By Thad Requet
Bob Dylan once said "my name it means nothing, my age it means less." Those words remind me a lot of John Mellencamp...a man who seems to have spent half his life running away from a name he despised. A man, who seems to be getting better with age instead of fading away in the night.
I was 14 years old. I grew up with parents who raised me on the good stuff, everyone from Bob Dylan to Ray Charles, to Willie Nelson to The Temptations. My first 45 record (for those of you who know what that is) was "Shattered" by the Rolling Stones. My first album was Night Moves by Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band.
I can remember watching the video of "Pink Houses" on MTV and VH1 when it first came out. The music captured my soul and the images reminded me of the community I was growing up in in Northeast Missouri. One day I was with my mother at Kmart in Hannibal, Missouri, I talked her into buying me John Cougar Mellencamp's Uh-Huh album on cassette tape. It took some begging because money was tight, but it was a purchase that changed my life.
I've always said, John Mellencamp is to me what Bob Dylan was to him. The impact he has had on my life is amazing. As we headed home I had mom pop the tape in. The first song "Crumblin' Down" thundered through the stereo in my parents Ford van as we headed west down the highway. Mom was tapping to the beat, she was digging it. Then came "Pink Houses" and I think she had to play that one twice. Followed by "The Authority Song" which she loved also.
The thing is, it wasn't just those three songs. It was "Warmer Place To Sleep," it was "Play Guitar," "Lovin' Mother Fo Ya," "Serious Business." It was rock-n-roll...the way it was supposed to be. I think it was at that point after hearing the album all the way through that my mother realized she and my dad had raised me right with music. Another defining moment for me was at the beginning of my senior year of high school in the fall of 1987. After the Scarecrow album, with all of its power hits, great videos and the first Farm Aid. It was the fall of 1987. MTV had announced that the world premier video of John Cougar Mellencamp's "Paper In Fire" was about to air. I was at my grandmother's house in Quincy, Illinois. Without the benefit of a DVD recorder or even a VCR, I sat a cassette tape recorder on top of the television. From the first moment that song started, it lit a fire inside me. It was so different. It was bluesy, it had background singers, the setting of the video. The old yellow tinted picture the video was shot in. The people in the video and how they felt the music they were hearing. This song was on fire!
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As the camera panned on John, his hair was halfway down his back. There was a fiddle player in the band, an accordion in the band, a dobro...and it still rocked! When the song ended I grabbed my tape recorder and replayed the song over and over. I think I knew the words all the way through in less than an hour.
It was the first time I had ever noticed how an artist could reinvent himself. Bob Dylan had done it for years, and continues to do so. It takes a lot of guts to re-invent the wheel when it's not broke. That's what John did in the 80's.
His influence was weighing heavy on me. I had started writing lines, lyrics you might call it, poems, you might call it, or as many might call it...crap. It wasn't very good. But, I was writing. Something I would have never considered doing before hearing John Mellencamp. Words were coming fast and I was writing about many different things. Things I was seeing, Things I was experiencing, things I was feeling. It was fun and exciting. It was something new. I was an athlete in high school and never took a band or music class in my life. Going in this artistic direction was quite a step for me.
I also found myself with longer hair that was draping over my right eye. I was wearing black sunglasses and a jean jacket. Blue jeans and a white t-shirt.
Many people say that when John's real name appeared on the Whenever We Wanted album in 1991, it was the first time he was referred to as John Mellencamp (minus the dreaded Cougar). Actually in 1988 when Folkways A Vision Shared) was released, it listed those who performed on it and John Mellencamp...not John Cougar Mellencamp was the name on the album cover. Although the name never bothered me, I heard the stories and understood his situation early in his career, I was happy for him when the Cougar finally disappeared.
We jump ahead to the summer of 1992. I was 22 years old and engaged to be married. My wife to be and my best friend and I traveled to St. Louis to see John in concert for the first time. The best concert I've ever attended...period! From the time Kenny Aronoff jumped on stage and started pounding out the funky beat to "Love And Happiness," I was blown away. It amazed me how someone who could have a certain sound on the radio, could create such a powerful vibe with the same songs live. For example, "Pop Singer" and "Crumblin' Down" absolutely rocked. I've heard them many times, but never like I did that night with that band on that tour.
I've written before about my Pearl Doggy experience, so I won't spend much time on it here. But to be able to meet Michael Wanchic, Toby Myers and Kenny Aronoff after following those guys for so long was amazing. To speak to John himself the night before as he was leaving that show was something I'll always remember. To lean against the stage at the small club where he was playing and slap five with him while he performed was something I would have never dreamed. The Pearl Doggy show in Columbia (not Columbus as the bootleg cd cover says) was one of the true highlights for me.
By this time I was writing songs and playing guitar. A sound somewhere in between Springsteen, Dylan and John. I had music books and knew the chords to all of John's songs. I had expanded my writing from just lyrics to short stories. I had found a job with a newspaper and was writing for a living. All of this thanks to John Mellencamp and the influence he had on me.
In September of 1996, John released Mr. Happy Go Lucky. An album that continued to amaze me in the way he could re-invent himself. To take a song that he had written on an acoustic guitar, and transform it into "Life Is Hard," or "Circling Around The Moon," which sounded like it was straight off of a Rolling Stones album. That album showed me what a person could do with real creativity. Shortly after that I started playing in a band and we would transform songs that I had written in a much smaller scale. But I was learning from John's influence. Music is so important in our lives. It's a companion that travels with us through time. Music takes us back to moments in time in our life. Not all of them are necessarily happy times. When the self titled album John Mellencamp was released in Oct. of 1998, I was going through a divorce. Although it's a great album, when I listen to it, I'm taken back to a painful time in my life. The song "Positively Crazy" really sticks out with me and it's just the simple phrase where John says "You know I think your great" that about breaks my heart. I wasn't the 14 year old kid anymore, but a young man crowding 30 years old and going through a divorce. A lot of the innocence was gone. I had the scars of life that characters such has Theo and Weird Henry, Bobie Doll and Big Jim Picado, and even Jackie Brown had probably experienced. That album...though hard for me to listen to, helped get me through that tough time.
Through my early 30's I continued to listen to John Mellencamp, attend the shows, and with the new thing called the internet, keep up on his latest happenings. I was playing in a band that was traveling around Missouri, Illinois and Iowa. I had a new job as editor of our county newspaper. And I was starting to write songs that I was proud of. As a fan, I had to make the tough adjustment of accepting the fact that John Mellencamp's music was not getting the airplay, chart positioning and respect that I thought it deserved. I was so frustrated with what I considered "crap" that was getting airplay on the radio while his music didn't make it on the airwaves. This was something that I learned to accept over the years. When I finally did realize this was how it was going to be, I was able to listen to the music in its truest form. Just appreciate the song for what it is and not put any other expectations on it.
Today I am 40 years old. I own my own newspaper, and I'm recording my own music. I don't have the hair hanging over my right eye, I don't wear the jean jacket anymore, but I still take many of the same approaches that John has.
When I started my own paper about six years ago, I was told by our local bank not to open...I wouldn't last a year. It pissed me off, scared me, and made me determined to 'suck it up and tough it out and be the best I could be.' Like John, I take the approach of the little guy rolling the rock up the hill each day...I work hard. Like John, I stick by what I believe in whether it's popular or not. And like John, I've caught hell for it. But I also think I've earned the respect of many of those same people.
So when my second wife and I had the opportunity to meet John in 2007 backstage at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis, you can imagine what was going through my mind. The history...the years, and experiences, and here we were face to face. Wanting to say so many things, but knowing he was short on time and not feeling well that night...I thanked him for taking the time to meet us. I also told him that I felt he deserved to be in the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame, an honor he would get less than a year later. He softly and humbly thanked me, as we shook hands.
I will continue to purchase the albums, attend the concerts and follow the career. He has earned that respect from me. We, as fans are lucky because at 58 years old, the man is in one of his most creative spurts. Whether it's the new album coming out this fall, the musical or the box set, John Mellencamp continues to impress.
While listening to John, a lot of things have happened to me. Days turned to minutes and minutes to memories. Changes came around real soon made us women and men, and I've definitely looked in the mirror and said "what the hell happened to me?" But, like John, I will continue to suck it up and tough it out and be the best I can. So to Mr. Mellencamp...let me say thank you.
My Top 10 Favorite Most Underrated John Mellencamp songs in no particular order.
To MG Wherever She May Be
Sugar Marie
Warmer Place To Sleep
Minutes To Memories
Empty Hands
Theo and Weird Henry
Days of Farewell
Deep Blue Heart
Forgiveness
Between A Laugh and a Tear
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