John Mellencamp
John Mellencamp
John J Mellencamp, also known as John Cougar Mellencamp, is an American musician, singer-songwriter, painter, and actor. He is known for his catchy, populist brand of heartland rock, which emphasizes traditional instrumentation. He rose to superstardom in the 1980s while "honing an almost startlingly plainspoken writing style that, starting in 1982, yielded a string of Top 10 singles," including "Hurts So Good," "Jack & Diane," "Crumblin' Down," "Pink Houses," "Lonely Ol' Night," "Small Town," "R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.," "Paper in...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth7 October 1951
CountryUnited States of America
All the women in the world want a phony rock star who plays guitar.
My thought was I should try to stick with names that people may recognize like Robert Johnson, Son House, and Hoagy Carmichael, so if somebody cared to research, they would find a wealth of material.
I know there's a balance/I see it when I swing past.
Take 'Jack and Diane.' I was so disgusted with people thinking the line 'Hold on to sixteen as long as you can' meant to stay a teenager forever. What I meant was keep doing whatever makes you feel alive.
Grandma's on the front porch with a Bible in her hand, sometimes I hear her singing take me to the promised land.
I'm the guy who wrote The Authority Song. Did they think I was kidding? Did they think it was only a song to entertain?
When you live life for yourself it's hard on everyone. And that hasn't changed. For me, if anything, it's gotten worse.
When politicians use fear, they are playing into the enemy's hand.
Turning music into digital was just a con, a record-company con.
If fans are going to turn on me because of this, they weren't my fans anyway. I couldn't betray a whole 25 years of record making and not do this. I had to.
It's my responsibility as a singer-songwriter to report the news.
Growing up leads to growing old and then to dying And dying to me don't sound like all that much fun
I remember the first time I saw a CD, a technology guy brought one to my house and said we will be able to sell millions and millions of players, and people will have to restock their record collections. It was all about money. It was all about how much money we would make, "we" being "him."
I think it's ridiculous to try to sell records to teenagers, because teenagers don't buy my records. And there ain't that many teenagers out there in the marketplace.