![]() ![]() In 2014 Mellencamp revealed that the song was originally about an interracial couple, where Jack was African American and not a football star, but he was persuaded by the record company to change it. However, he chose to leave the clapping in once he realized that the song would not work without it. Stopping and starting, it's not very musical." Mellencamp has also stated that the clapping was used only to help keep time and was supposed to be removed in the final mix. When I play it on guitar by myself, it sounds great but I could never get the band to play along with me. He said of recording the song: "'Jack & Diane' was a terrible record to make. ![]() It spent four weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1982 and is Mellencamp's most successful hit single.Īccording to Mellencamp, "Jack & Diane" was based on the 1962 Tennessee Williams film Sweet Bird of Youth. “Gone So Soon” is an affecting detour into vintage torch-song piano balladry, the bruised tenderness in Mellencamp’s voice evoking Dylan’s take on the American Songbook." Jack & Diane" is a song written and performed by American singer-songwriter John Mellencamp, then performing as "John Cougar." Described by critics as a "love ballad," this song was released as the second single from Mellencamp's 1982 album American Fool, and was chosen by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) as one of the Songs of the Century. The album’s centerpiece is the anthemic Springsteen duet “Wasted Days,” one more reminder that life goes on long after the thrill of living is gone, with Mellencamp’s and Springsteen’s voices merging into one empathetic croak. “Did You Say Such a Thing,” one of the three songs featuring Bruce Springsteen, takes a strong stand against gossip. “Chasing Rainbows” is musically elegant, evoking the Band at their warmest, but lyrically unsparing in its realism: “As you walk down streets of broken dreams/Some have lost everything/While others are still looking for that easy pot of gold,” he warns, with far more contempt than pity in his voice. The bracing country-rock tune “Lie to Me” lances into a world of fakes and cheaters, with obvious political overtones. Often on Strictly a One-Eyed Jack, he sounds like Dylan or Waits, with their trickstery absurdism replaced by a stark Midwestern earnestness. Now, Mellencamp has essentially become that guy. At 70, Mellencamp has seen enough: “Worries occupy my brain/I worry about tomorrow/I worry about today,” he sings over the front-porch blues stomp of “I Am a Man That Worries.” The music is just as serious, a rough yet refined version of the Americana rusticity that’s been a hallmark of his sound since back when he was positing himself as the hardheaded Indiana-roots rejoinder to MTV’s slick coastal elites - a dude who flipped the bird to the flashy excess of the Tawny Kitaen era by appearing on the cover of his 1987 album, The Lonesome Jubilee, sitting in a small-town bar next to a stone-faced farmer who looks like he’s been parked there since the Dust Bowl. The grim honesty of the sentiment is striking, almost as striking as the forbiddingly rugged croak of his voice, which now approaches Bob Dylan and Tom Waits territory in its rangy, weathered gravitas. “We watch our lives just fade away,” John Mellencamp sings on Strictly a One-Eyed Jack, his 25th studio album. ![]()
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