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Sunday Conversation: John Mellencamp On Songwriting, Springsteen And Why He Is ‘The Luckiest Man’

Steve Baltin
Listen to article21 minutes
2021 Farm Aid

HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT - SEPTEMBER 25: (Editors note: image has been converted to black & white) ... [+]GETTY IMAGES

"I'm not for everyone anymore," John Mellencamp says. At another point in our remarkable hour-long Zoom conversation, Mellencamp explains why. "I don't like to placate people."

Like his friends and heroes Neil Young and Bob Dylan, as well as great artists such as Joni Mitchell and Miles Davis, Mellencamp is absolutely uncompromising and unyielding as an artist.

Take his new album (out this Friday, January 21), Strictly A One-Eyed Jack. It is stark, gritty, raw, unflinching, elegiac, profound and brutally honest. In two of the tracks, Mellencamp confronts the dishonesty of the world. In "I Always Lie To Strangers," Mellencamp writes from the point of view of someone who admits their constant deceit, While "Lie To Me" is about how, as a society, we are so used to being lied to we accept that is just the way it is.

So Strictly A One-Eyed Jack isn't for your average pop music fan in 2022. But for those willing to go on the dark journey with Mellencamp the album is a masterpiece. It is one of the defining works of a career that has already earned him spots in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and Songwriters Hall Of Fame.

The middle three song combo of "Did You Say Such A Thing," "Gone So Soon" and "Wasted Days" (the first and third of that trio feature Bruce Springsteen) is especially powerful, with the jazzy elegy of  the mournful "Gone So Soon" hitting as hard emotionally as anything Mellencamp has done previously.

I spoke with Mellencamp about songwriting, his friendship with Springsteen, his fantasy poker quintet and why his biggest influence isn't a musician, but a legendary film director.

Steve Baltin: This is a hell of an album in many respects. It's so thoughtful, and so deep. I was almost looking at it as a book.

John Mellencamp: That's the thing, I am a dinosaur as you well know, and people don't really make albums anymore. It's all about the single, but I'm old school. And so I continue to do what I have always done, and that's try to make something that is all tied together and it becomes one thing. I kind of looked at it when I was putting it together as this is one guy speaking. So all the songs are really one guy speaking, as opposed to there's this song and that song, and this song, and that song. It's just one guy talking about his life, his future, his self.

Baltin: Who is the One-Eyed Jack to you?

Mellencamp: This is my twenty-sixth album, twenty-seventh, I don't know. I've been very fortunate, as you well know. I've been very lucky and beat a lot of odds. I'm lucky because I think I'm lucky. But who's the character? You can't write about yourself all the time. But I have grown to be a good observer and good listener, so I hear what other people think and what people say. Then I'm open to suggestions, which means that sometimes I'll be doing something and a voice in my head will go, "Well, you better write this down." And I think, "Ah, f**k I'm painting, I don't want to write this down." And I'm like, "You need to write this down, John." And that happened quite a bit with this record.

Baltin: What was the impetus for writing all from the voice of One-Eyed Jack? Was there one song early on where you realized that this character was the narrator for this album?

Mellencamp: Yeah, I realized after a couple, three songs. it was the same voice. It sounds silly, and I'm sure you've heard it a thousand times, but it was the same messenger delivering these songs to me. And I realized that this is one guy's story. And I felt that it was important to make sure that this guy was represented properly.

Baltin: What were those first couple of songs where you started to realize that this messenger was speaking to you?

Mellencamp: The first song on the record is a song called "I Always Lie To Strangers." And I thought, "Well, I don't really do that, but I guess maybe I do. And I guess maybe everybody does." And then I did a little research. The average person hears 300 or 400 lies a day and will tell 150 himself and not even know it. 'Cause you turn the news on, you get lies. You turn advertising on, you get lies. You talk to people, they lie to you. Even as simple as, "How are you doing today?" "I'm doing great." No, they're not, but they say it anyway. So it was just that simple of the thought that led to that song.

Baltin: Were there themes that emerged in the record that surprised you?

Mellencamp: Yeah. I'm surprised a lot because like I said, a lot of times, I didn't even know what I was writing about. It was just sent to me, and what I've learned is that you can't control the song. When I was a kid, I used to try to control the song. I'd write a verse and I'd go, "Oh, I can't go there." But in the last 10 years, I let the songs go where they wanna go, not where I want them to go. It's the same with my paintings. I may start out thinking I'm going to paint something, and I end up painting something similar to what I thought I was gonna paint, but I ended up painting something totally different and that is called creativity. [chuckle] That's called art. Because if I did a painting of you, you would go "Ah f**k, it don't look like me." And I would go, "It's not supposed to. I didn't mean for it to look like you. It looks like the vibe that you give off though."

Baltin: Are there older songs of yours then that you're surprised when you go back and revisit that you can go back to and you're pleasantly surprised how they hold up?

Mellencamp: Right now they are remixing an album I made called Scarecrow in like '85. And at the time, I didn't think much of it. I thought it was okay, and I had Rickie Lee Jones singing with me ("Between A Laugh And A Tear"). But now that it's been remixed and you can hear the lyrics, I was surprised at that song. I was surprised at a song on that album called "Minutes To Memories," which was a story about a young guy meeting an old man on a greyhound bus, and what the old man imparted to the young guy. I can't even remember all the songs that I've written, I really can't. Somebody will name a song, and I'd go, "Did I write that song?" And they'll go "Yeah," and I'll go, "What album is that on?" It's all kind of just run together for me, but there were records that I thought were good that were very overlooked for the time, so it's not unusual.

Baltin: When you look back, are you able to step back and see why the records were so successful?

Mellencamp: No, I'm not there yet because I have a huge problem. One of my biggest problems is that I don't like to placate people. And I'm not gonna walk out and go, "Hey, welcome to The Forum." I'm not gonna do that. Never have. I just don't do that. So it's hard for me to understand why that record was more successful than, say, I made a record called Life, Death, Love and Freedom. Which I thought was really a good record, but nobody else seemed to care.

Baltin: For some reason the song, "Between A Laugh And A Tear" was that song that I just became absolutely re-obsessed with.

Mellencamp: Wow, that's crazy. Wait until you hear it remixed. I was shocked. Oh, it's so much better. It's so much better, because we didn't know what the f**k we were doing when we made that record. But now in the studio we're much better technicians than we used to be, and you can actually hear s**t [chuckle] You can actually hear Rickie singing. Before you could kind of hear her, but now you can hear her and you can hear what I'm saying. You can hear what the vocalist is doing. You can hear the guitar parts, and it shocked me. I can't go backwards. They're doing this for the record company, and it's like, "Yeah, okay, if you guys want to do it, you want to spend the money, go ahead." But for me, I made that record a long time ago. So a couple guys in my band and my engineer are remixing it, and they'd send me copies of what they do each day, and I approve them. But I never go back. I can't go back and work on Scarecrow again. I already did that record. I hardly ever listen to my own records. When they're done, they're done. If I hear a song on the radio, then I'll listen to that, but do I ever play my records? Very rarely.

Baltin: Were there moments sonically on here that really either stood out to you or surprised you? Or even when you think about bringing this album to the stage later in 2022, that you're really excited to see how they come out?

Mellencamp: I just think that the older you get, it's like anything. How do you get good at something? You just keep doing it. And most people quit too early, that's what I've found. Most people give up too early. Do you know what courage is? Courage is knowing you're beat before you even start, but you start anyway, and you see it to the end, no matter what the result. And that is courage, and that's what we did on this record. That's just the way it worked out. I learned 10, 15 years ago, you can't control art. True art is when you let the art go where it wants to go.

Baltin: What made Bruce the right person to work with on this record or the right time?

Mellencamp: It was quite by accident. For my entire career I was always like the poor man's Bruce Springsteen. And Bruce and I have known each other for years. We met each other years ago, but we just knew each other enough to say hi. But we did a rainforest thing for Sting and we played together. And all of a sudden he was like my big brother, and he treated me like I was his sibling, and I treated him with respect. And then we became really good friends, and it just kind of happened. He came to Indiana, he stayed at the house. It was great. And I talk to Bruce all the time now. I know what he's doing right now. He knows where I'm at. So it's good. It's been a good thing.

Baltin: Are there other artists that you admire for their evolution?

Mellencamp: I admire Bob [Dylan]. And I admire Bruce, and I admire Woody Guthrie, and I admire Nat King Cole. I admire Louis Armstrong. We were laughing, when we were making this record, it was like, "John, your voice has changed so much since you started." And I said, "Well, the cigarettes are starting to pay off." And I was happy when I heard me sing "Gone So Soon," that I sounded like Louis Armstrong. It wasn't anything I tried to do, it's just that cigarettes take their f**king toll on your vocal chords. And so even you can tell by just talking to me, that my voice is raspy, and that's all from smoking. Nothing that I wanted to do. It never dawned on me that it would happen. But I'm happy that I sound that way.

Baltin: Your voice definitely matches this sort of this tenor of the album, and that sort of older wisdom and someone who has experience would say.

Mellencamp: Well, I grew up in public. I was 21 years old when I made my first record. And I didn't have a clue what I was doing. Not a clue. I was a ballroom singer, and the idea of writing a song was like almost laughable. "What, you want me to write songs? I'm a singer." So I had to learn how to write songs. And I wrote songs and I grew up in public. And at first I didn't like that idea, but now, I'm happy it happened because it gave me the opportunity to have the chip on my shoulder and to grow. And like I wrote a song called "Jack & Diane." And I always detested that song until the last couple, three years. I watched a football game this past weekend, and 80,000 people were singing that song at half time. Can you imagine? I thought, "S**t." I said, "How do all these f**king people know this song?"

Baltin: At the same time, obviously, you're aware of the impact these songs have had in popular culture, whether it's "Jack & Diane" or "Pink Houses."

Mellencamp: But see, I don't, because I'm not really part of the club. I live a very solitude life. I'm alone a lot, whenever I can be. I'm alone on top of this mountain. So I don't really pay attention to popular culture. Like I was talking to Springsteen, and he asked me if I watched the Grammys. I said, "No, I didn't even know they were happening." He goes, "Well, we got nothing to do with it." [chuckle] I said, "Well, I figured that out." We got nothing to do with that. It means nothing to me at this point in my life.

Baltin: Are there moments in these songs then that you realize how prophetic they have become in your life as you've gotten older?

Mellencamp: Yeah, that's true. Steve King and I worked on a musical together. I wrote a song and it said, "What you say about yourself is who you are." And when I wrote it, I really didn't know what the f**k that meant, but I do now. What you believe about yourself is who you are. Listen, you're talking to the luckiest guy that you're ever going to talk to. I don't care how many interviews you've done. I don't care who you've talked to, you're talking to the luckiest guy in the world. And luck is thinking you're lucky. And I've always thought that I was lucky. I may not have had a lot of talent when I first started out. As a matter of fact, I hear songs of mine on the radio sometimes and I go, "Why did you even bother to continue? Because they're just so terrible." But people like them. I mean, I'm referring to like "Hurts So Good." It's like, "Why did anybody like that song?" Because I wrote that song in a shower. I just was singing in the shower, "It hurts so good, come on baby." It just kind of came from nowhere. I didn't want to write that song. But I was playing in bars. And I saw how people behaved in bars and what they did to each other, and what they did to each other when they thought nobody was around. And really that's what that song is about, it was written in a very juvenile way. But really what I thought I was trying to say is that what we do to each other in the dark is who we are. Not the face that we put on for people to see.

Baltin: Obviously the title track references cards and in particular poker. Are you any good at poker?

Mellencamp: I can be good at poker. I'll tell you, you're in a rock band. And there's a lot of nights that you have days off. And particularly in the '80s and '90s. Now, I can't even get people to play poker with me.

Baltin: Who would be your dream poker quintet?

Mellencamp: Even though he's dead, I would like to play Arthur Miller. I would like to play with John Huston. That's who I really want to play, is John Huston. And I'd like to play with Marlon Brando and James Cagney. And I'd like to play with Bob Dylan.

Baltin: What is it about John Huston?

Mellencamp: I love John Huston. He's more of an inspiration to me than any singer or songwriter, except maybe Dylan and Guthrie. But John Huston was married five times, and he died in Mexico. He lived the life, man. And he just lived. And he was a gambler, he was a womanizer. He was all the things that John Mellencamp as a young person thought he would grow up to be, but didn't. John Huston was a free man. That's the way I look at it. He lived the way that he wanted to live. He didn't play by any rules. Because like I said earlier, there's a club, and we ain't in it. Me and you are not in it, and it's the same club that use every f**king day to beat us over the head. So f**k them. And they're called corporate America.

Baltin: Let's wrap up on the new album. It's not an easy record but I appreciate that. Because it feels so honest and authentic.

Mellencamp: I'm not for everyone anymore. I was someplace the other night and some guy came up to me and he said, "You know, music is just not the same."And he said, "It's just not the same. And there's not any good songwriters anymore." And I went, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." I go, "Wait a minute. Have you heard my last record?" He goes, "No." I go, "Have you heard Bruce's last record?" He goes, "No". I go, "Have you heard Dylan's last record?" He went, "No." I go, "Have you heard Woody Guthrie's last record?" He said, "No." I said, "Maybe there's still music out there. You're just not listening. There's the problem. You're not listening. It's still being made. It's still out there, but you're just not listening. You grew up. Too bad for you."

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Q2.        Reprinted from FORBES

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