Searchlight by John Fogerty

Album: Centerfield (1985)

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Songfacts®:

"Searchlight," the first song on Side 2 of Centerfield, was inspired when Fogerty was driving to Lake Havasu, Arizona. He passed a road sign reading, "Searchlight nine miles," a phrase he scribbled into the notebook of song titles that he always kept with him.
The music of "Searchlight," Fogerty says, references Jody Reynolds' "Endless Sleep."
Fogerty wrote in his memoir Fortunate Son: My Life, My Music, that the song is about being lost, and the song's metaphor is "himself."

Comments: 2

Linda Ours from Gloucester, VaThis is a favorite of mine! Totally agree with Mr. Mitchell from Tennessee. :) I'm pretty sure that the line before the last chorus is incorrect in this rendering, though. I have the album with the printed lyrics; unfortunately, it's not at hand where I can check this, but I distinctly remember seeing (and hearing) the line as "The face that smiles back is me" (not "at me"). It's an important difference: "is me" makes it really spooky . . . "at me" not nearly as much. (The copy I have is from the early months of the release, though, before "Zanz Kant Danz" was replaced as "Vanz Kant Danz." I suppose it's possible that this line in "Searchlight" might have been tweaked for subsequent pressings too?)
Matthew Mitchell from Memphis, TnOne of his best songs. I listened to it over and over. A rock and roll classic.

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