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Home , American Fool, Hurts So Good, I Need a Lover, John Mellencamp

They wouldn't let me have a sound check, George and I wrote that together, almost sent them around, and mine for "Lover" was then I was really militant for that time period carnival with her husband. "Lonely 01' Night" and so I didn't feel good about that. We didn't as a competition between us. George and I shot in the Marquee club in London. about endorsements and sponsorships. I could is about average people. Rather than looking have a lot of songs back then, but all I had to very rarely wrote songs in the same room I remember flying down to Australia, and see that these McDonald's hamburger places for some weird location of Duran Duran's that offer was my best effort on the few we did. together. I would usually have lyrics and say, I didn't know what a hit record was until I were running the little mom -and -pop places nobody's ever gonna be able to visit, I just

Before the first song was over, Kenny had "Here, see if you can make these better," and found I was, like, a teen idol there.When I got out of business, and these small towns in the said, "The carnival's coming to Bloomington busted his snare drum and broken his cym- I'd get back a whole different song or poem, off the airplane there were thousands of Midwest couldn't remain towns -they were next week, let's use that." bal, Mike's amp had gone out andToby's had and the same thing would happen to him. screaming girls, and I had just left America closing down their main streets because they gone out. I eventually said, "For those of you But for "Crumblin' Down," we sat and couldn't compete with agribusiness and all The big surprise of the serious Scare- who came to see me, we're not able to do our looked eye to eye and tried to out -do each these big corporate chain stores that were crow was that its giant hit was the show tonight because this gear ain't worth a other's next best line. I'd say," 'Some people coming into each county. light- hearted "R.O.C.K in the U.S.A.," which shit, and if it was up to me I'd give you your ain't no damn good, you can't love them, can't I think the first song written for Scarecrow shot to No. 2 on The - money back. Instead, here, you can have this trust them, no good deed goes unpunished.' was "." I remember (second wife) yet you didn't even want it on the record. shit gear. "We started handing out the ampli- Okay, George, take it!" He'd come up with three Vicky and my AuntToots laughing about it. I'd fiers, the mikes, the drums. I didn't know at or four lines. It was real fast [snapping his fin- sing, "I was born in a small town," and they I was really struggling with what I thought the time that that was the same stuff the gers]; it wasn't our normal way, where we'd just kept adding their own stupid, funny vers- my job was, and that song didn't fit into that

Beach Boys planned to use!" [Laughter] take weeks and weeks, tinkering with lyrics es, 'cause I used to write down in the laun- idea at the time-it was just too poppy. I was

before I even tried to put them to music. In dry room of my house, and you could hear enjoying a lot of pop success at the time but

Making friends, everywhere you go. recording "Crumblin' Down, "I can still see Mike me. That song was intended as a folk song, I thought "R.O.C.K." was too poppy. I thought

Wanchic playing a ketchup bottle for a per- probably like 's'This Land Is people would think I was selling out. I didn't

Oh, and Mike Love was pissed off! But this cussion instrument, and it broke right in the Your Land." For me, it was always about realize that they already thought I had (Huge would prove to be another lesson: Any time I middle and ketchup went all over. We were just Woody Guthrie and . Nobody else laughter], so it didn't matter. did anything just for money and not because I picking up anything handy to use. ever entered into it, despite all the bullshit thought it was a good idea, it never worked out. written at that time. Sometimes you can try too hard to live "Authority Song" was in the spirit of Some people just have better PR than oth- up to something. To get limbered up for Uh -Huh 11983], your band's jams on rock classics. ers. Look at a guy like and all the you and the band rehearsed a lot of old great records he's made. "Universal Soldier" Particularly when you don't know what the rock chestnuts and B- sides. That was like the Bobby Fuller Four meets was a great song, and "Catch the Wind," and fuck you're trying to live up to! Bob Marley, in terms of inspiration.The feel that [1969) Barabajagal album. He's just

Right! Uh -Huh, unlike , was that Marley was able to get on "No Woman where I couldn't get arrested. I said, "What's totally forgotten! How fair is that? Still, " R.O.C.K." was very effective at a lot of fun, because I was starting to find my No Cry," where he was carefully telling a going on here? " They said, "You." Molly would making people recall great American feet as a -songwriting really went story but you still felt the rebellious nature have me on Countdown a lot, and if you were Not fair at all. Donovan also wrote rock'n'roll -and the fact it was made up the ladder in terms of importance. We of his soul-that's what I was trying to get on Countdown even once, it was a big deal. I "WearYour Love Like Heaven," "Season of by both black and white kids, as the weren't young boys anymore; we were get- with "Authority Song." got Molly mad at one point when I got inter- the Witch," and "Sunshine Superman," but video accentuated. ting ready to turn 30 years old. Things like viewed in my hotel at the end of the weeks - all that great work still exists, waiting to

"What does want to say ?" You cut Uh -Huh very quickly. long trip, and I was so burnt out that when be rediscovered, like a lot of your back It is one of my only gold singles (besides had never dawned on me before that time, some journalist asked me about being on Aus- catalog. Meanwhile, the first single from "" and "Jack and Diane "). But I which is when I wrote "." Yeah, in, like, 16 days.We spent half the tralianTV, I sighed and said it was stupid.What Scarecrow was "Lonely 01' Night," which can remember being on the phone with Dick time fucking around with some song by Louis I meant was, "l'm tired and wanna go home." you shot at a local carnival with George Asher, who was president of PolyGram at the Recount the exact inspiration for that. Johnson from the Brothers Johnson, who Molly wrote a piece in the country's TV mag- Green's wife portraying your girlfriend. time, screaming at him from a hotel room in played bass on that record; he came in and azine headlined JOHNNY COUGAR BARES

Driving back from the airport said, "Hey man, see if you can make a song HIS IMMATURE CLAWS. He was right. I apol- "Lonely 01' Night" is named for some lines one day, I saw that scene of the black man out of this lick," and it was a good lick but the ogized and he forgave me. from Larry McMurtry's book Hud, and the Paul and the pink house on the interstate; the guy song we made stunk. So the rest of the album We're still friends. Matter of fact, I did a Newman movie based on it. I watched that was sitting in his front yard with the interstate really took six days to make. [Chuckling] We painting of him, called Molly the Ghost Cow- movie a thousand times during that time in running right over his head. I thought to recorded it all in a place called the Shack, a boy, that Molly donated to the Sydney Art my life. When you're in your early 30s, you myself, "How do people live like this ?The traf- fallen -down old farmhouse halfway between Museum. It's in my book [Mellencamp: Paint- think that there's more to life than there is, fic must make you go crazy, going, "RRRRHH- Brownstown, Ind., and Seymour, that my sis- ings and Reflections, HarperCollins, 19981. where I was so antsy and so bored all the time

HH, RRRRHHHH," all night long, while you're ter had bought to fix up; she had a boyfriend With Canada, it was a place we always and so lonely. I was around the band and I had inside these little wooden shotgun houses." and when they got married they were gonna loved to play. As I think of it, every time we kids and a wife, but I was so lonesome and I The part about the young man in theT-shirt move in there. Of course, none of that ever played arenas in Western Canada and even was sure there was more to life and that this was about me, listening to a rock'n'roll sta- happened, but she still had the house. So I places like Vancouver, there were always fist - adult thing was gonna kick in at any moment. tion. But I knew after I had written that song took it and put all our gear and the stuff from fights. Two songs into a show, these people That's what happens to people when that it didn't feel like any other I'd done, Criteria's mobile truck and brought it into the would be ready to go at it.They were just too they're in their early 30s, because they're real- house.There was no furniture inside, no amped up, and we always knew these fights izing they're not boys and girls anymore. Yet soundproofing, just hardwood floors and bare were gonna break out. they don't feel that much different than when walls, and when we recorded, all the instru- Honestly, I don't know why it happened; they were kids.You think that you're going to ments just bled all over each other. maybe it had something to do with "Hurts So have this awakening and life is gonna change Good, " but these guys would just start pound- and you're gonna have more vision, more sex, The inevitable question: What did Mer- ing each other. One night inVancouver, around more something. Then you realize that that

cury think of Uh -Huh? 1985 -and I can still see it now -we didn't never happens. even get halfway through the first song, and What happened to me at a certain point was

Well, I was riding high at that point, and I in the whole front of the stage everybody was that I realized this is all there is -and guess had sold 4 million -5 million records. When battling each other in this big rhubarb. what? I'm good at it! That was the realization

they heard "Pink Houses" it was like, "Oh, my Speaking of fighting, you also have to of adulthood for me. But even when I realized Nashville,Tenn., saying, "How can I have the

gosh!" But it was before "Born in the U.S.A." remember that during that Uh -Huh record, I it [Laughter), I didn't believe it in the beginning. No. 2 single in the country and my album is and songs like that -none of that American was in all kinds of problems with Gaff. He was dropping in sales ?!" He was saying that the groundswell business had happened yet. Born my record company, he was my manager, he One can't just see one's life in terms single was selling to the mass audience who in the U.S.A. came out in [June) '84 and Uh- published the songs; he definitely had a huge of ideals. If you've got an ideal in your wouldn't buy an album. But it's a sliding ruler

Huh came out in November '83. conflict of interest. So I had to sue him. Rod head that you can't describe in real terms on how people gauge such stuff.

By this time I was just starting to find my (Stewart) had just fired him, and now he was by your 30s, it probably doesn't exist. voice, and so the music started to overshad- getting fired by me. Nonetheless, Scarecrow itself spent ow the fucking around, if you can imagine it. Of course, back during those earlier Right!Yet there's that feeling of overlook- three weeks at No. 2 and cemented the

I saw people were actually listening and tak- records, nobody in the world would touch John ing something.Then a few years of regret. fact that your talent and success weren't ing us seriously, so me and the band should Mellencamp, so it was kinda like, "If you dance only happenstance.

return the favor in kind. Because up to that with the Devil, you have to pay. "That's how I But if you learn to measure your more point, we were amateurs; none of us could looked at it. But when you're fighting on the credible ideals against the realities of [Smiling serenely] Again, a lot of people

really play by ourselves. Singularly, nobody phone half the time and then walk into the others, you begin to see what you have hated that that record turned out so good. I because I felt a strong attachment to it. Corn- was worth a shit. But on Uh -Huh we sold 3 studio to make a record during the other half, and what you actually didn't miss out on. particularly remember the reaction of [film pared to that, a song like "Jack and Diane" million -4 million copies real quick. it becomes part of the creative process. director) Jonathan Kaplan to that record. He was a happy accident, crafted by a person who Yeah, but that only happens when you start said, "This is unbelievable; you don't even didn't know how to do it. Both "Hurts So You began to tour overseas more often, What was the seed of the Scarecrow idea? going into your 40s. At the time of the "Lone - know what kind of record you've made here." Good" and "Jack and Diane" were lucky to England, Germany, and Australia. ly 01' Night" video, I was talking to George There definitely weren't any records at the breaks. Before that, most of the songs were Just living in a community based on farm- Green's wife and I remember distinctly what time that sounded like that one, and if there just nice things to sing along to, almost like [Nodding] Australia and Canada were al- ing and seeing the troubles of those around she said: "Listen, Mellencamp, you better not were they definitely didn't have violin featured nursery rhymes but never really to be taken ways my two other strongest markets. In Aus- me. George and I wrote "Rain on the Scare- be putting a lot of real pretty girls in this on 'em. But after the "Small Town" acoustic seriously in any way comparable to [Bob] tralia back then, the taste was really made by crow," but it was the last song written and video, because real pretty girls don't have single with playing violin on it,

I where. Dylan or other serious I had one guy, Molly Meldrum. Molly, who's still recorded for that album, and remember we lonely of nights!" there were violins every-fuckin'- admired. But with "Pink Houses," I thought, around, had the big television show called arranged it at the Belmont Mall recording stu- At the time, if you'll recall, there were all

"Wow, did I really write that ?" Countdown. He loved us, and he loved my ver- dio in about 20 minutes-right before we these sexy young girls in those Duran Duran The Scarecrowof the current era is the From that point on, i wrote songs by sion of "," and he just started started recording it. I was trying to make a videos, so I said to her, "OK, I'll put you in it." rustic folk -pop and bluegrass of the 0 myself with nobody else hanging around, playing my video, which nobody over here ever record really drenched in old but So that's who's in the video with me -an Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, because somehow they started to seem like saw- because we didn't have any outlet [in at the same time contemporary, too. How do attractive woman in her early 30s, but by no which has done far better than the film. fragile things. the U.S.) for videos. But in Europe and Aus- you do that ?That was the question. means was she model -pretty; she was just, And being triple -platinum, it's outpaced tralia and Canada, they wanted to see Amer- Scarecrow was actually less about farmers like, a handsome woman who was married, most of the so -called country, as well as "Crumblin' Down" didn't sound fragile. ican acts, so you made these films cheaply and than it was about corporate America. Back and might be kicking around a local summer the pop, that's getting the current hardsell.

18 www.billboard.com BILLBOARD DECEMBER 8, 2001 www.americanradiohistory.com