But it was not in my nature to stay down for long.”

The song that helped revive Turner was “Proud Mary.” A cover of the Creedence Clearwater Revival hit from 1969, Turner’s sizzling version was released when she was half of the married duo Ike and Tina Turner—and it was “the single that brought this dynamic group to national attention,” Cash Box magazine subsequently said. Before that, Turner and her infamously abusive husband were an established act in the world of R&B. (Ike later said that the allegations of abuse were exaggerated, though he admitted multiple times to hitting Turner.) The couple had yet to make a big impression on America at large—until “Proud Mary” busted down that door. After the single’s release in January 1971, it rose to No. 4 on Billboard ’s pop chart, sold more than 1 million copies, and earned Turner the first of her 12 Grammy Awards. But the song’s success didn’t just help bring her back to life after her suicide attempt; it also planted the seeds of her liberation as both an artist and a woman.

“Proud Mary,” which celebrates the 50th anniversary of its release this month, remains a staple of popular culture. In recent years, performances of Turner’s version have appeared on The Voice and The Masked Singer , and in 2005 Beyoncé sang it in Washington, D.C., when Turner was recognized at the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors. Onstage, Beyoncé said to her hero, who was sitting in a balcony next to the first lady, Laura Bush, “I’ll never forget the first time I saw you perform. I’d never in my life seen a woman so powerful, so fearless, so fabulous.”

Turner had to face her fears just to get “Proud Mary” made. She was 18 when she joined Ike’s Kings of Rhythm in 1957. As the founder and songwriter of the group, Ike brooked few creative suggestions from Turner. He also beat and belittled her, as she’s opened up about publicly many times throughout her life. “I have to do what Ike says,” she told Rolling Stone in 1971. “My whole thing is the fact that I am to Ike—I’m going to use the term ‘doll’—that you sort of mold.” Their 1962 marriage didn’t make things any better, but when Turner heard CCR’s “Proud Mary” on the radio in early 1969, she knew she had to record it. Ike disliked the song and refused. Turner put her foot down anyway. As she says in her 2020 book That’s My Life , “Whatever happens to me, when it’s time to get something done, I do it.” The result was the career breakthrough she and Ike had long been fighting for.

CCR’s rootsy, laid-back “Proud Mary” is no slouch. Written by the band’s leader, John Fogerty, it remains as famous and revered as Turner’s version, and rightly so. But Turner upped the intensity of Fogerty’s country-rock anthem by a factor of 10. The song begins slowly and sparsely, with a hushed arrangement of guitar, bass, and drums. Turner says a few words by way of introduction, but the softness in her voice isn’t a sedative—it’s the hiss of a fuse being lit. After a couple of hypnotic minutes, the music trails away ... and the bomb goes off. In a detonation of blindingly fast funk, the band throws riffs, beats, and blasts of horn into the sky as Turner’s rasp goes supernova. “Rolling! Rolling! Rolling on the river!” she sings at the top of her formidable lungs, just as much a force of nature as the Mighty Mississippi in the lyrics. It’s no wonder the song stormed the airwaves in the early ’70s. It has all the fury of James Brown, all the grit of Janis Joplin, all the swagger of the Rolling Stones. But in the end, it’s Turner’s soulful ecstasy that sells it.

Read: How Nina Simone and James Brown mourned MLK Jr. onstage

The media descended on the duo after “Proud Mary” blew up. Soon they were guests on numerous television shows, some of which were not prepared for a woman like Turner. On The Dick Cavett Show , Cavett asked her to list her musical inspirations. Rather than naming the soul sisters Aretha Franklin and Etta James, she cited Ray Charles and Sam Cooke as big influences on her vocal style. “I’ve never been one to be real feminine, like the girl singers that I love so much,” she told the host. “When I started singing, Ike had mostly male singers, and I wanted to sound like they sounded.” When Cavett then asked, “All the women want to be men these days. What do you make of that, Ike?” Turner jumped in before her husband could respond and declared, with a hint of dismay, “I didn’t say I wanted to be a man.” On Soul Train around the same time, a teenage girl in the audience asked Turner what her favorite hobbies were. Her answer: “I like to skate. I think maybe just to go in the country a while.” Then she paused and flashed a sly grin. “And I like being a woman.”

Who better than Turner to breathe new life into “Proud Mary”? She deeply related to Fogerty’s yearning, earthy song. After all, it mentions Memphis—just an hour from where Turner grew up—as one of the cities where the narrator takes on menial jobs while chasing her dreams along the Mississippi River. Then the narrator has an epiphany: Instead of searching for bliss on the shores of the river, maybe she should try on the river. Hopping a boat called the Proud Mary, she finds an idyllic way of life, one where “you don’t have to worry though you have no money / People on the river are happy to give.” At the same time, she has zero regrets about the tough journey: “I never lost one minute of sleeping / Worrying ’bout the way that things might have been.” It’s a story arc Turner knew all too well—and was elated to make her own.

Some artists get resentful about how others render their songs, but Fogerty loved Turner’s cover. The CCR front man was thrilled when he first heard her blistering version, as he recounted to American Songwriter magazine. And in Turner’s That’s My Life , he’s quoted as saying, “Thank you, beautiful Tina, for shooting my song into the stratosphere.” The sizable royalty checks Fogerty received from the Turners’ version surely sweetened his opinion that much more. “Turner was elbowing her way into the rock and roll boys’ club, fitting herself into what was becoming a more and more homogenous white and male space,” Maureen Mahon writes in her book Black Diamond Queens: African American Women and Rock and Roll. Once past the gate, Turner made that space her own. “I felt that I had become all the songs that I was covering,” she writes in her autobiography I, Tina , “that I had become rock ’n’ roll.” Eventually, she would be crowned its queen.

Read: The perfect Aretha Franklin song

Before taking on that mantle—and emboldened by the confidence brought on by “Proud Mary”—Turner wrote her first hit song. The duo’s next mainstream smash, “Nutbush City Limits,” was released in 1973, and in it Turner draws from her own impressions of her rural hometown, Nutbush, Tennessee. Following that triumph, she became not only a world-class singer, performer, and feminist symbol; she was also a successful songwriter. Within three years of the victory of “Nutbush City Limits,” Turner finally broke away from Ike and went solo. She was 36, a hard age to start over as an entertainer; rather than fading, though, her career had just begun. The ’80s would see her revive herself yet again, and in so doing, conquer the world. As if to punctuate her accomplishments, Turner’s reinvention of “Proud Mary” received a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 2003, cementing its place in the pantheon of rock. But it’s always had a more intimate meaning to Turner. When asked by Haute Living this winter to do a little word association with some of her biggest hits, she responded to “Proud Mary” with a single word: freedom .

Throughout Turner’s decades-long dominance of the music world, the 81-year-old icon has had plenty of phases: R&B pioneer, rock insurgent, disco diva, movie star, pop legend. But in many ways, she’s still the steadfast protagonist of “Proud Mary,” the role she first owned 50 years ago. Her life has been filled with dizzying ups since her near death in 1968, but it hasn’t been without tribulation or tragedy, most recently the loss of her eldest son, Craig Raymond Turner, who took his own life in 2018 at the age of 59. However, like the character Fogerty created in “Proud Mary”—which seems like it could have been written with Turner in mind—she’s nurtured her hopes while weathering her hardships. “You know, every now and then I think you might like to hear something from us nice and easy. But there’s just one thing,” she says wickedly in her spoken-word intro to “Proud Mary.” “You see, we never ever do nothing nice and easy. We always do it nice and rough.”

• Artists add
• Creedence Clearwater Revival

48 Comments

Lyrics submitted by Nelly

Proud Mary Lyrics as written by John Cameron Fogerty

Lyrics © CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC

Lyrics powered by LyricFind

• Highest Rated
• Most Recent
• Oldest First

I know that lots of people are thinking about drogs, but I am not. I think it is about people who change their life immediately, because they just fed up with their stressful and slavish lifestyle. It doesn't matter if the "man" is a lover or your boss, you have to leave it if it has bad effect on you. They change everything and jump on Proud Mary's boat what is actually burning. Despite that they don't care at that point of their life, because they have to step into some risky situations to get out from this boring and bad period. And since the boat is keep on burning, they really need to be brave and left everything behind from this negative environment. The river is their lifeline and on this river they "don't have to worry", because a lots of nicer people waiting for them in the future. The song starts slow and then it is getting crazier and more rough. I think, this is the process how we start to hesitate about things and after that we just do it strong and confident (especially in the Tina Turner version). I love this song, it can help a lot in different situations in my life. So what we have to do is to "rolling and rolling" on this river.....

• No Replies Log in to reply

I always thought this site was created as a means for analyzing, disscussing, and exploring different opinions, in order to gain a better understanding of a particular song. Guess I was wrong. Seems like everytime I log on here all I see is people pointlessly bitching and fighting.

I'm sure everyone is sick and tired of having to read endless one-sided opinions on why this song isn't about drugs.

Just the same, I'm know many of you all have to be tired of seeing a drug reference everytime you look up a songmeaning.

The fact of the matter is, this site is Songmeanings.net. Everyone on here is fully entitled to their own fucking opinions right? No one should been slammed just for thinking this song is about drugs. Its stupid, pointless, and just plain sad to fight over the internet.

Enough of that now..

I would really love to believe that this song was writing about weed, but I find a hard time believing that myself. It seems to me that if it was writting solely about smoking marijuana, that there would be more lyrical clues, pretaining to specific expirences or perhaps how it feels like being high and such.

I get the impression that it about excaping the hustle and bustle of the city. Breaking away from low-paying part time jobs to expirence a simple, more fulfilling life close to nature on the River Boat Queen.

but hey like my mother always told me..

opinions are like assholes son, everyone has one, but some of them are full of shit.

• 2 Replies Log in to reply

If someone looking for marijuana why must leave the city as it available in those city than at the river side.<br /> <br /> Big wheel keep on turning = is refer to a river boat not related to weed.<br /> Proud Mary keep on burning = can be about smoking marijuana and can also be about river boat funnel.<br /> <br /> River boat queen = Queen is not refer to weed.Its more refer to the river boat called Proud Mary,as we address a titanic ship as she and the military giant carrier as she.<br /> <br /> Why must be more extreme to be label as a drug influence poetry(lyrics) nation and make others world feel like vomitting that English song lyrics must always be synonyms to drug.<br /> <br /> <br /> Here's the correct lyric, straight from the writer John Fogerty:<br /> |<br /> | "Sometimes I write words to songs because they sound cool to<br /> | sing. Sometimes the listener doesn't understand what I'm singing<br /> | because I'm dedicated to singing the vowel, having fun with the<br /> | word sounds coming out of my mouth. Cleaned a lot of plates in<br /> | Memphis, pumped a lot of pain down in New Orleans,' is a good<br /> | example. I think Tina Turner sang tane' instead of `pain,' as<br /> | in a contracted form of octane. But I knew what she meant,"<br /> | Fogerty said."

@SomethingFrosty I don't see how it is about drugs. You can have very abd life in the city WITHOUT the use of drugs, you know.<br /> <br /> But you are absolutely wrong. In America, we all have to have the same opinions. conformity is the rule of American society. Individual rights and needs mean nothing to anyone.<br /> <br /> We must all conform, respect and obey authority.<br /> <br /> That is the rule. That is the law.<br /> <br /> And if you don't then leave the country.

My husband and I just bought an old classic fiberglass houseboat. It’s a gorgeous old behemoth monster from the mid ‘70s. We live nearby and plan to moor it and sail it in and around the Mobile Alabama Delta River System. It’s a huge delta second only in size to the mighty Mississippi River Delta, to the West. The boat had no name so we struggled to come up with one until I awoke in my sleep one night with the name Proud Mary. The tune swirling in my head, I remembered this old song and how fitting it was to our boat and us. I came to find this forum about song meanings and some of these interpretations for Proud Mary are bizarre and I do get a kick out of the marijuana train of thought. But indeed I do think this song is about a guy seeking a simpler life. There’s only 3 short verses but they tell a complete story when you put the whole thing together. The guy leaves a GOOD job, but not that good, working for the man. He doesn't look back. He bounces around doing “simpler” things; Memphis, New Orleans etc… But this life is menial and meaningless and still not what he is looking for. And I love my husband’s interpretation of this next part…. He never saw the good side of the city, at least not until he hitched a ride on the riverboat queen. The good side of the city isn’t “uptown,” or the better neighborhoods. The good side of the city can only be seen at a distance, sailing AWAY from it on the river. If you were driving away in a car, to find a simpler life, you could only, figuratively, see the “good” side of the city in your rear view mirror! He finally found the simpler life he was searching for, on the river, away from the city all together. And no one has mentioned the interesting double entendre of “Bet you gonna find some people who live.” Of course people live on the river, but maybe also because they take it easy, they really know how to live (it up) and enjoy their simpler life too. You don’t have to worry ‘cause you have no money. The people on the river don’t have any money either. But since they consider themselves rich with the inner peace that life on the river gives them, they are happy and happy to give what they have. Maybe you’ll see us rollin’ on the river someday!

• 1 Reply Log in to reply

@justcyn You are living the dream! I would love to be living on a houseboat right now, instead of being stuck in a city. I enjoyed reading the interpretation.

This is absurd - Read some history. Steamboats particularly sternwheelers were originally wood powered. People on the river made money cutting and selling wood to them. The wood was green and did not burn well. To make it catch an accelerant was used. A barrel of Lard was kept in the engine road and every log dipped in it before being tossed in the firebox. At that time the largest maker of Lard was the "Proud Mary" lard company out of Chicago. This was confirmed thru very old black and white movies which clearly showed the loading of barrels of Proud Mary Lard and its use in the engine room.

This is really interesting. I am working on a small film project that touches on this song and about the life on the river. I have searched a good bit on your Proud Mary accelerant lard but find nothing useful so far. Can you forward any sites or links or leads that would point me to pertinent photos or the mentioned film of the Proud Mary barrels? I would VERY much appreciate learning more! Many thanks!

Okay, boys and girls, once again we are arguing over something that has already been published numerous times. First, the lyric is "pumped alot of 'TANE", refering to pumping gas. And John Fogerty has said that he was working on three songs at the same time, "Proud Mary", about a washer woman, "Riverboat", and "Rollin' on the River". The three ended up blending into each other, and "Proud Mary" became the name of the riverboat. Period. That's all there is, no drugs, just living on the river. Fogerty dicussed this at length in an interview with Jay Leno several years ago, and it's all been published.

• 3 Replies Log in to reply

he may have said that it had nothing to do with weed at the time, but at the time of his writing it im sure that all the references to weed had to have come from somewhere, maybe he used it as an analogy like how its really about him goin on a riverboat and shit, but the weed references are clearly there and i think if he came out and said that it was actually about leaving work and getting high and "rollin down the river" with other pothead friends of his, then people would be hard pressed to find a reason that thats not the real meaning of the song, just somethin to think about there

@msgelter fogery said "pane" Propane drivers pump a lot of propane.<br /> <br /> Tina changed it to "tane" go figure!

Proud Mary refers to a woman's genitals.

The song is about prostitution. "The Man" was her pimp. She left working for her pimp to hook on her own and found what, for a hooker, was a better life. Most other interpretations of this song cannot explain "Pumped a lot of pain". A. A hard working hooker is going to be in some pain from being pumped so often. A guy using a hooker is looking to relieve some kind of pain so this lyric has a double meaning, she is also pumping the John and his pain. "Cleaned a lot of plates" is about oral sex. A woman's labial lips when together look like a stack of plates so 'licking the plates clean' lets us know this hooker has branched out with her new found freedom and good life and is now doing women as well. "Big Wheel" is her John and his rhythmic humping is how the Wheel keeps on turning. So now we see clearly how "Proud Mary" is indeed her pussy which she is quite proud of and it's "burning" from so much sex. "Rolling" has long been slang for sexual intercourse. B. At the end she is trying to recruit more girls without money to become hookers. They will not have to worry, plenty of people on the river will give them money for sex.

Hitching a ride on the river queen is interesting. Fit in with everything else here it just seems to be saying that her lot really improved when she set up shop as a whore on a river showboat instead of just drifting around as a street hooker. But there is a way this could have been kind of a dig, with wild foreshadowing. *C.

*A: It's not 'pane and you don't pump propane anyway. Kudos to osubuckeye420 for thinking this could have been about pumping iron but he didn't tie it all together.

*B: Think "roll in the hay" among other things.

*C: If you know this band you know several things are true. They were from San Francisco, but pretended they weren't from San Francisco. Among themselves they were about the bitchiest band ever. The songwriter's brother, and also a bandmate, died of AIDS. So .... was he trying to take a little jab at someone by saying he hooked up to a River Queen? I don't know if the writer took it up the a.., I don't know if the guys in the band did. In the 60s and 70s you couldn't have had a career if the public knew. But in a song about prostitution maybe he was working in a message to the underground that yeah, some of the band went both ways or maybe they were just pure gay.

• 9 Replies Log in to reply

Dammit. Hawaiijack, you've got to be right! That's so obvious. How the hell were all so stupid as to think it was about a riverboat!! <br />

ok, indulge me for a minute... Bit of a geek alert going your way. <br /> <br /> Try this at home. For those of you who think with the left hand side of the brain (do a test online if you aren't sure - generally you are quite good at maths, taking words literally and being a bit of a bore, no offense intended) listen to this song and then do things associated with the right hand side of the mind (e.g. watch a film, a play or chat up a chick). <br /> <br /> The results are pretty amazing!!

Oh and the song is pretty good too! Took me ages to figure out what it was called, until a drunken karoake night somewhere in Toronto!!

It doesn't even sound like "pain", I only ever heard "tane" on the recording. Maybe you were listening to a really bad mp3?<br /> <br /> You could I suppose interepret "tane" in your meaning as a slightly coloquialised version of "tang" or "poontang".<br /> <br /> It was a highly entertaining interpretation, thanks for the laughs, but sheesh!!<br /> It reminded me of "Don Juan D'Marco" with Johnny Depp where he's doing the psych test telling the shrink what he sees in those big ink smudges on flash cards.<br /> <br />

I more or less agree with Jack from Hawaii. I thought it was about prostitution as well. With one correction.<br /> <br /> I always thought the line Tina Turner sings is slang:<br /> "I pumped a lot of 'tang down in New Orleans"<br /> ...as in poontang.<br /> Does it take a woman to spell this out...?<br /> Oh well, Google it.

@HawaiiJack WOW how did you come accross that meaning? I hope this link i provide will help clarify the true meaning for you Jack.... songfacts.com/detail.php hope this helps lol. The song is about a slave woman and a riverboat.

@HawaiiJack WOW how did you come accross that meaning? I hope this link i provide will help clarify the true meaning for you Jack...Hope this helps lol. The song is about a slave woman and a riverboat. songfacts.com/detail.php if the link doesnt work google proud mary song wiki and its like the 2nd or 3rd link down the list.

@HawaiiJack sorry Jack you might need to copy paste the link because clicking the link doesnt work got no idea why that happens?

@HawaiiJack What BS "pane" is propane. If you worked for the propane company you "pumped a lot of pane"

has anyone ever heard the butchering that Tina Turner did to this song? It's horrible. Tina, stick to your own stuff.

thats lies she sounds brilliant singing it sgt are you white or black if you dont kind answering im white and i love tina turner singing it she is my idol so please keep you comments to your self

@SgtPepperLHCB I cant believe she ruinded that song either it is terrible i agree.

proud mary was a boat

@jamesdean3155 You don't say!

Drugs? Please. CCR was probably the least drug-induced band of the time. All though they did there, experimenting they never performed high and Fogerty never wrote hi. He felt that the belief that drugs made people more creative was not only wrong but also sad. This song is simply a beautifully told story about live on the river. Don’t over think it.

I think it's hilarious that chris4420 found a quote about CCR (and John Fogerty specifically) being ANTI-DRUGS, and claims it's proof that this specific song is about smoking dope.

That's along the same line as interpreting the song from one or two words... taking a quote entirely out of context because it mentions Fogerty "dabbling with marijuana," completely ignoring the immediate follow-up, "but that was as far as it ever went."

Add your thoughts

Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.

Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!

• Artists - C
• Proud Mary Lyrics
• Artists - S
• Speedy Ortiz

More Featured Meanings

Most popular lyric tags

More creedence clearwater revival lyrics.

• Have You Ever Seen the Rain? Lyrics
• Fortunate Son Lyrics
• Bad Moon Rising Lyrics
• Lookin' Out My Back Door Lyrics
• Lodi Lyrics

Your browser is not supported for this experience. We recommend using Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or Safari.

CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL – PROUD MARY

Creedence Clearwater Revival – Proud Mary

You may also like.

JOE WALSH – TURN TO STONE

SCORPIONS – WIND OF CHANGE

CINDERELLA – SHELTER ME

This website uses modern construction techniques, which may not render correctly in your old browser. We recommend updating your browser for the best online experience.

Visit browsehappy.com to help you select an upgrade.

7 night Specialty Cruise

Indulge your senses in Proud Mary’s longest cruises on Australia’s longest single river. Our 7 night specialty cruises run 4 weeks of the year, speak to our team about our next 7 night cruise.

• Cruise Highlights
• Full Itinerary
• Getting There
• Enquire now

Come cruising...

Come cruising….. Embark upon one of our longest 7 night Murray River Specialty Cruises, aboard the intimate cruising vessel, the Proud Mary. Departing 4 weeks of the year our 7 night cruise dates are set at the start of each year ready for you to enjoy some extended cruising beyond our normal 2 and 5 night departures. Enquire now to see what dates have been selected for this year! Get ready to indulge your senses as we cast off to explore the Murray River's eco-system at its finest.

The 7 Night Specialty Cruises includes all meals. Let our brilliant chefs delight your senses with modern Australian and European cuisine made from the highest quality seasonal produce.

Abundant wildlife and magnificent scenery will be seen throughout your entire stay aboard. River Gums and Willows line the banks of this famous river and provide a perfect safe haven for birds and wildlife. Take in the towering cliffs and beautiful sandy beaches as the Proud Mary idly cruises by. At night, the Proud Mary's powerful floodlights provide a rare glimpse of nocturnal wildlife, especially birds such as night herons, owls and coots.

Lagoon cruises, on shore guided walks, an Australian themed bush barbeque with live entertainment, cruising through various locks and the Captain's Dinner make up just some of the highlights of this extravagant 7 night specialty cruise (more details on cruise highlights below).

For when you choose to retire to the private contemporary ensuite accommodation provided, all cabins onboard feature stunning river views so you can stay immersed in the beauty of nature.

7 night specialty cruise highlights may include:

Lagoon cruises

A journey aboard a small boat to cruise the River’s secluded lagoons and inlets, here you will view some of the 320 species of birdlife in this region and discover the intricacies of the ancient cliff face.

Revolution Motor Museum

Revolution Motor Museum features a Performance Car Museum with a range of American Muscle Cars, Bikes and Stationery Engines on display – Not only perfect for car enthusiasts but history buffs alike with South Australia's first ever taxi on display!

Almond Farm

Discover how this state of the art almond farm uses water-recycling technology to limit its direct impact on the river system and help secure the diverse ecosystem of the river.

Australian themed bush barbeque

As dusk falls, enjoy an evening around a blazing campfire. A delicious bush barbeque is prepared using local produce, including billy tea and damper, along with evening entertainment under the stars on the golden sands of the river bank.

Night cruising

Night cruising is a feature of all Proud Mary cruises. The Proud Mary’s powerful flood lights illuminate the graceful willows and dark waters as you cruise.

Ecological walks

Here you’ll discover the importance of flood plains to the river system. You will also see some of the last remaining evidence of ancient Aboriginal civilization, a huge canoe tree bearing the scar where bark was taken to make a canoe. Learn about Moorundie Creek, named after the Aboriginal tribe that lived here. In native dialect ‘moorundie’ means sand or sandy and is the site where the history of the area began in 1840, when explorer Edward John Eyre established a village named Sturt after the famous explorer navigator.

Explore ancient archaeological sites

Visit the site of ancient aboriginal rock art where your local indigenous guide will explain their meaning and significance. Ngaut Ngaut was a major meeting place for the tribes of the area and you’ll see where they prepared and cooked food at a ceremonial site that dates back thousands of years. The view from the top of the cliffs is astonishing with vistas that stretch for miles in every direction.

Live entertainment

After your Australian themed bush barbeque, enjoy live music from Proud Mary’s entertainer around a blazing campfire. Request a song and sing along as the music plays into the night.

Captain's Dinner

A five-course menu of choice featuring mouth-watering dishes based on modern Australian cuisine. Click here to see a sample menu . Enjoy the food, wine and atmosphere with your fellow passengers as the Captain visits every table and chats. It’s a chance to dress up a little and enjoy a gorgeous formal dinner.

Cruise though locks

Cruising through a lock on the Murray River is an unforgettable experience that offers a glimpse into the rich history and engineering feats of Australia's river system. As Proud Mary enters the lock, water levels start to rise or fall depending on the direction of the journey. It's fascinating to watch the lock doors close and the water fill or empty from the chamber creating a sense of anticipation and excitement as Proud Mary prepares to move on to the next section of the river. 

Banrock Station wetlands & winery

A must visit destination in the Riverland, Banrock Station is renowned for its award winning wines, picturesque vineyards, and stunning wetlands. The wetlands cover 2,500 hectares and are home to a diverse range of wildlife, including over 180 bird species. Explore the wetlands and enjoy a glass of wine all whilst taking in the breathtaking views that Banrock station has to offer.

Visit various river townships

The Murray River region is home to many charming towns offering a unique blend of history, natural beauty, and modern amenities. Proud Mary's 7 night cruises all visit Morgan, with the extended one way trip to or from Renmark also including Wakirie, Loxton Berri and Renmark.

Example Itineraries (3 options)

Cruise highlights murray bridge to morgan return, day 1: friday (s).

Your seven night cruise departs from Murray Bridge just 1 hour from Adelaide, where you will be welcomed aboard by the friendly Proud Mary Crew. Enjoy a beautiful supper at approximately 8.15pm as you cruise this evening and the Proud Mary's powerful floodlights illuminate the shore. It is a perfect opportunity to view the nocturnal animals of Australia in their natural habitat. Later the Proud Mary ties up for the night at Woodlane.

DAY 2: SATURDAY (B/L/D)

Your cruise continues upstream as you dine on your delicious breakfast before a mid-morning Proud Mary arrival in picturesque Mannum, the birthplace of the river boat trade. Here you may board the waiting coach for an interesting tour of the Historic Mannum including the Mannum Lookout. Your guide will provide you with information. Lunch will be served aboard the Proud Mary as you cruise upstream to Walker Flat. This evening is "Australiana Night" featuring typically Australian dishes. This will be followed by a guided Nocturnal Discovery Tour, an insight into abundant wildlife including the Southern Hairy Nosed Wombat. It is a perfect opportunity to view the nocturnal animals of Australia in their natural habitat.

DAY 3: SUNDAY (B/L/D)

The Proud Mary will depart Walker Flat early morning and cruises further upstream as you enjoy a leisurely breakfast. A delicious special New Year's feast will be served up for lunch whilst you cruise and enjoy the spectacular scenery. Mid-afternoon, once lunch has settled, you will experience one of the many highlights of your cruise as you pass through Lock 1 at Blanchetown. The Proud Mary moors overnight amongst the towering River Red Gums where you will enjoy another incredible dinner with a relaxed evening onboard.

DAY 4: MONDAY (B/L/D)

Depart your tranquil overnight mooring cruising toward Morgan. Mid-morning will be an informative talk by the Proud Mary Captain on the Majestic Murray River. Lunch will be served on board before arriving into the township of Morgan. In its heyday, Morgan was one of the busiest South Australian Murray River ports. After lunch you will board the Proud Mary coach to visit Waikerie, here you will see the painted silos, Waikerie gliding club and many more heritage sites of this riverside town. At the conclusion of your tour re-join the Proud Mary for a delicious dinner on board. Tonight is a chance to get the competitive juices flowing with a night of trivia.

DAY 5: TUESDAY (B/L/D)

This morning the Proud Mary will cruise further upstream as you enjoy your breakfast before returning to Morgan. Here you may board the coach to visit the many heritage sights of this once booming riverside town. Most of the historic buildings including the Customs house and Courthouse are located on Railway Terrace. You will reboard the Proud Mary prior to another wonderful onboard lunch and cruise through Lock 1 before securing at Sugar Shack. Enjoy a fantastic game of Bingo following a delicious dinner prepared by our resident Chef's.

DAY 6: WEDNESDAY (B/L/D)

Join the Captain for an early morning walk learning about the history of the area and also visit an authentic canoe tree. When back onboard we will depart Sugar Shack as you enjoy your breakfast & the spectacular views. Secure at Swan Reach and board your waiting coach for a tour to visit the Swan Reach Museum and Almond Farm plantations before returning to the Proud Mary prior to lunch. Relax on board and enjoy your lunch as Proud Mary cruises to Big Bend through the spectacular cliffs. Another highlight of your cruise is the guided tour aboard a small boat through the lagoons and inlets of Big Bend which you will enjoy mid-afternoon. This evening will be a gourmet barbeque on shore followed by live entertainment.

DAY 7: THURSDAY (B/L/D)

Whilst dining on another beautiful breakfast the Proud Mary continues downstream through some of the most spectacular scenery on the entire River Murray system. Soon after breakfast we arrive at Ngaut Ngaut – a historical Aboriginal site. Here with your Aboriginal tour guide you will discover carvings and paintings on cliff faces made 3,000 to 20,000 years ago. A truly incredible experience!

After reboarding the Proud Mary we will continue downstream the mighty Murray River throughout the afternoon before arriving at Mannum. Explore the Mannum township then get yourself ready for a formal Captain's Dinner. This evening you will join the Captain and Crew for cocktails and hors d'oeuvres followed by a stunning 5-course formal dinner.

DAY 8: FRIDAY (B/L/D)

Cruise to Woodlane whilst having breakfast. There, you will be joined by your guide for a tour of this fascinating area. Find some delicious treats at Ozzie Apricots and discover a 3rd generation family-run orchard. The orchard is on the beautiful River Murray at Mypolonga about 15km's from Murray Bridge

Right next to the Apricot farm is the Revolution Motor Museum where you will be taken on a private tour to see a wide range of American Muscle Cars, Bikes and stationery engines all on display. This museum has South Australia's first registered taxi and is filled with history and beauty, a must for all to see. Yet again a superb lunch awaits on board prepared by our resident chefs with fresh local produce. This afternoon there will be more spectacular scenery before the vessel ties up once more in Murray Bridge, the Captain and crew bid farewell to guests and new-found friends before disembarkation at 4.00pm.

*All itineraries are subject to change due to river and weather conditions.

On behalf of everyone at Proud Mary, enjoy your trip. If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact us on (08) 8406 4444.

Cruise highlights Murray Bridge to Renmark

Your seven night cruise departs from Murray Bridge just 1 hour from Adelaide, where you will be welcomed aboard by the friendly Proud Mary Crew.  Enjoy a buffet supper at approximately 8.00pm as you cruise this evening and the Proud Mary's powerful floodlights illuminate the shore.  It is a perfect opportunity to view the nocturnal animals of Australia in their natural habitat.  Later the Proud Mary ties up for the night at Woodlane.

DAY 2: SATURDAY (B.L.D)

Your cruise continues upstream as you breakfast on delicious buffet before a mid-morning Proud Mary arrival in picturesque Mannum, the birthplace of the river boat trade.  Here you may board the waiting coach for an interesting tour of the Historic Mannum.  Your guide will provide you with information.  Lunch will be served aboard the Proud Mary as you cruise upstream to Walkers Flat.  This evening is "Australiana Night" featuring typically Australian dishes.  Followed by a guided Nocturnal Discovery Tour, an insight into abundant wildlife including the Southern Hairy Nosed Wombat. It is a perfect opportunity to view the nocturnal animals of Australia in their natural habitat.

DAY 3: SUNDAY (B.L.D)

Depart early this morning and cruise upstream while enjoying a hearty breakfast.  Mid-morning pull into Ngaut Ngaut Conservation Park the site of an Archaeological Dig dating back over 8000 years. Re-join the Proud Mary & cruise upstream enjoying lunch before arriving at Swan Reach.   Meet the waiting coach for a journey to Swan Reach Museum and the Cudgee Almond farm.  Back on-board cruise to your overnight mooring at Sugar Shack. 

DAY 4: MONDAY (B.L.D)

Depart your tranquil overnight mooring and cruise towards Blanchetown & Lock 1.  Pass through Lock 1.  Mid-morning will be the captain's talk on the River Murray.  Lunch will be served on board before arriving in historic town of Morgan.  In its heyday, Morgan was one of the busiest South Australian Murray River ports.  The town is located on the great Elbow, North-west Bend on the River Murray.  Board the Proud Mary coach to visit the many heritage sights of this once booming riverside town.  Most of the historic buildings, including the customs house and courthouse are located on Railway Terrace.  Tonight, you will enjoy dinner and some fun with a Trivia Night.

DAY 5: TUESDAY (B.L.D)

This morning enjoy a tour of Morgan Township and museum before reboarding the Proud Mary.  Enjoy lunch on board before a pass through lock 2 and late afternoon arrival in Waikerie, where they boast more sunshine hours yearly than the famed Queensland Gold Coast.   The name Waikerie is said to mean "many wings" after giant swift moth "weikari", the name given by the original indigenous community.  It's an appropriate name, considering the teeming birds of the lagoons and wetlands that edge the river.  Waikerie was established in 1894 when its first settlers arrived by the paddle steamers.   Here you will enjoy a spectacular BBQ and entertainment.

DAY 6: WEDNESDAY (B.L.D)

This morning take a tour of Waikerie including Havenhand Chocolate's and maybe sample some of their produce.  Take a tour to the Banrock Station Winery & Wetlands with the Proud Mary coach. Banrock Station has committed itself to working towards improving the surrounding area.  By recreating the natural drying & flooding cycle of the wetland, it is once more full of life.  After a beautiful relaxing walk around this wonderful area and a scrumptious lunch, re-board the coach for a trip to the Historic Overland Corner Hotel. The hotel was purchased by the National Trust of South Australia after being erected in 1859. Reboard the Proud Mary and cruising upstream through Lock 3 and secure at Moorook. Tonight, enjoy a traditional roast dinner followed by a game's night.

DAY 7: THURSDAY (B.L.D)

This morning cruise further upstream to the historical township of Loxton while enjoying breakfast. Enjoy a stroll around the historical town and enjoy a visit to the Loxton Historical Village to reminisce of days gone by. Please note entrance fee to the village is at passengers own cost. Return to the Proud Mary and cruise while enjoying lunch and the spectacular scenery travelling through Lock 4 before arriving at the township of Berri. Her you will join the Captain and crew for cocktails, hors d'ouvers and a formal Captains Dinner.

DAY 8: FRIDAY (B.L)

This morning after breakfast, enjoy a stroll around Berri, a vibrant Riverland town.   Return to the Proud Mary and cruise the final leg of our journey through the Murray River National Park enjoying the superb buffet lunch prepared with fresh local produce.  This afternoon there will be more spectacular scenery before the vessel passes through Lock 5 and underneath the famous Paringa Bridge.  The bridge only opens twice daily at 9.30am & 2.30pm to allow passage of larger vessels and was first used by trains in 1927 with the last train operating in 1983. The Proud Mary will arrive at your final destination of Renmark.  The Captain and Crew will bid farewell to guests and our new found friends before disembarkation mid-afternoon.  Join our waiting coach for your transfer to Adelaide.

*All itineraries are subject to change due to river and weather conditions and change at short notice

Cruise highlights Renmark to Murray Bridge

Join the Proud Mary this evening in Renmark. Renmark features a gorgeous riverfront with plenty of area for picnics or playing sport and also includes floating wharf platforms, lookouts and historic monuments. Renmark was established in 1887 by the Chaffey brothers as an irrigation settlement. The town of Renmark takes its name from the Aboriginal word 'red mud' and was proclaimed in 1904. You will be welcomed aboard by the friendly Proud Mary crew. Enjoy a buffet supper from approximately 8:00 pm.

DAY 2: SATURDAY (BLD)

This morning we depart Renmark to pass the Paringa Bridge which opens twice daily, once at 9.30am and once at 2.30pm. Paringa Bridge was first used by trains in 1927 and the last train to use the bridge was in 1983. Pass through Lock 5 before reaching your first stop at Berri. Enjoy a stroll this morning through the main street enjoying the magnificent scenery and the historic monuments. Reboard the Proud Mary and pass through Lock 4 on the way to the historical township of Loxton. This evening is "Australiana Night" featuring typical Australian dishes. Tonight, we will have a guest speaker providing an interesting talk on a special subject.

DAY 3: SUNDAY (BLD)

Depart Loxton and cruise downstream arriving at Moorook. Continue your journey downstream to Kingston on the Murray while enjoying a sumptuous lunch on board. At Kingston on the Murray you will meet the Proud Mary Coach and take a tour of Banrock Station Winery and Wetlands. Banrock Station has committed itself to working towards improving the surrounding area. By recreating the natural drying and flooding cycle of the wetland, it is once more full of life. After a relaxing walk around this wonderful area, reboard the waiting coach to the Proud Mary to Overland Corner. Cruise from the famous Overland Corner hotel; a historic hotel onto Waikerie. Moor overnight at Waikerie while enjoying a scrumptious dinner and some fun with a game's night.

DAY 4: MONDAY (BLD)

Enjoy another hearty breakfast, board the Proud Mary coach for a guided tour of the township of Waikerie and the loca area.   Here they boast more sunshine hours yearly than the famed Queensland Gold Coast! The name Waikerie is said to mean 'many wings', after the giant swift moth 'weikari', the name given by original indigenous community. It's an appropriate name, considering the teeming birds of the lagoons and wetlands that edge the river. Waikerie was established in 1894 when its first settlers arrived by paddle steamer.  This afternoon cruise past Lock 2 and onto the historical township of Morgan where you will moor overnight. Enjoy some videos after dinner.

DAY 5: TUESDAY (BLD)

In its heyday, Morgan was one of the busiest South Australian Murray River ports. The town is located on the Great Elbow, North-West Bend on the River Murray. Board the Proud Mary coach to visit the many heritage sights of this once booming riverside town. Most of the historic buildings, including the customs house and courthouse, are located on Railway Terrace.  Re-join the Proud Mary cruising downstream through Lock 1, the first lock & weir to be constructed on the River Murray.  Construction began in 1915 and was completed in 1922. Cruise downstream towards Sugar Shack where you will secure overnight. Join our Captain for an early evening ecological walk around the station to discover the importance of the surrounding floodplains in the River System.

DAY 6: WEDNESDAY (BLD)

Depart Sugar Shack and continue downstream while enjoying a hearty breakfast, past Moorundie the site of the first white township in the area in 1841. Mid-morning arrive Swan Reach and board your waiting coach for a tour to visit the local museum and huge Almond Farm. Re-join the Proud Mary before continuing downstream and arriving at Big Bend where you will marvel at the staggering cliff formations.  A highlight of your cruise is a guided cruise lead by an ecologist aboard a small boat through the lagoons and inlets of Big Bend. This evening there is a traditional Australian barbecue on shore followed by live Aussie entertainment around a blazing campfire (subject to fire restrictions).

DAY 7: THURSDAY (BLD)

Depart early this morning and cruise downstream while enjoying a hearty breakfast. This morning pull in to Ngaut Ngaut Conservation Park, the site of an archaeological dig dated back over 8000 years.  Here with your Aboriginal tour guide you will discover carvings and paintings on cliff faces made 3,000 to 20,000 years ago. Once again on board the Proud Mary enjoy a delicious lunch prepared by the Proud Mary chefs as you cruise before arrival at Mannum.  This evening join the Captain and crew for cocktails, hors d'oeuvres and a formal Captain's Dinner.

DAY 8: FRIDAY (BL)

*All itineraries are subject to change due to river and weather conditions and change at short notice. On behalf of everyone at Proud Mary, enjoy your trip. If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact us on (08) 8406 4444 .

Getting there...

Murray bridge departure .

For the Cruise highlights Murray Bridge to Morgan return & Cruise highlights Murray Bridge to Renmark

The Proud Mary departs from Murray Bridge, just an hour from Adelaide. Return coach transfers are available to take you to the wharf at Clark Street Car Park where you will board the vessel. For self-drive passengers, secure undercover lock-up garaging facilities are available adjacent to the wharf. Embarkation is available from 7.00pm.

Upon arrival, make your way to the vessel where our crew will meet you for check-in. After that, our Cruise Director will ask you to drive your vehicle to the garaging facility just a few minutes from the wharf where your vehicle will be securely locked away and our coach will bring you back to the boat. Cost is $140.

Coach transfers

These are available to and from Murray Bridge at the small cost of $60 each way ($120 return). The coach departs from the Adelaide Central bus station, 85 Franklin Street. Check-in is 30 minutes prior to departure. For directions to Adelaide Central Bus Station please contact reservations 1800 677 683 or +61 8 8406 4444.

• Friday and Sunday coach departure times from Adelaide for cruises departing from Murray Bridge – 6:00pm
• Friday and Sunday coach arrival times into Adelaide for cruises disembarking in Murray Bridge – 5:30pm

Self-drive passengers

Travelling from Adelaide, South Australia to Murray Bridge – Take the South Eastern freeway out of Adelaide to the Murray Bridge exit. Carry on into Murray Bridge and turn right at the third set of traffic lights. This is East Street with the Bridge Port Hotel on the corner. Turn left onto Olympic Drive, left onto Wharf Road and slightly left onto Clark Street leading to the Clark Street public car park.

Travelling from the Australian Eastern States to Murray Bridge – After travelling through Tailem Bend take the Murray Bridge exit and continue onto the township over the bridge. Take the 1st left once off the bridge. This is East Street with the Bridge Port Hotel on the corner. Turn left onto Olympic Drive, left onto Wharf Road and slightly left onto Clark Street leading to the Clark Street public car park. 

Renmark Departure 

Embarkation.

Embarkation is from 7pm at Renmark Wharf, Renmark on Friday 19 January 2024. For passengers arriving earlier than 7pm we ask that you assist us by not boarding the vessel prior to this time as our crew will be preparing the facilities for your comfort

Passengers with vehicles to be garaged should arrive at the garaging facility located at 1-5 Jaensch Road, Murray Bridge by 12pm where a Proud Mary representative will meet you and your vehicle will be securely locked away. The Sealink Travel Group coach will meet you at the garaging facility at 12.30pm for your transfer to Renmark. Please see Proud Mary coach transfers for additional information. On the completion of your cruise, you will be collected from the Clark Street Car Park, Murray Bridge by the "Proud Mary" coach at approximately 4pm for your transfer to the garaging facility at Murray Bridge where you will collect your vehicle.

Proud Mary coach transfers

Transfers for embarking or disembarking in Renmark / Murray Bridge are operated by the Sealink Travel Group / Proud Mary Coach.

The Sealink Travel Group Coach departs from the Adelaide Central Bus Station on 85 Franklin Street (Bay 2) at 11.30am sharp ( please check-in at 11am with the Coach Captain ), via Murray Bridge before arriving at the Renmark Wharf, Renmark at approximately 3.00pm. Please note the coach must leave on time, should you be unable to make the departure time, alternative arrangements to get to Renmark will have to be made. You will have some free time to explore Renmark prior to boarding the Proud Mary vessel at 7pm. On the completion of your cruise, you will be collected from the Clark Street Car Park, Murray Bridge by the 'Proud Mary' coach at approximately 4.15pm for your transfer to Adelaide Central Bus Station where you will arrive at approximately 5.45pm.

Directions to Jaensch street garaging facility, Murray Bridge

Travelling from adelaide.

Take the South Eastern freeway out of Adelaide to the first Murray Bridge exit. Turn right onto Swanport Rd then turn left onto Joseph St, turn right onto Sturt Reserve Rd and turn right onto Jaensch Rd

Travelling from the Eastern States

After travelling through Tailem Bend take the Murray Bridge exit and continue onto the township over the bridge. Take the first left once off the bridge. Turn right onto Swanport Rd then turn left onto Joseph St, turn right onto Sturt Reserve Rd and turn right onto Jaensch Rd.

My wife Kerry and myself were on the 5 day Indulgence Cruise that departed on the 19th March. Everything on the cruise was perfect in every way and the crew were all outstanding. I’m so glad that we were on board. I find myself constantly telling others about it and… Geoff & Kerry, Apr 2023

More testimonials