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Down On The Corner (WORD)
Down On The Corner (PDF)
The songsheet is in the same key but has been arranged slightly differently for BUG!
"Down on the Corner" peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 on 20 December 1969. In Canada, the single reached No. 4 in December 1969, and No. 5 in New Zealand. The song performed better in much of Continental Europe, where it made number 2 in Germany, number 9 in Austria, number 8 in the Netherlands, number 17 in Flemish-speaking Belgium and number 6 in French-speaking Belgium than in the United Kingdom, where it stalled at number 31.
Songwriter John Fogerty explained how the lyrics were derived: “[I] was kind of inspired by seeing an advertisement in the paper one day,” he says. “It was an ad from Disney that said in great big letters ‘Winnie the Pooh’. Something in my brain said ‘Winnie the Pooh and the Pooh Boys’. Obviously, that was close to ‘Willy and the Poor Boys’. As I began to develop this idea it turned into music in that weird mystical, almost uncontrollable way, music comes to songwriters. Winnie the Pooh is still my favorite character who I’ve shared with my daughter Kelsy since the day she was born, though she's growing out of it. But I'm not.”
The song makes reference to a harmonica, washboard, a kazoo, a Kalamazoo guitar, and a gut bass. In a 1969 appearance on Cass Elliott Variety Hour, the band performed the song as Willy and the Poor Boys.