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John Fogerty is in on the joke.
The Creedence Clearwater Revival singer was a good sport when iHeartRadio approached him at the 2025 iHeartRadio Music Festival presented by Capital One in Las Vegas on Saturday (September 20) with a reference to an often-misheard lyric to one of CCR's most popular songs.
"John, can I ask you where the bathroom is?" iHeartRadio wondered as he walked by, leading him to offer a bit of helpful direction: "There's a bathroom on the right."
While this may seem like an innocuous exchange at first watch, it's actually an allusion to a long-held misconception about the 1969 CCR song "Bad Moon Rising." A line in the chorus, where he sings, "there's a bad moon on the rise," is often misquoted as "there's a bathroom on the right."
In a 2023 interview with Forbes, Fogerty explained how fans have shown up at concerts holding up signs with the misheard lyric and instead of being upset that people didn't hear his words correctly, he played into it during the performance. However, there was one problem.
"A lot of them have 'bathroom on the right' with a little arrow pointing to the right. So it always gets confusing. Do they mean my right or their right?" he said, laughing. "When I'd sing that, I'd point to my right. But, like any good first-grade teacher knows, you have to point to the student's right. So nowadays I actually point to my life, which is their right!"
Fogerty later re-recorded the hit track for his latest album Legacy: The Creedence Clearwater Revival Years, a project released last month full of re-recorded tracks from the band's height of popularity that serves as a way for him to take back the rights to his music.
The veteran musician took the stage at the iHeartRadio Music Festival Saturday night, treating the Vegas crowd to a lengthy set of CCR classics and even turning the performance into a fun family jam with a guitar battle with his son Shane Fogerty. He joined a star-studded list of artists who wowed the crowd and viewers tuning in over the course of the event including Ed Sheeran, Tate McRae, Maroon 5, LL COOL J, Mariah Carey, Bryan Adams, Diplo, Jelly Roll, Bailey Zimmerman, BigXthaPlug, Justice, Sammy Hagar, GloRilla, Tim McGraw and The Offspring.
In case you missed it, or just want to relive it all again, fans can tune in to an iHeartRadio Music Festival special, including highlights from the music mega weekend, on Hulu on Thursday, October 2nd.