John Cougar Mellencamp
John Cougar Mellencamp is a successful, Hall of Fame rock singer in the Midwest, whose work sold 27 million albums in the United States,[1] and perhaps 60 million albums worldwide After using "Cougar" for much of his career, he goes by "John Mellencamp" today.
His style has unpretentious, candid working class, small-town themes. "I was born in a small town," for example, rose to #1 on the pop charts in the 1980s. He is unapologetically Midwestern (Indiana), growing up and staying there.
Dyed-in-the-wool John Cougar Mellencamp summed up the true Midwestern mindset this way: "This is where I fall into that Midwestern mindset. It’s not really an opportunity. You’re being used."[2]
Jack and Diane was another hit by Mellencamp, resonating with simple truths and teenage love and how change is coming real soon, implicitly because a baby arrives. Includes the lyric "Let the bible belt come and save my soul."
Mellencamp put Jesus into his lyrics, as in this verse from his "Small Town": "taught to fear Jesus in a small town."
"Ain't that America" is the refrain from his Pink Houses song, which is a down-to-earth, cynical ode to the underprivileged.[3]
Politics?
His songs are unusual in that both Republicans and Democrats have liked to play them at campaign events.
Reference to abortion?
"Jack and Diane" is implicitly critical of sex by teenagers. It seems unlikely given Mellencamp's background and repeated references to Jesus and the Bible in his songs that he would have an implicit reference to abortion in one. But some infer a reference to abortion in "Jack and Diane" ("we ought to run off to the city"), while others interpret that in a more straightforward way of getting a job in the city.[4]
