Songfacts®:

• Fogerty assumes a character in this song, but in many ways it relates to him:
  
  Wrote a song for everyone
  Wrote a song for truth
  
  He grew up middle class and never spent time on the county welfare line, but always empathized with the downtrodden, giving them voice in his songs.
• "Wrote a Song for Everyone" was first released on August 3, 1969, on Creedence Clearwater Revival's Green River. At just under 5 minutes, it's the longest song on the album. The song was released again in 1986 on Volume 2 of the Chronicle compilation album. In 2013, CCR frontman John Fogerty released a new version of the song on his ninth solo studio album, also titled Wrote a Song for Everyone. This version features Miranda Lambert and Tom Morello.
• Fogerty wishes he'd recorded the original version of the song differently. An infamous perfectionist, he detects a "quirkiness" in it that bothers him (though no one else seems to notice).
• Fogerty destroyed all copies of the first version of the song because he never wanted any of his outtakes to make it into the public's hands. This has been a regular practice of the perfectionist throughout his career.
• Jeff Tweedy of Wilco has cited this as a song that had a profound influence on him. A huge Fogerty fan, Wilco credits him with forming the foundation of the Americana genre.