Joy of My Life

The tenth track on Blue Moon Swamp, "Joy of My Life" “Joy of My Life” was written, produced and arranged by John Fogerty, engineered by John Lowson and mixed by Bob Clearmountain. It's a conversational song about his wife Julie, and the first love song John Fogerty has written unless "Long As I Can See the Light" is counted. The tune started to evolve in 1991 when Fogerty attended the Oshkosh aviation show in Wisconsin. When the organizers asked "How's Julie?" Fogerty always answered "Well' she's the joy of my life". Then the organizers: "You're always saying 'She's the joy of my life'. You should write a song." After getting serious with the dobro in 1992, Fogerty wrote the riff for the song at the Kern River draining an area of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains northeast of Bakersfield in California. The words started coming after returning back home, putting the kids down and lying in bed with his wife.[1][2] Fogerty also stated he sings "Joy of My Life" to his wife every night.[3]

• Dobro, bouzouki (Irish), acoustic guitar, vocals: John Fogerty
• Bass: Bob Glaub
• Drums: Kenny Aronoff
• Claves, tambourine: Luis Conté

[2]

"Joy of My Life" is a reasonably popular and enduring live song. John Fogerty played "Joy of My Life" for the public for the first time as a surprise number in a private concert at the school of the kids of the Fogertys before the album was out. Fogerty only accompanied himself with the dobro. His wife didn't know anything about the song before that night. As for the regular concerts, the world premiere took place on the opening leg of the 1997 Blue Moon Swamp World Tour at the Fillmore in San Francisco on May 18th, 1997. The song was delivered in each concert of the Blue Moon Swamp and Premonition Tours in 1997-1998. "Joy of My Life" also appears on the Premonition concert DVD which came to stores in 1998. Fogerty also played an acoustic version of "Joy of My Life" during the interview for Album Network in Burbank, California, on May 12th, 1997, and also on the radio on July 26th, 2009, when the Italian public radio RAI broadcast a part of Fogerty's concert live in Lucca. The song made a short return to the concert programming during the US legs of the Deja Vu All Over Again Tour in autumn 2004, 2009 and 2012. In fall 2013 an electric guitar solo by Devon Pangle was added to the arrangement of the concert version.[2] It was played the last time in April 2022[4] and was played 225 times overall.[5]

On March 22, 2022, country singer Chris Stapleton released his version of the song as a single.[6][7][8][9] The song was originally included on his 2020 album Starting Over.[10] After being released as a single it charted at number 43 on the US Country chart.[11]