The Mellencamp Episode with Author David Masciotra

by Carl Wiser

Exploring the music and life of John Mellencamp with David Masciotra, author of Mellencamp: American Troubadour.



In this episode of the Songfacts Podcast, we discuss the music and life of John Mellencamp with David Masciotra, author of Mellencamp: American Troubadour. Mellencamp has a reputation for being a bit... prickly, but David saw a different side of him when he was invited to Mellencamp's Indiana studio to conduct an interview. He's one of the few journalists to get such an invitation.

There's a lot to be learned from Mellencamp's music, especially when it comes to navigating modern times and reflecting on what's really important in life. He started out using the name "Johnny Cougar" but gradually freed himself of that shackle by becoming wildly successful, giving him the power to call his own shots. His famous songs like "Jack & Diane" and "Small Town" have remarkable staying power, and we discuss those here. But as Masciotra explains, there are some hidden gems in his vast catalog that are well worth a listen. We also look into a great Mellencamp mystery: In "Cherry Bomb," is he singing, "That's when a sport was a sport," or, "That's when a smoke was a smoke"?


Getting Invited To The Mellencamp Compound

Yeah, it is a difficult invitation to receive, if I can say that without sounding too self-indulgent. So in the first edition of my book, I did not interview John Mellencamp. I interviewed several of his band members, several of his longtime associates, but he did not personally agree to give an interview. And then, the University Press of Kentucky published the book and mailed him a complimentary copy in the hope that he would read it and perhaps even enjoy the experience. It just sat at his recording studio in Nashville, Indiana, until two fans outside of two separate concerts that he performed, one in Iowa and one in Missouri, told him, "You have to read this book, Mellencamp: American Troubadour." That it is a serious and thoughtful study and exploration of his music and his painting, and that the author attempts to connect his music to larger sociopolitical and cultural issues, particularly in the Midwest.

So, those two endorsements sufficiently intrigued him that he went and read the book that he knew had already been waiting for him, and the next thing I knew, I received a phone call from his manager relaying the message that John Mellencamp was grateful for the book and that he enjoyed reading it, and that I could come and check out the studio sometime. So, being the consummate writer and journalist, I immediately asked, "Well, when I make the visit, can I conduct an interview?" And they agreed to it. So now, the University Press of Kentucky is putting out an updated paperback edition of the book in May, which will include a chapter about that experience.


Meeting Mellencamp

It was so exciting because I discovered Mellencamp's music when I was 12 or 13 years old. I was playing basketball with a friend and his older brother put on a cassette tape of American Fool [1982, Mellencamp's breakthrough album], and from the opening notes of "Hurts So Good," I fell in love with Mellencamp's music, fell in love with rock and roll.

He didn't record American Fool in the recording studio in Indiana, but it was surreal sitting there waiting for him knowing that this is where so much of the music that has meant so much to me and millions of other people originated. And on top of it, I was sitting there having a root beer with Carlene Carter, who was recording music with him at the time and rehearsing to go out on tour with him.1 It was quite inspiring because I was sitting in a headquarters of creativity and looking at the souvenirs of a life spent in devotion to music and art and to the amplification of his own voice. So then, when he finally walked in, he was exactly as I would have expected. He had a cigarette dangling from his mouth and a pompadour like Elvis Presley. And one of the first things he said to me was, "It's a good book."

So in his own plain-spoken, simple way, he gave me a great moment, and what followed was one of the best conversations I've ever had. We spent about two hours together, in dialogue, and then I was able to watch he and his band, along with Carlene Carter, run through a few classic songs like "Rain On The Scarecrow" and "Paper In Fire" to rehearse for their upcoming tour. They were about a week away from going out on tour.


What's Mellencamp Like?

When we sat down for the interview, he said, "What do you got, about 20 minutes?" And I said, "However long you would like," and he said, "Great! That means we're done, because I fucking hate interviews."

So Mellencamp, perhaps for some people, is a little tough to take because he certainly is unvarnished and unguarded. But I found that refreshing and I found him a really honest and engaging and passionate guy who didn't censor himself and who, despite having a reputation as being quite surly and unfriendly, was really generous with his time and willing to discuss just about anything.


Does The Mellencamp Compound Have A Cool Name Like Paisley Park Or Graceland?

The recording studio is called Belmont Mall, but there isn't really any grandeur in comparison to Prince or Elvis. Speaking of Elvis, though, there is a parking space in the recording studio with a space reserved for Elvis, because Mellencamp said, "Just in case the rumors and conspiracy theories are true, that Elvis is alive, we want him to know that he's welcome to show up here anytime."

To get to the estate, you drive through the small town of Nashville, which is just outside of Bloomington. It's a very rural and pastoral town. If you've seen the Tim Burton Batman movie, when Batman leads Vicki Vale, played by Kim Basinger, through the woods to the bat cave - that's what the drive to the studio is like. You're on this very narrow, rural route surrounded by forestry, and I don't know what would have occurred if there was any oncoming traffic because it's one of the most narrow roads I've ever driven. And then you turn into a little driveway and it's just this modest, green house that he converted into a recording studio in the 1980s.

When I pulled in, I could hear the band running through "Rain On The Scarecrow," so I knew I was in the right place. I'm not ashamed to admit I'm a big fan in addition to a journalist and a critic, so it was a magical experience pulling into that driveway and arriving at the place where Scarecrow was recorded, where Lonesome Jubilee was recorded. The epicentre for Mellencamp's music and artistry.


Did Mellencamp Ever Move Out Of Indiana?

He lived in New York briefly after first acquiring a record deal, and he didn't like it. To use his description, it felt like a clique with everyone trying to outperform each other in terms of the cool and the hip factor. And he couldn't find the right inspiration for songwriting in New York. It wasn't until he went back to Seymour, Indiana - the town where he grew up - and got a small apartment, that he could begin writing songs.

So he's a unique artist in that respect. He always derived his inspiration from remaining in Indiana and remaining very close to the town where he grew up - the famous small town, like the song says.


Chestnut Street Incident

Mellencamp's debut album, released under the name "Johnny Cougar," was Chestnut Street Incident in 1976. It's pretty bad, as Mellencamp himself has said. Half of the album is cover songs (including "Jailhouse Rock" and "Oh, Pretty Woman") and the rest originals, including "Chestnut Street," a poor Bob Seger simulation.

Chestnut Street is the main street in Seymour, Indiana, and it is an objectively bad record. He probably put it best during one of my conversations with him. He said, "If you only listened to my first record and know nothing that came after that, you would think, why did this guy ever continue?"

He got a record deal thinking that he would only be a singer. He hadn't written any songs, but the record company and his management told him singer-songwriters were in high demand. People like Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and all the rest. So he really had to learn his craft.

In that song "Chestnut Street," you could see him exploring some of the subject matter in terms of lyrics that would define his career: life in small towns, particularly working-class life. Struggles with the highs and lows of ordinary American lives. But, many of the songs just fail to register in terms of any type of artistic skill or thoughtful approach.

When I interviewed his longest-running bandmate, Mike Wanchic, his rhythm guitarist, Wanchic said, "We knew that the songs weren't any good, so what we aspired to do was improve our ratio with every record. So with Chestnut Street Incident, maybe only one out of the 10 songs was any good, but with the next record, maybe we could improve it to three or four."

If you listen to Greetings From Asbury Park, Springsteen's debut record, there are so many great songs on that record. You listen to The Beatles' debut - so many great songs. You listen to Led Zeppelin's first record, it just hits you like a knockout punch. It's magical to listen to those records and to consider that level of talent, but there's something perhaps even more inspiring and enlivening about following the career of someone like John Mellencamp, who worked hard to discover his craft, discover his own voice, and exercise and amplify it in a way that would entertain and move and provoke and inspire people. In a way, it's more democratic because it makes one consider how we all have boundless potential. If we dedicate ourselves to whatever craft we choose, we can perhaps grow into artists or journalists or professionals who can also excel.


Getting From Johnny Cougar To John Mellencamp

When he signed his first record deal, he had no awareness that they were going to demand that he change his name. He in fact found out when he looked at the cover art for his first record, the one you referenced just a moment ago, and he said, "What is this Johnny Cougar?" He said, "First of all, Cougar is embarrassing. I mean, why would anyone call me Cougar?" Then he said, "Secondly, nobody's ever called me Johnny in my whole life. I've always been John. I want to use my real name, John Mellencamp." And they said, "We can't sell a guy named John Mellencamp. We could sell a guy named Johnny Cougar." And he said, "Well, I don't care. I want to use John Mellencamp." And they said, "Well, if you don't agree to go by Johnny Cougar, you can go back to Indiana and do whatever it is you were doing there because we won't release the record."

So, with that ultimatum, he begrudgingly surrendered. And as he gained more success and more popularity and therefore more cachet and authority over his own career, he would eventually, in various stages, record and tour under his own name.


"Jack & Diane"

"Jack & Diane," it's his only #1 hit, and it's also a song that when he first finished recording it, he hated. He was going to eliminate it from the record and his entire band kind of surrounded him in a circle and said, "This is a great song and we're very passionate about it. We think people will love it." And they convinced him to leave it on the record.

So he has jokingly said, "That just shows you how much I know about what songs will become hits."

Originally, he wrote it about an interracial couple. Race relations and racism is a bit of an obsession with Mellencamp. He's written many, many songs about those subjects, and "Jack & Diane" was going to be the first, but he couldn't quite tell the story the way he thought it needed to be told. So the more he simplified the lyrics, the better the song worked. He removed some of those racial details and some of those other storytelling details, which perhaps was for the best, because one of the reasons the song resonates so much is that Jack and Diane is pretty much any high school teenage couple. I was in a "Jack and Diane" relationship. All my friends were in "Jack and Diane" relationships. It's one of those songs of universal applicability and relatability.

But when he finished recording it, he didn't want to put it on the record. His band members talked him into leaving it on the record. And then it was the fans of the song that convinced him to like it and appreciate it himself because he would hit the stage and the fans would just take over singing it.

I argue in the book that it's actually quite a sophisticated song in terms of its musicality. It's this dynamic and dramatic blend of down-home folk acoustic music and power-riff rock and roll. And even though he kept working to simplify the lyrics and make them more vague, it captures how life is almost always simultaneously triumphant and melancholic. Almost always joyful and sad.

"Life goes on long after the thrill of living is gone" is certainly not a happy-go-lucky sentiment. But even as this couple is having fun and experiencing the thrill of romance, there's this underlying element of sadness, the awareness that their youth and perhaps their youthful, carefree quality, will soon come to an end and adulthood will bring its own joys, but it will also bring its own responsibilities and burdens. So it's actually a pretty complicated song about the human experience.


"Jack & Diane" Music Video

He had a video for a song called "I Need A Lover" that he recorded for an Australian TV production. And when MTV started, "I Need A Lover" was one of the first videos they played just because it existed. Nobody else was making music videos. It was kind of a similar approach with "Jack & Diane." MTV was in its embryonic stage and record companies and recording artists weren't putting much thought or investment in videos because they didn't know if they would catch on. They didn't know if they would have any popularity. So, that cheaply produced music video for "Jack & Diane" with the different boxes of images emerging into the foreground, which now appears really charming and really captures the simplicity of the song, was just an afterthought. It was just a lucky accident.


Writing About Springsteen Vs. Writing About Mellencamp

I grew up in a small town - no pun intended - Lansing, Illinois, right on the Illinois-Indiana border. That's one of the reasons why Mellencamp's music resonated with me so strongly: I recognized the characters, the subject matter, in my own life, my own surrounding.

From the earliest age, I can remember I had an interest in writing, and I began writing after graduating from the University of St. Francis, a small college in Joliet, Illinois, for the Joliet Herald News - a small newspaper. And since then, I've written for a wide variety of national publications, like Salon and Los Angeles Review of Books and the music journal No Depression. Right now I live in a small town in Indiana with my wife, Sarah, and I teach at Indiana University Northwest. I've written five books total. Working On A Dream: The Progressive Political Vision of Bruce Springsteen was my first book. It came out in the year 2010, and writing that book was different from the approach I took with the Mellencamp book because when I wrote Working On A Dream, there were already 18 or 19 biographies of Springsteen in print. So, I thought how I could make a unique contribution to the study of Bruce Springsteen's music was blending my two biggest interests and passions, which were for politics and for rock-and-roll music, and use Springsteen's music - particularly his music that deals with political and social and economic class issues - as a predicate to explore American politics and American political culture. It's a book that was, in a way, a little ahead of its time because now that type of writing has become very popular. But when I did it, it wasn't nearly as prevalent.

When I decided to write a book about John Mellencamp, and when the University Press of Kentucky offered me a publication deal for it, I wanted to take a more straightforward biographical approach and deal with Mellencamp's life more thoroughly than I did with Springsteen's life. The book on Springsteen was more of just music criticism and analysis. And I also wanted to inject my own experience living in a small town in the Midwest into the exploration of Mellencamp's music because his music, although it can have universal appeal and he has admirers all around the world, is so much anchored in the American Midwest that I wanted the book to act as not only a biography of John Mellencamp and a study of his music but an impressionistic look at the American heartland and the certain culture that exists in small towns in states like Indiana and Illinois.


"Small Town"

"Small Town" is one of Mellencamp's most enduring, and I think best songs. He wrote it in 1984. He was with his aunt, and he was doing laundry. He was looking out the window and the song just came to him. He wanted to write a song about his experience and he wanted to write a song that would tell people you don't have to live in New York or Los Angeles, or even Chicago to have a fulfilling life. That really resonated with me because that's exactly how I felt and how I still feel.

Mellencamp said that all he did was look out his window and tell the truth, and in this particular case, it was truth that made people feel good about themselves. Sometimes he's tried to tell the truth in other songs, and perhaps it's a truth that's a little uglier or a little harder to take, and that might anger some people, but he said that the truth is the truth and the truth is good. Whether you put it in an angry box or a happy box, the truth is the truth and therefore it's important and it's good.

"Small Town" is an immensely important song in the recent history of American music because of exactly what he said: It celebrates the life that one can live in a town that is off the cultural map. And it affirms the dignity and integrity and value of the people who reside within those towns. When he wrote it, it wasn't his intention to become the "Voice of the Heartland" or the keeper of the small town, but with all due respect to Mr. Mellencamp, I don't think that he gets to decide. Bob Dylan said that he didn't want to become the voice of his generation in the '60s. Well, once art exists outside the wider culture, it really becomes out of the control of the creator and it becomes something that embeds itself in the lives of the listeners. And for me, it affirmed the value and the dignity and the relevance of where I lived.

Other writers have discussed that. For example, Chuck Klosterman, who's a brilliant pop culture writer and music critic, in his book, Detroit Rock City, which is about being a young heavy-metal fan while living in South Dakota, he writes about how Mellencamp was the one non-heavy-metal artist that he loved because he felt that Mellencamp not only understood people like him and those living in South Dakota, but celebrated him, and he was unique in that respect. So, that's what the song has meant to me.

In my book, I try to connect what Mellencamp accomplished in that song and what he was able to accomplish by remaining in Indiana with other artists of various mediums who did the same thing. Painters like Grant Wood, who painted "Life In Iowa," and Thomas Hart Benton, who painted "Life In Wisconsin." They didn't move to New York or Los Angeles or anywhere like that. They thought there was a great value and service to depicting life as it surrounded them in their own Midwestern small towns. Novelists like Larry McMurtry, who wrote about the small towns of Texas, or Jim Harrison about the small towns of Michigan. There's an entire school of artistry that's telling these stories, and sometimes critics will, if not outright disparage, then dismiss them as regionalists. But one of the things that I try to do in my book is argue that they should not be dismissed - that they're offering a very important and valuable service not only to their audiences but to the culture at large.

My hero growing up was my grandfather. He was a World War II veteran and he worked his entire life in a limestone quarry in a small town of Thornton, Illinois. He was a man of such decency and integrity and strength and pride, and he was a great family man. And when I heard a song like "Minutes To Memories," which is on the same record as "Small Town," the Scarecrow record, Mellencamp wrote it about his grandfather, but with lyrics like, "I've earned every dollar that passed through my hand, my family and friends are the best things I've known. An honest man's pillow is his peace of mind," to me, that song was about my grandfather, and it has influenced my entire approach to journalism and to political commentary in that I chose to go to school, both in college and then graduate school, in this area. I got my master's degree from Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana, and I've chosen to remain here. And even if I'm writing about a national political issue, I could bring to bear a certain perspective from a small town in Indiana that perhaps someone who lives in Washington DC or New York, as valuable as their perspective and insight might be, cannot offer.


"Pop Singer"

"Pop Singer" is on a record called Big Daddy and it was the lead single from that record. The song is kind of a funky blend of folk music and old-school R&B. It begins by saying, "I never wanted to be no pop singer, I never wanted to write no pop songs." And that was because he talks about how he found it embarrassing and cringe-worthy to see himself referred to as a pop singer in various newspaper stories or from DJs on the radio because he aspired to do something authentic with his music beyond appealing to commercial trends, like Bob Dylan, John Prine, The Rolling Stones or The Beatles.

So, it was a song that declared a passion and mission for authentic expression in music as opposed to pandering to the lowest common denominator in order to sell the most records possible or the most tickets possible. It's a song now that might seem quaint because you turn on the TV now and almost every entertainer is endorsing a product. Well, when Mellencamp put out "Pop Singer," that was still controversial. One would be called a sellout if they appeared in a commercial or sold their song to a major corporation for use in a commercial.2

So with that song, Mellencamp was coming down on the side of artistic integrity and independence. He did say that many people misinterpreted it as meaning he never wanted to make music, and some of his fans were a little angry with the song.


In "Cherry Bomb" Is It "That's When A Smoke Was A Smoke" or "That's When A Sport Was A Sport?"

According to all of my research, it's "That's when a sport was a sport." I remember having to convince my dad that it was "sport" and not "smoke." My dad said "That's when a smoke was a smoke" was one of his favorite lyrics, so he was disappointed.

My interpretation of the line, "that's when a sport was a sport," was the friendly term of endearment "sport," like, "Hey, Sport," so somebody that you could trust, somebody with whom you could have a feeling of camaraderie, kind of a small-town feeling of relatability and reliability.

"Cherry Bomb" was very much influenced by a certain kind of music called Carolina Soul that he heard while vacationing at Myrtle beach. But the first time I visited the town of Seymour, on Chestnut Street, there was a club called The Chatterbox, and that was the club that he was singing about, but he changed it from Chatterbox to Cherry Bomb. For musical reasons, "Cherry Bomb" is a lot easier to sing and sounds much more musical than the harsh syllables of "Chatterbox." But yeah, it is "sport," and you're far from the first to express shock.


David MasciotraDavid Masciotra

Hidden Gems In Mellencamp's Catalog

Two immediately come to mind. The first one is from Big Daddy, which I think is his best record, and it's called "Theo And Weird Henry." It's about two guys that he actually knew growing up. It's a great song and it has a really killer arrangement - the interplay between guitar and violin, and Kenny Aronoff plays a spectacular drum part, as he always did. Mellencamp's vocal on it is really effectual and moving. It's one of the most beautiful tributes to friendship that I've ever heard in song. It's like a Larry McMurtry story put to music, and he's able to capture this special feeling of insider status that close friends have amongst each other, like you're the only one in the world who understands each other. It always made me think of my best friend growing up. For various reasons, I'm not in touch with that guy, so now it's a very sad song for me to hear. When I told Mellencamp that, he said that the two guys who he named Theo and Weird Henry - those weren't their actual names - they're both deceased now, so it's become a very sad song for him as well.

The other song I would say is a really obscure, under-appreciated gem. It's a song he did for a documentary called America's Heart And Soul, which profiles various artists and entrepreneurs across the country. And the song is called "The World Don't Bother Me None." It's a killer slide-guitar bluesy song that really pays tribute to the best of the American spirit, just as the documentary does. It really captures a certain sense of independence and integrity that oddly enough compliments "Pop Singer" well. So, I would tell fans to go listen to those two songs, "Theo and Weird Henry" and "The World Don't Bother Me None."


Mellencamp's Superpower: He Doesn't Watch TV

Yeah, and he never uses a computer. He does have a smartphone, and when I interviewed him, he was struggling to send a text message to his girlfriend at the time, who I think was Meg Ryan. So he's adapted to the modern world in that limited respect.

He lives the life of an artist, meaning he sees it as not only an opportunity but a privilege. And he has to make the best possible use of the opportunity and privilege by striving to create something new every day, whether it's a painting or a song. He also writes poetry - he's never published any of it, but I'd love to read some of those.

And therefore, those distractions are a luxury he can't afford. I apply that to my life as a writer and I think everyone can apply that in a counter-cultural and subversive way thinking about how so much in the United States of America pushes us towards consumption, whether it's watching television, buying products, playing video games, whatever. Even though it's much harder work, and it's not as tempting sometimes, one will find so much more gratification and deep spiritual pleasure through creativity.

So it's a contrast between creativity and consumption. And even those of us who work 9 to 5 and have various responsibilities and burdens and can't afford to live a leisurely lifestyle like a recording artist who's made millions of dollars can, to the extent that it's possible, prioritize creativity over consumption. And it doesn't necessarily just mean the arts. I have friends who are part of an environmentalist group in the town where I live, so it could be something as simple as organizing a neighborhood cleanup or creating a community garden - something that takes us out of the consumer cultural model and empowers our own sense of agency and enlarges our intellect and spirit. Somebody who certainly would spend a life doing that would have a superpower, but we can all adopt that lifestyle model more or less to a certain extent.


Mellencamp's Disdain For Musical Trends

Even when some of his peers were embracing some of those trends like Springsteen, he went the opposite direction and started putting traditional instruments in his music - the violin, the accordion, the dobro, the harmonica - and that was right in the middle of the 1980s when synthesizers were all the rage and that big canned-drum sound was all the rage. And he never did that, he went in the opposite direction.

If you listen to Lonesome Jubilee, he termed it at the time "gypsy rock," meaning making rock and roll, but having the sense of exploration of traditional culture in the craftsmanship of rock and roll. Therefore bringing in these traditional instruments and incorporating country sounds and folk sounds and blues sounds, and that I think is one of the most uncredited innovations in recent music history because when Mellencamp did that, it was entirely opposite of the trend and it preceded the alt-country movement that Jeff Tweedy, Jay Farrar, Ryan Adams, Gillian Welch and Lucinda Williams and others created in the early '90s. It preceded the soundtrack for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which was such a commercial smash and brought back traditional music. It preceded the re-emergence of traditional music and pop culture and yet it's something that very few critics and journalists correctly identify, at least in a mainstream presence, as originating with that John Mellencamp music, The Lonesome Jubilee.

While other rock-and-roll performers were recording hair metal or synth-heavy music, he was bringing in violinists and accordion players and singing about poverty in the Midwest and singing about family farmers, racial injustice, and just everyday living in towns like Seymour, Indiana, or Lansing, Illinois. So it was pretty remarkable and innovative.

Covering "Wild Night" with Meshell Ndegeocello

That cover version of "Wild Night" is a great version, and Van Morrison was, of course, one of the biggest influences on Mellencamp. The great story about that version of "Wild Night" is, she was playing that bassline and singing the song to herself while they were warming up. They had completed the Dance Naked record - the one on which that appears. Mellencamp was going over the tapes of the recording sessions and he heard her doing "Wild Night" to warm up, and the lightbulb clicked on and he said, "We've got to record a duet just like that." So he brought her back and they recorded that version of "Wild Night."

In a Songfacts interview with Meshell Ndegeocello, she talked about her Mellencamp experience. "I went to Indiana," she said. "He has a compound, a studio. My first record I had made totally in a house with machinery because I played everything on a computer - a real hi-pro production. He took me back to my roots where you just have a band in the studio and you played together. There was no clique. It was just trying to create a vibe and humanity. He was really nice to me.

That's one of the great experiences of my life. It made my second record much better, as well, because I started adding more live elements and playing with other people."
That story demonstrates the value of having a more organic approach. If things are much more technologically driven and planned according to a pop formula, you're not going to have those improvisational, unplanned moments of brilliance such as that one. And those Mellencamp records don't sound dated. Once when I interviewed Warren Haynes, the musical titan of Gov't Mule and Allman Brothers fame, he said, "We live in an era now where you can push a button on a computer to make a bad singer sound good, and you could push a button on a computer to make a good singer sound great, but no one will ever have a button they could push on a computer to make somebody sound like Otis Redding or Aretha Franklin." In that respect, the more organic approach, even if it doesn't seem so at the time, ages much better and maintains a certain power that the computer-driven, technological-driven approach just cannot replicate because the human voice and these human instruments date back hundreds of thousands of years, and it taps into something primal and spiritual, that a computer could never emulate.

April 13, 2022

Get Mellencamp: American Troubadour, on Amazon

Further reading:

John Mellencamp Songfacts entries
Interview with Carlene Carter
Kenny Aronoff on his "Jack & Diane" drum break

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Footnotes:

  • 1] Carlene Carter contributed to Mellencamp's 2017 album, Sad Clowns & Hillbillies, and then toured with him. (back)
  • 2] Like Dylan and The Who, Mellencamp eventually "sold out" and allowed a song to be used in a commercial when, in 2006, his song "Our Country" appeared in spots for the Chevy Silverado. He did it because radio wasn't playing his new music, and the commercial was a great way to get a song heard. (back)

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Comments: 2

  • Roger Jones from Woodlands, TxI grew up in Hammond, Indiana and Mellencamp was THEE most influential artist in my life as I finished high school and got into my college years. The plethora of songs that he penned which reach deep into my Midwest upbringing and were so relatable still bring back so many life memories. Minutes to Memories probably describes a lot of grandfathers if you were born in the late 50’s and 60’s. That line “an honest man’s pillow is his peace of mind” is quoted on my profile as a core value taught by my incredibly ethical and religious parents.

    I would say Scarecrow as an LP is still my favorite.

    A time when your word and your handshake were your bond.

    By the way, my wife grew up in Lansing, Ill... lots of relatives there under the Stooksbury and Taylor names.

    Great article.
  • Matt Pace from Houston, TxAbsolutely spot-on about the hidden gem “Theo and Weird Henry”. It is a great song. Wish he would play it more in his live shows.
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