The Friday Morning Listen: John Mellencamp – Life Death Love and Freedom (2008)

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Hey Mr. Mellencamp, last night I came across your article on the Huffington Post. Interesting stuff. And yeah, the music “industry” has indeed changed. But I don’t really want to rehash all of the technical and financial issues here. Just like in politics, people have chosen sides and spend most of their time talking right by each other. It’s boring and, sadly, gets us nowhere.

No, instead…I want to talk about “Jack and Diane.” God, I used to fucking detest that song. When I was stumbling through college, most of my friends had copies of American Fool. I never could figure out why they liked that song. Sorry. Looking back, I’m not even sure why I hated it, but it kind of enraged me that everybody else didn’t. This, coming from a guy who owned a copy of Chuck Mangione’s Feels So Good. Apparently, musical snobbery will block a person’s hypocrisy detectors.

So there it is. I hated that one song, but not you.

Time went on and tunes like “Pink Houses,” “Small Town,” “Rain on the Scarecrow,” and “Cherry Bomb” really got under my skin. Decades later those songs remind me of when we were all hanging around each other’s apartments, trying to settle in to young adulthood, waiting for it to feel normal.

The only chance I had to see you live was when you were touring on Human Wheels. Despite it being at a too-large baseball park, you put on a great show. It’s sad that what I remember of this is desperation. My marriage had been crumbling for years. It was tough to listen to pop music back then. I sat there half-enjoying the music and half-wondering what the hell I was going to do.

My mom died near the end of spring, 2008. “Longest Days,” released hardly a month later, had that line “Sometimes you get sick and you don’t get better.” Yeah, it was true. Also, just about impossible for me to listen to at that point.

I’m not sure where you’ll be going after No Better Than This (which I really dug). I loved that quiet intensity. It’s something the world could use a little more of.

While I was thinking about how to put this essay together, I was sitting here with my computer watching the setlist go by for Bruce Springsteen’s show in Hartford, Connecticut. Somebody commented on Twitter that “It’s nights like this when Bruce Springsteen makes you feel you’re 21 again.” That is exactly how I feel about “Jack and Diane.” And I can easily draw a line from the person I am today back through all of those experiences (and songs) and end up in that dorm where my roommate tortured me with your record on a nightly basis.

What I’m saying is that this stuff matters to people. You’ve had various passions for all sorts of issues and transformed them into art…which in turn was woven through the lives of many. People have been doing this for a long time, much longer than the short period of art-as-commerce. So I have no fear of music disappearing. And who knows? Maybe a new delivery model will develop (we’re already seeing a sort of Patronage 2.0 coming along) that’s more financially stable.

In the meantime, I will continue to listen, write (Hey! Another job that doesn’t pay anymore!) and wait for inspiring music to be created. And this morning I’ll celebrate the start of the weekend with “Longest Days.” Life is short, even in its longest days? No shit. I might even cue up “Jack and Diane” after that.

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Life, Death, Love and Freedom Life Death Love & Freedom (Advd) (Dig)

Mark Saleski