John Mellencamp: A New Recording, An Old Sound.

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..DATE:
20100820
..PGRM:
Fresh Air
..TIME:
12:00-13:00 PM
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N/A
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NPR
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John Mellencamp: A New Recording, An Old Sound

DAVID BIANCULLI, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli of tvworthwatching.com, sitting in for
Terry Gross.

John Mellencamp has been performing and writing songs for three and a half
decades. His hits in the '80s include "Jack and Diane" and "Small Town." His
song "This is Our Country" first became famous when it was used in a Chevrolet
ad. And at the Obama inaugural celebration at the Lincoln Memorial, Mellencamp
sang his song, "Pink Houses," the one with the refrain: ain't that America for
you and me.

Mellencamp's new CD, "No Better Than This," revisits an earlier era not by re-
recording old songs but by recording new ones in places where some of the great
artists recorded their records and using vintage equipment, like an old, Ampex
reel-to-reel tape recorder and just one microphone. That's what Mellencamp was
doing last year on his days off, while touring with Bob Dylan and Willie
Nelson. The result, with no overdubs, is a sound that's vibrant and vital from
the opening notes, as with this song, "Right Behind Me."

(Soundbite of song, "Right Behind Me")

Mr. JOHN MELLENCAMP (Musician): (Singing) This town I'm leaving. I ain't
kidding, walking out the door forever more. See the devil, he's right behind me
whistling in my ear. It's time to move.

You know the devil, he thinks he got me. He ain't got me, no.

BIANCULLI: Terry spoke with John Mellencamp last year, when his album called
"Life, Death, Love and Freedom" was released. Here's the opening track from
that album, a song called "Longest Days."

(Soundbite of song, "Longest Days")

Mr. MELLENCAMP: (Singing) Seems like once upon a time ago, I was where I was
supposed to be. My vision was true, and my heart was, too. There was no end to
what I could dream.

I walked like a hero into the setting sun. Everyone called out my name. Death
to me was just a mystery. I was too busy raising up Cain.

But nothing lasts forever. Your best efforts don't always pay. Sometimes you
get sick, and you don't get better. That's when life is short even in its
longest days.

GROSS: John Mellencamp, welcome to FRESH AIR. I have to say, you know, I just
wasn't prepared for this song that opens the new CD. It's just so much about
mortality and things that aren't necessarily ever going to get better.

When I first started listening to the song, I think I was kind of depressed. It
was the middle of winter, and it really spoke to me. Sometimes you really need
songs like this. So thank you for writing it.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Thank you. The song - the song actually was that line. My
grandmother lived to be 100 years old, and it's a funny – it's not a funny, ha-
ha story, but this is how the line came about.

I used to go see her in the afternoons, and sometimes she'd make me lay in bed
with her. You know, I was like 45 years old or something, and my 100-year-old
grandmother, but she called me Buddy, and she'd go Buddy, come and lay down
with me. And I'd go okay.

So I'd lay in bed with her, and we'd talk sometimes, and you know, she was
great up until about 99, and then she started getting kind of dementia and
stuff like that.

And one afternoon, I was laying in bed with her, and she said let's pray, and I
said okay. And so she starts praying, and she says God, you know, Buddy and I
are ready to come home. And I went whoa, wait a minute. Grandma.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. MELLENCAMP: You're ready to come home, Buddy's only 45, he's not ready. And
then she turned to me and looked at me right in the face, and her face all of a
sudden looked like a little girl, and she goes Buddy, life is short in its
longest days.

And I always remembered that line, and I thought well surely, someday I'll be
able to work that line into a song. And that's how that song started.

GROSS: You know, it's funny that, you know, your grandmother would've said life
is short in its longest days because one of the things I like so much about the
song is that hook, and it's so - although this isn't a country song, per se,
there are so many country songs that have that kind of contradictory language
in its title.

Like Roger Miller has a song called "More and More I Miss You Less and Less,"
you know, that kind of, like, contradiction. And so you just got that from her.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Well you know, I don't really see it as a contradiction itself.
I just think it's a true statement. I mean, I look at my kids, and I look at
myself, and I go wow, what happened? Where did this all go?

And of course, my parents were very explicit with me about you know, John, time
goes by real quick, and you know, you better enjoy, try to enjoy every moment.

My dad has been retired from his job since he was 49 years old, and he's 79
now, and every day, he says the same thing to me. He says, did you do anything
fun for yourself today? And I'll go no, dad, I'm working.

He goes, you've got to do something for yourself, have fun every day because if
you don't, then life is going to pass you by, and you'll just - you know, what
good is it?

GROSS: Now I mean, you're obviously feeling that song that we just heard,
"Longest Days," but it's also great songcraft. Can you talk a little bit about
your process of writing a song like this? You were telling us that the main
hook, the life is short line, basically came from your grandmother, but what
about the rest of it?

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Well you know, as I've matured as a songwriter, I realize that
if it's out there, it's mine. You know, everything I see and hear, I don't care
if Shakespeare wrote it, or Tennessee Williams wrote it, or if Bob Dylan wrote
it, or I see it on a sitcom. If I hear words, they're mine.

And then what happens is that I'll sit down, and if I have to labor over the
song, generally the song is not very good. My best songs are just given to me
from someplace outside myself. It's like "The Longest Days," I got up one
morning, and the song came to me in a complete thought. All I had to do was get
up and write it down. There was no laboring about rhymes or melody or any of
that stuff. It just was - there it is.

And when that happens, you know, you've just kind of got to look up and go
thank you.

GROSS: John, you're in your studio, and you have your guitar with you. So I'm
going to ask if you could sing another song pertaining to mortality, and this
is called "A Ride Back Home."

(Soundbite of song, "A Ride Back Home")

Mr. MELLENCAMP: (Singing) Hey Jesus, can you give me a ride back home? I've
been out here in this world too long on my own. I won't bother you no more if
you can just get me in the door. Hey Jesus, can you give me a ride back home?

When I started out I was so young and so strong. I just let it roll off my back
when things went wrong. Now it's starting to get to me, all of this inhumanity.
Hey Jesus, can you give me a ride back home?

GROSS: Thank you, and that's John Mellencamp, performing a song from his CD
"Life, Death, Love and Freedom." Do you mind if I ask what kind of religion you
were brought up with, like, what church was like when you were young?

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Well my grandmother - back to my grandmother - made sure that I
went to church every Sunday. And she'd come over and pick us boys up, and we
would go to the Nazarene church. And back then, that was about as close to
heaven as I ever got because just the time to be able to spend with her, and
she was very, very religious.

But see, you know, I'm in, and I don't even worry about it because before she
died, she said listen, Buddy, when you die, I'll be waiting on you, and you're
in. So I figure, you know, I don't - I got nothing to do.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. MELLENCAMP: She's taken care of it for me. So if there is a heaven, I'm in.
So I don't even think about. Although she did say, Buddy, you're going to have
to stop that cussing.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. MELLENCAMP: But other than that, you know, if I can just clean up my
language, I'm pretty sure I'm in the golden gates. So I trust her, and I
believe her, and so...

Yeah, I grew up Nazarene, and that's where I went to church, and then finally
about 17 or 18, I just kind of quit going.

GROSS: Here's another mortality question, if you don't mind. You know, as I've
been saying, there's a bunch of songs on the new CD that are about mortality.

You had heart surgery in the 1990s, right? A heart attack?

Mr. MELLENCAMP: No, no, no, no, no. Yeah. I had a mild heart attack because I
smoke and because I have high cholesterol, and for 10 years before that,
doctors were telling me, John, you need to get on cholesterol medicine, and my
answer was always the same.

Am I all right now? And they go yeah, you're all right now, but you're heading
for disaster. Okay, well, I'll deal with disaster when it gets here. Well, it
got here.

So I have no one to blame or anything like that about having a heart
malfunction, but I did not have open-heart surgery or anything like that.

GROSS: So this is more than 10 years ago.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Actually, it was 1994.

GROSS: So you weren't writing songs like this then, were you?

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Yes, I was.

GROSS: You were?

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Yeah. See, the problem is that music is so - you know, during
the '80s and the '70s, you know, the songs and the arrangements of the songs
had to be a certain way to get on the radio, and it really screwed up songs. It
really messed up - I've been writing about this stuff forever.

I've been writing about mortality. I've been writing about - you know, I only
write four songs. Come on.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. MELLENCAMP: I've got the same four songs, and I just rewrite them, you
know, 50 times, but I've got four topics that I cover. You know, I cover race,
and I cover what you're calling mortality, and then I, you know, sometimes
write about girls, but I'm too old to write about that now. So you know, I've
only got a few things I write about. But if you listen to songs that I've
written.

(Soundbite of music)

Mr. MELLENCAMP: (Singing) Some people ain't no damn good.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: You know, that song is about mortality. "When The Walls Come
Crumbling Down," it was about the government. So because the music and the
lightness and the arrangements of the music of that time were of a certain ilk,
and even got worse in the '90s, the songs, to be able to be on the radio,
really had to take on a candy-coated appeal.

"Pink Houses" was always anti-Reaganomics. People love the ain't that America.
So, you know, people take from songs only what they want to hear, and you know,
I'm just like everybody else.

So you've kind of got to lift up the veil of a lot of songwriters' songs to
really realize what's being said.

GROSS: Well, let's take, I think, an excellent example of what you're talking
about, which is "This is Our Country," and a lot of people know that song from
the Chevrolet Silverado ad, and it sounds like, you know, an American anthem
when you just hear the chorus.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: The chorus, right.

GROSS: But I'm going to ask you to sing a verse from it that gives a very
different impression than what people might have walked away from in the ad.
And this is - can you do the verse that goes: And there's room enough here for
religion to forgive? Room enough here for science to live?

(Soundbite of song, "This is Our Country")

Mr. MELLENCAMP: (Singing) Well, there's room enough here.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Let me see if I can do it.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: (Singing) Well, there's room enough here for...

Mr. MELLENCAMP: I've got a cigarette in my mouth. Let me take it out.

GROSS: Take it out.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Hold on. All right, here we go.

(Soundbite of song, "This is Our Country")

Mr. MELLENCAMP: (Singing) Well there's room enough here for science to live,
and there's room enough here for religion to forgive and try to understand how
the people love this land. This is our country.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Yeah, I think that, you know, simply because it was my one and
only television commercial, that outraged a lot of people, and what the song is
really about was missed. But you know, I knew that was going to happen. But I
really had no idea how much that song was going to be played.

GROSS: "This is Our Country" is kind of like a plea to end the culture wars, to
be inclusive, to respect each other.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Yes.

GROSS: Do you feel it became an anthem for something else in the minds of many
people?

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Well, I don't care. I mean, it became an anthem for Chevrolet,
I think.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. MELLENCAMP: I mean, because how that's how they discovered the song because
they couldn't discover the song in the way that they discovered "Pink Houses"
or the way that they discovered, you know, "I Need a Lover." It's impossible
to, you know, to discover a song that way.

GROSS: But what went through your mind when Chevrolet asked you to use it? Did
you think immediately this would be a good idea? Did you have reservations
about it?

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Oh listen, I had spoken out against it. I was the same that you
are, and I still don't think that an artist should have to get involved with
Wall Street on any level.

That's not what I really do. I don't write songs for commercials, but I did
this because I thought, well, perhaps they are right. I had so many people
saying John, you have turned down fortunes and fortunes of money, and now is
the time.

The music business has changed. Nobody is - your songs can't grow from the
ground up anymore. So go from it from a different angle. So that's what we did.

GROSS: And what did you learn from the experience?

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Oh, I learned that an artist shouldn't have to do this. This is
not what my songs are about. But I also learned that Chevrolet was a better
record company than Columbia.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: Because they got your song out there?

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Because - no, because - yes that, and partially, but because
they also, what they said they were going to do, they did. They kept their
word.

GROSS: Which was?

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Well, record companies never keep their word. That's the point
of the whole conversation. Records companies say we're going to do this, this
and this and this, and they never did any of it.

BIANCULLI: John Mellencamp, speaking to Terry Gross last year. More after a
break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

BIANCULLI: Let's get back to Terry's 2009 interview with John Mellencamp, whose
new CD is called "No Better Than This."

GROSS: I also want to talk with you about "Pink Houses," which is the song that
John McCain had briefly used in his campaign, and we'll talk about what
happened with that, but play the hook from it so everybody knows the song.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Let me see how that goes. Okay, here we go.

(Soundbite of song, "Pink Houses")

Mr. MELLENCAMP: (Singing) Ain't that America for you and me? Ain't that America
something to see, babe? Ain't that America, home of the free? Little pink
houses for you and me.

GROSS: So when you found out John McCain was using it in his campaign, and you
are a lifelong Democrat, how did you decide to handle it?

Mr. MELLENCAMP: I wouldn't say I'm a lifelong Democrat. I'm very liberal.

GROSS: Okay, right. You can vote whatever you want, but you're very liberal.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: I'm very liberal, yes. I'm very liberal.

GROSS: Got it.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Well, what happened was that I called up my publicity guy, a
guy named Bob Merlis. I said - Bob said, you know, McCain's using your song.

I said well, he can use it if he wants to, but you probably ought to write him
a letter and say, you know, not only, you know, that you guys are using it, but
so is Barack Obama, so is John Edwards, so is Hillary Clinton, and you should
understand that Mellencamp is very liberal, and do you really think that it's
pushing your agenda in the right direction?

I mean, you're just really falling in line with all the other liberal
candidates. Maybe you guys should rethink using the song. We didn't tell him
not to use it. We just wrote a letter that said, you know, why don't you guys -
you guys might want to rethink about using this song, and they quit using it.

GROSS: When you write songs like "Pink Houses" or "This is Our Country" or
"R.O.C.K. in the USA," do you think: I'm going to sit down and write an anthem?

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. MELLENCAMP: No, not really because if you hear me play these songs, like
you just heard me - they're not anthems at all. They're folks songs.

GROSS: That's true.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: I mean, you know, like I just played the chorus of "Pink
Houses." That's not an anthem. That's a folk song. But see, that's what I was
talking about, and all the songs that you named were music from the '80s that
had to be, you know, dressed up in a certain way, or they weren't going to be
on the radio.

If I, like, I'm going to go out on tour, and I'm going to play, just me and
acoustic guitar, and all these songs take on a whole different feeling or
meaning when you hear me playing by myself because they're not wrapped up in
the music of the time. There just songs. So I'll give you a good example. Hold
on, listen.

(Soundbite of song, "I Need a Lover")

Mr. MELLENCAMP: (Singing) I need a lover who won't drive me crazy. I need a
lover that won't drive me mad. I need a lover that won't drive me crazy. I need
a girl like one I ain't never had.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: It's a whole different song.

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: It's a whole different song than the song that you grew up
hearing and, you know, I grew up playing. But that's what the music of the time
required.

But don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. I was very fortunate. I had a lot
of hit records, and you know, I'm 57 years old. I'm still out playing shows,
and people still know my songs, and so you know, I feel very fortunate about
all that. So I'm not complaining.

I'm just saying that, you know, trying to be an artist inside the music
business has always been challenging for me.

BIANCULLI: John Mellencamp, speaking to Terry Gross in 2009. We'll hear more of
Terry's conversation with Mellencamp in the second half of the show. His new
CD, produced by T Bone Burnett, is called "No Better Than This." You can hear
all of the songs from his new CD on our website, freshair.npr.org, where they
will be streaming for the next two weeks. I'm David Bianculli, and this is
FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of song)

Mr. MELLENCAMP: (Singing) She spends all our money, and then she tells me I'm
too tight. She calls me Sunny because she thinks that I'm so bright. She likes
to be loved in the morning. I like to get it at night. (Unintelligible).

She don't eat meat, but she smokes cigarettes. She remembers things that I'm
trying to forget. We both can't hold a grudge, but...

(Soundbite of music)

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. I’m David Bianculli, back with more of Terry's
interview with John Mellencamp. His new CD "No Better Than This," was recorded
while he was on a national tour with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson. But it was
recorded on his days off, when he would take an old Ampex tape recorder, a
single microphone and record new songs in some very significant old locations:
from Sun Studio in Memphis, to the First African Baptist Church, a stop on the
underground railroad in Savannah, Georgia.

Mellencamp grew up in a small town in Indiana. When Terry spoke with him last
year, she asked him about the first record he bought when he was a kid.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: The first record I ever bought was "The Twist" - with my own
money, I bought that by Chubby Checker and I was like, maybe you know, seven or
six years old. And this girl that lived next door to us, her and I entered the
twist contest in the window of the dime store in Seymour, Indiana and we won.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. MELLENCAMP: ...the twist contest. But we didn't really have any twist
music, so, I had to go buy Chubby Checker. But I grew up in a household where
my dad is only 20 years older than me. So, my dad had, you know, I had access
to a lot of music and my dad thought - at the time I think he was - you know,
him and his buddy had bongo parties where they had bongos. So, you know, I was
exposed to Woody Guthrie, Odetta, you know, all kind of music through my
father's record collection. So - and I had an older brother who is four years
older than me, who also played guitar and was really a much better singer than
me.

GROSS: Could you maybe play an excerpt of a song that you feel was like in your
DNA because you heard it and loved it when you were young, either a song that
you discovered on your own or a song from your father's collection that's just,
kind of, in your blood?

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Let me see.

(Soundbite of song, "The Times They Are A-Changin'")

Mr. MELLENCAMP: (Singing) Come gather 'round people, wherever you roam, and
admit that the waters, around you have grown and soon you'll sink like a stone.

Anyway, my brother had that - brought that record home in 1963, 1962, whatever
year it came out and it made a huge impression on me, that Bob Dylan fellow.

GROSS: Yeah, what impact did Dylan have on you when you were young?

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Well, I mean he was the ultimate songwriter. You know, I never
even considered writing songs until I was much older, because I was the singer
in a rock band. You know, I was in a bar - you remember, you know, the mid -
early '70s, mid-70s, there were so many rock bars. You know, and I was one of
those guys, you know, playing and singing and there was no reason for me to
write a song because there were so many beautiful songs out and, you know, we
would - in one hand, you know, I had Bob Dylan and on the other I had Iggy Pop.
You know, and we would go from - from a Dylan song to a Stooges' song, all in
one set.

So, you know, there was no reason for me to write songs. So, but Bob Dylan was
always the - the ultimate songwriter and nobody could ever write a song as good
as him and nobody ever has written a song as good as him. And you know, so, you
know, but I thought it...

GROSS: So, what made you think about writing songs, not just singing them?

Mr. MELLENCAMP: I got a record deal.

GROSS: And you had to write because of that?

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Yeah.

GROSS: Really? So you hadn't written songs before that?

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Oh, you know, I had written songs, you know, to get girls to
come over at the house or something, but other than that, you know, I was never
really serious about songwriting until probably 19, I don't know, '80 something
or another. I'd written...

GROSS: Oh, wait, let me stop you - let me stop you. So when you'd write a song
to get a girl to come over the house...

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Yeah.

GROSS: ...would you stare into her eyes in a dreamy way as you played the song?

Mr. MELLENCAMP: No, I never have to do that.

GROSS: No?

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. MELLENCAMP: I never had to do that, and I just - they just - they just
dropped everything. You know, girls at that time, if you had a guitar, they
liked you. And, you know, I wasn't the only one. I mean, you know, there was a
long line of guys walking around my town with a guitar case.

GROSS: Do you remember any of those early songs? Can I impose on you to play a
few bars of one of them?

Mr. MELLENCAMP: I don't know if I can even really remember any of them. I
remember the first song I learned on a guitar.

GROSS: Okay.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: I was nine years old.

(Soundbite of song, "Railroad Bill")

Mr. MELLENCAMP: (Singing) Railroad Bill, Railroad Bill, lived way up on
Railroad Hill. Ride, ride, ride. Railroad Bill, Railroad Bill, well, he never
worked and he never will. Ride, ride, ride.

That's the first song I learned on guitar.

GROSS: I don’t think I know that. Whose - whose is that?

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Oh, it's just an old folk song. I'm a folk singer, you know,
and that's - that's what I always did. You know, I'd always been in bands, but
I was always, you know, always had an acoustic guitar and always sang those old
American folk songs, you know...

GROSS: And - and yet - and yet I read that in one of your bar bands, you did a
lot of James Brown covers.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Oh yeah, well listen, sure. Yeah, I mean, you know, James Brown
was, you know, he was the Bob Dylan of soul. I mean, you know, sure, I was in a
band called the Crepe Soul and that's all we did. It was me and - and a, I hate
to identify him in this fashion, but a black kid - me and a black kid were the
lead singers. I was 14, he was 18 and everybody else in the band was 21. Now
you can imagine letting a 14-year-old kid get in a car today with a bunch of
21-year-old guys, going to a bar every weekend and playing? But my parents let
me do it, and that's what I did and I, you know, I'd bring home $25-$35 every
weekend. They were happy about it.

GROSS: So, you moved from Indiana to New York to get close to the record
industry.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: That's not true.

GROSS. No? Okay, go ahead.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: No. I moved from Indiana to London.

GROSS: Oh.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: And I lived in London in 1977 and '78. And the only reason I
moved to London that I - I had a record deal when I - I actually, here's what
happened. If you - I mean it's a boring story, it's the same old story, you've
heard a million times. Anyway, I go to New York and I wanted to take a look at
the New York Art Student League or I wanted to get a record deal, I didn't
really care which. I was either going to be a painter or a songwriter. Since,
the Art Student League cost a lot of money, that was out, because I had no
money. And I went there and it wasn't this simple, but I got a record deal
pretty rapidly.

And then it was - I made a couple of records that were terrible. I was managed
by the same guy that managed Bowie. And he was - he tried to recreate me into
an American David Bowie - just didn't work and him and I fought all the time.
And that's where Johnny Cougar came from and all...

GROSS: Was that his idea?

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Yeah. Yeah, it was a terrible idea. I told him at the time it
was a terrible idea and, of course, he didn't like that. You know, he wasn't
going to take that from snappy young brat such as myself. You know, he was the
P. T. Barnum of the whole thing. He created David Bowie and reminded me of that
all the time. But anyway, so I was with him for, you know, I made a couple of
records with him that were terrible, terrible - not worth listening, not worth
looking at. And then I met a manager who was a shyster and we, he said, you
know, I can't get a record deal here in the United States for you, but if you
could come to London, I can get one in Europe.

So, we moved to London and I lived in London for two years. And it was a great
experience, and eye-opening for, you know, to move from Seymour, Indiana to
London England and be living on, you know, right in Chelsea and the whole punk
rock thing was just starting to explode and there I was with an acoustic
guitar.

GROSS: Wow. Right. Now, let me ask you about one of your early hits - and this
is "Jack & Diane" from 1982. There is a great line in that, life goes on even
after the thrill of living is gone.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: So, there you go. Now we're talking about mortality again.

GROSS: Yes, exactly. I know. That occurred to me.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: That definitely occurred to me. Can you talk about how that line came to
you?

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Well actually, they are putting together a boxed set of my
songs. And the guy was just here yesterday who's producing it, was working on
it and they - this guy is leaving no stone unturned. So, he found a song that I
had written before "Jack & Diane" called "Ginny(ph) at 16" that had some of the
same lines from "Jack & Diane" in it - that I had abandoned that song "Ginny at
16" and turned it into "Jack & Diane." And in the original writing of "Jack &
Diane," he discovered that Jack was black. So even back then, I was talking
about interracial things, but for some reason rather had abandoned that idea.
So "Jack & Diane" was originally about an interracial couple. But I guess in
1981, I think maybe I decided, maybe this is a little too - pushing it too far.
Because, you know, this country is a pretty racist place and so - particularly
in '81.

GROSS: Can you do a few bars of "Jack & Diane?"

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Yeah, hold on.

(Soundbite of song, "Jack & Diane")

Mr. MELLENCAMP: (Singing) A little ditty about Jack and Diane, two American
kids growin' up in the heartland. Jackie gonna be a football star, Diane's
debutante backseat of Jackie's car. Suckin' on chili dog outside the Tastee-
Freez, Diane's sittin' on Jackie's lap, got his hands between her knees. Jackie
say, hey Diane, lets run off, behind a shady trees, dribble off those Bobby
Brooks girl, let me do what I please. Oh yeah, life goes on, long after the
thrill of livin' is gone. Oh yeah, see, life goes on, long after the thrill of
livin' is gone. They walk on.

That's it.

GROSS: Did you know when you were writing that that it would be really good to
put in like details in the song, like - like the Tastee-Freez, or the - the
chili dogs? I mean, like story writers think of details like that, songwriters
don't always.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Well, I don't know, you know, I don't know. I can say this very
crudely to you, a lot of those songs back then were not really written in my
mind. They were written, you know, below my belt. They were songs that were
only - only emotional. There was no - I wasn't sophisticated enough to think,
oh, I should put a detail in here.

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: You know, I was - it was - I was a guy in a band in a bar and,
you know, I saw what people did and partook in what people did in those bars. I
was part of that scene in the Midwest. And it was a, you know, it was a rough
ass crowd some nights and some nights it wasn't, you know.

So, that's where songs like "Lonely Ol' Night" came from. Music was a sideline
for me at that time. You know, all my songs were written below my belt. And
then, and as I got older, they kind of, raised up to my head and became more
of, you know, you should pay attention to what you're writing because people
are actually listening.

BIANCULLI: John Mellencamp, speaking to Terry Gross last year.

More after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

BIANCULLI: Let's get back to Terry's 2009 interview with John Mellencamp. His
new CD is called "No Better Than This."

GROSS: I wanted to ask you something, and this gets back to what we were
talking about early on, about mortality. And this question might strike you as
kind of odd and a real stretch, and maybe it is, but I know that you were born
with a tumor on your spine.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: I was born with Spina Bifida.

GROSS: That's like an opening in your spine, isn't it?

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Yes, that's what it is.

GROSS: That's really dangerous.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Well, in 1951 it was deadly. In 1951, you know, they would
operate on people with, you know, with pinking shears and screwdrivers.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. MELLENCAMP: And, you know, they were still giving people lobotomies in
1951, you know. So the medical world was pretty not developed, not like today.
And I was born with Spina Bifida, and it used to be the practice to let the
baby lay there for two or three weeks, and if the baby survived, then they
would operate on the baby. Thank God for me, that there was a young doctor
named Dr. Heimberger at Riley's Children Hospital in Indianapolis, who said
we've got to stop this letting these kids die and letting them lay there
because they won't survive. So let's - the minute we see it, let's operate on
them.

And that's what he did with me. And generally, if you are born with that
disease, wherever they operate on you from, you’re crippled from that point
down. My hole in my spine was right below my ears, so I should have been
crippled from the neck down.

GROSS: Do you think, and this is the part that's like really the stretch
because - because you were born so vulnerable and that you had a condition that
nearly killed you, that could have killed you, do you think that you have some
like retention of that and that there's something like deep inside that has
always been in touch with mortality and vulnerability because of that? I mean
and even if you weren't aware of it, like, your parents would have been.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Well my parents didn't even tell me until I was, until some kid
at school said to me when I was about in sixth, seventh - fifth or sixth grade,
I'm sure. I was sitting in class and some kid goes, man, what's that big scar
across the back of your neck? And I said - what scar? I didn't know there was a
scar on the back of my neck. Apparently, my parents told my brothers not to say
anything to me and they never said anything to me, and so I remember going home
and going, what's this scar on my neck? And then I got the whole nine yards.
And at, you know, nine or ten years old, I didn't much care. I pretty...

GROSS: You didn't?

Mr. MELLENCAMP: No at that time I didn't care because I figured, well, you
know, I've been a normal kid thus far, I have no reason to believe that I won't
be anything but a normal kid. And I played football and I ran track, and played
baseball and, you know, I did everything everybody else did. But, you know, I
don't see that scar on the back of my neck but, you know, I've been married to
Elaine for 17 years and she said the first time she kissed me and she put her
hand on the back of my neck, she thought, what the - world is that.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: Can I close by asking you to do a song that you did not write, that you
really love, that's by somebody else?

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Okay, I will play a song that I have played at every party.

GROSS: Oh great, okay.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: But, this is my party song, you know, when they hand me a
guitar and say John, play something.

(Soundbite of song, "Earlybird Cafe")

Mr. MELLENCAMP: (Singing) Everybody's laughin' at the Earlybird Cafe. I've been
heading there since yesterday, and I believe I've lost my way. Charlotte's
there in organdy, Billy's there in suede. There's money in their pockets, all
their dues are paid. And there's wine on every table, and there's food on every
plate. Well, I hope I get there pretty soon, before it gets too late.

Well, I ran on down the road awhile to the other side of town, my clothes was
getting wrinkled, and my socks was falling down, but I could not stop to pull
them up, in fear that I'd be late so I kept on runnin' down the road until I
saw the gate - of the Earlybird Cafe, glowin' golden like the sun, everybody
kept on singing: Come on in, we've just begun.

Well, I went right in, and I sat right down, and I ordered me up some wine, my
talk was fast and clever and the women all were fine. Charlotte asked me where
I'd been with jade and ivory eyes, I told her I'd been hung up, with some
beggar in disguise. Well she laughed like temple bells, she kissed me on the
cheek and said: you know it's hard to be alive sometimes but it's easy to be
dead.

GROSS: You know I feel like I should know that song and I don't, please tell me
something about the song.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: It's old folk song and it was originally recorded by, might
even been written by, a band called Jerry Hahn Brotherhood, which was a band
that I saw play probably in 1968 - opening up for Frank Zappa and The Mothers
Of Invention. And they played that song and I went - wow. But that's my party
song. I have been playing this since, I have been playing that song since I was
17 years old.

GROSS: To really cheer up the party.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. MELLENCAMP: Yeah. I think it's a beautiful song.

GROSS: It is.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: It is. It's been great to talk with you. I really appreciate your doing
this and thank you for playing for us. I think it was just really generous of
you. I really appreciate it.

Mr. MELLENCAMP: It's my pleasure.

BIANCULLI: John Mellencamp, speaking and singing to Terry Gross last year. His
new CD, recorded in various spots around the country on his days off, while
touring with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson, is called "No Better Than This."

You can hear the entire CD, every track, on our website, freshair.npr.org,
where it will be streaming for the next two weeks.

Coming up, rock critic Ken Tucker on "Ghost Train," the new album from country
singer Marty Stuart.

This is FRESH AIR.
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Marty Stuart Returns To His Roots On 'Ghost Train'

DAVID BIANCULLI, host:

Marty Stuart has been playing country music professionally since his early
teens. From the mid-1980s to the early '90s, Stuart had a lot of mainstream
country music success. But as the country industry moved toward more of a pop
sound, Stuart became more interested in old fashioned country music, mostly
from the '50s and '60s.

His new album, "Ghost Train: The Studio B Sessions," features new songs he's
written in this throwback style, as well as covers of old hits by other
performers.

Rock critic Ken Tucker has a review.

(Soundbite of song, "Branded")

Mr. MARTY STUART (Singer-songwriter) (Singing) Well, I'm branded wherever I go,
trying to outrun a bad story everybody seems to know. Might as well be wearing
a ball and chain, 'cause everywhere I travel, seen a picture with a number by
my name. Spent some time in San Francisco...

KEN TUCKER: Like countless performers before him, Marty Stuart likes to portray
himself as hunted, haunted, misunderstood — a rebel on the lam. It's a familiar
story, whether it's coming from the blues, honky-tonk, or hip-hop. The trick is
to make that story sound fresh. Stuart does that in the ringing guitars and his
high-lonesome holler on that song, called "Branded." Whether he intends it or
not, "Branded" is also something of a pun: This new collection is Stuart's
proclamation that while he can't help but become a consumer brand, his branding
is that of the outsider. All of this would be hopelessly hokey if the music
didn't bolster his line of patter.

(Soundbite of song, "Drifting Apart")

Mr. STUART: (Singing) Our home is like a prison, where we're both serving time.
I'm a stranger in your world now, and it's driving me out of my mind. Drifting
apart, drifting apart, darling, we're drifting apart. Out of reach, out of
heart, we're slowly drifting apart.

TUCKER: That's Marty Stuart howling about a broken marriage in what amounts to
an homage to the kind of steel-guitar super-hits George Jones and Buck Owens
made decades ago. Stuart wrote the song and produced it himself. The steel
guitar is played by Ralph Mooney, the man sometimes credited with inventing the
so-called Bakersfield Sound on hits with Buck Owens and Wynn Stewart, among
many others. Stuart is a fluid guitar player himself, who played bluegrass
mandolin behind Lester Flatt when Stuart was 13 years old. But he never gets
bogged down in fussy arrangements or mere nostalgia.

Listen to the way he summons up a whole history of male/female duet singing in
a vibrant new song called "I Run To You."

(Soundbite of song, "I Run To You")

Mr. STUART AND Ms. CONNIE SMITH: (Singing) I run to you when I'm lonely. I run
to you when I'm feeling blue. Each step I take leads to you only. When I need
love, I run to you.

TUCKER: Marty Stuart's duet partner there is his wife, Connie Smith, a great
country singer, starting with her indelible 1964 hit "Once A Day." Sometimes it
seems as though Marty Stuart has built a life that allows him to live in a
perpetual country music time machine. He curates exhibits of music memorabilia
and photography and does restoration work on legends such as Porter Wagoner,
for whom Stuart produced a lively 2007 album, shortly before Wagoner's death at
age 80. Stuart has a song on "Ghost Train" called "Porter Wagoner's Grave"
that's at once eloquent and maudlin in a long tradition of country death songs.

All is not gloom and grave-dust, however, as "Little Heartbreaker"
demonstrates.

(Soundbite of song, "Little Heartbreaker")

Mr. STUART: (Singing) You ain't nothing but a little heartbreaker, a tiny
little teardrop, mover and a shaker. I swear by the moon and stars, I love you.
You’ve got me wrapped around your pretty little finger. My heart is a bell, you
know how to ring her, and all of this to say baby, I love you. I can't help
myself...

TUCKER: The longer you ride in Marty Stuart's "Ghost Train," the more its speed
and energy hits you like the wind in your face. In the liner notes to his new
album, Marty Stuart says that he felt it was time to, quote, "write some songs
and play some hard-hitting country music." Most of the time, "Ghost Train" hits
hard, dead center in the sweet spot between old and new, until you can't tell
the difference.

BIANCULLI: Ken Tucker is editor-at-large for Entertainment Weekly. He reviewed
Marty Stuart's new album, called "Ghost Train: The Studio B Sessions."

You can listen to three tracks from Marty Stuart's new album on nprmusic.org.

(Soundbite of song, "Little Heartbreaker")

Mr. STUART: (Singing) Don’t call 'ole moon, get a little unwound. Go to
Mississippi then I'm Texas it bound. Play a little country music on the way.
Got to get away from you 'cause you break my mind. Baby, I'm gone for good this
time. Adios is all there is to say.

You ain't nothing but a little heartbreaker, a tiny little teardrop, mover and
a shaker. I swear by the moon and stars, I love you. You’ve got me wrapped
around your pretty little finger. My heart is a bell, you know how to ring her,
and all of this to say baby, I love you.
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Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.