John Mellencamp’s Best Songs

When you get kicked out of a group called Snakepit Banana Farm you might want to reconsider your career options. And what could be going through your mind when you start a ’60s cover band called Trash? You might also have second thoughts about the music business when the guy who got you signed to MCA Records changes your name without telling you. But all this was part of John Mellencamp’s climb to fame.

Prior to the release of Mellencamp’s debut album his management company decided that’ Mellencamp’ (the name) just wasn’t going to make it. So ‘Cougar’ it became. Imagine the shock of seeing some other name on your work. It’s no wonder Mellencamp hated it and wanted to change it back. Thus began a gradual process from John Cougar to John Cougar Mellencamp and at last, John Mellencamp.

#10. Hurt So Good

Performing under the stage name “John Cougar,” the song was Mellencamp’s first of three major hits from his “American Fool” album. The other two were “Jack & Diane” and “Hand to Hold On To.” 

#9. Jack & Diane

It spent four weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1982 and was Mellencamp’s most successful hit single.

#8. Paper In Fire

The first single from his ninth studio album “Lonesome Jubllee” was a commercial success and topped Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart.  

#7. Cherry Bomb

The song features a female voice (backing singer Crystal Taliefero). Much later, Mellencamp stated that it was Sly & The Family Stone that inspired him to have voices other than his own singing lead. “He had all those hit records when I was in junior high, and I love the fact that all the sudden there’s a female voice, then a male voice.”

#6. Authority Song

Mellencamp called the song “our new version of ‘I Fought The Law.'” Needless to say, Mellencamp had a complex relationship with authority.

Even though MTV immeasurably propelled Mellencamp’s career, he hated making videos. But for this song’s video he was paired with Jay Dubin who had equal disdain for the form. So, the idea was to create something impactful.

The video, in black and white, shows Mellencamp as a boxer in the ring with ‘ordinary’ people seated on one side and the rich and the powerful on another.

#5. Pink Houses

Inspired by Mellencamp drive along an overpass on the way home to Bloomington, IN. There was an old Black man sitting outside his little pink house with his cat in his arms, completely unperturbed by the traffic speeding along the highway in his front yard. “He waved, and I waved back.”

#4. R.O.C.K. In The U.S.A.

Subtitled “A Salute To 60’s Rock;“ the song went to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Initially, Mellencamp didn’t want to include the track on the ’85 “Scarecrow” album because he felt it didn’t fit the album’s overall concept. But his manager loved the energy and Mellencamp thought, ‘Yeah! What the hell!'”

#3. Crumblin’ Down

Written by Mellencamp and George Green (“Hurts So Good”) it was the last song recorded for “Uh-Huh.” Green began a song with lines about walls crumbling down. Additional lyrics referenced, in part, Mellencamp’s cousin losing his job as an electrical engineer.  

#2. Small Town

Mellencamp wrote the song about his experiences growing up in small towns in Indiana (Seymour and Bloomington).  “I was never one of those guys that grew up and thought, ‘I need to get out of here.’ It never dawned on me,” Mellencamp told Rolling Stone in 2013. “I just valued having a family and staying close to friends.”

#1. Rain On The Scarecrow

Mellencamp wrote the song with frequent collaborator George Green.

The Reagan administration’s mismanagement of farm programs led to huge surpluses and depressed prices. “Talking to people was heartbreaking,” stated Mellencamp. “Nobody wanted to lose their farm.”

Just months after the “Scarecrow” album was released in ’85, Mellencamp, Willie Nelson and Neil Young launched Farm Aid to raise awareness and funds to support destressed farmers.

###