Fogerty sat on the lyrics for a while. In the end, the song came together in a matter of hours, the same day Fogerty got his discharge papers from the U.S. Army in 1967. "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. By the time I hit 'Rolling, rolling, rolling on the river,' I knew I had written my best song. It vibrated inside me," Fogerty said.