I went to New York in 1974, to either try to get a record deal, get into the New York Art Student League, or be a dancer. So that was my plan. Some plan. And I had no money.
— John Mellencamp
When politicians use fear, they are playing into the enemy's hand.
Wait a minute, guys, I have always been on your side. I have always spoken for you, always tried to put on a good face for the state of Indiana. All of a sudden, some of you people think I'm a bad guy?
This is about black people selling out other black people.
Natalie from the Dixie Chicks could have said what she said before 9-11 and no one would have cared.
In so many musicals today, the story is moved forward by a song. I don't think we're gonna try to do that.
I'm your average Joe guy. I don't really care for politicians.
I would never say John Kerry would be a great president. I will say that George Bush has divided us; he has filled this country with hatred.
I think it's ridiculous to try to sell records to teenagers, because teenagers don't buy my records. And there ain't that many teenagers out there in the marketplace.
I couldn't have recorded this record 15 years ago. My voice didn't have the depth to pull these songs off.
Bob Dylan's first couple of records in the 60's weren't considered cover records, but he only wrote one or two original songs on each album.
What is there to be afraid of? The worst thing that can happen is you fail. So what? I failed at a lot of things. My first record was horrible.
You cannot expect the guy who drove the car into the ditch to navigate it out of the ditch. You have to put a new driver in the seat. I'm not saying the new driver is going to be any better, but we need a new driver. Kerry is the only choice.
What's the difference? One guy's the same as the other.
Unemployment is sky-rocketing; deflation is in our future for the first time since the Great Depression. I don't care whose fault it is, it's the truth.
People in Indiana have known me for 25 years. They've known George Bush four.
My thought was I should try to stick with names that people may recognize like Robert Johnson, Son House, and Hoagy Carmichael, so if somebody cared to research, they would find a wealth of material.
If fans are going to turn on me because of this, they weren't my fans anyway. I couldn't betray a whole 25 years of record making and not do this. I had to.
I'm wide open and will entertain anything anybody has to say, but if it's MTV and radio, well, they're great things, but can't be the only thing. I don't know that it would work even for the Beatles.
I want to sell to people my own age, because that's the way I write songs.
I don't want to be a politician. I don't like politics. It's petty; it fights dirty.
I'm using my art to comment on what I see. You don't have to agree with it.
A lot of Woody Guthrie's songs were taken from other songs. He would rework the melody and lyrics, and all of a sudden it was a Woody Guthrie song.
When people are afraid, they make emotional decisions.
When you live in hysteria, people start thinking emotionally.
We could walk 3 minutes and be on the beach. I think the music kind of suffered because of it. It kind of smelled like Jimmy Buffett, which is a bad thing.
This is not a rock opera. This is not Tommy. I can write songs that emote, and that's it.
People have the right to say what they want to.
It's my responsibility as a singer-songwriter to report the news.
I've just been fortunate to havehad a lot of hit records, though Human Wheels doesn't qualify as a hit record-but it's really the best single I've ever had.
I'm the guy who wrote The Authority Song. Did they think I was kidding? Did they think it was only a song to entertain?
I thought I knew a lot about music. Then you start digging and the deeper you go, the more there is.
I don't have to worry about any pop sensibility. I can write adult songs, and I don't have to worry about choruses and hook lines.
Do I think it's OK to fight authority as long as you're only talking about the high school teacher? No.
A lot of record company people, even though they're our age, want to be perceived as young hip guys, and they're hurting the business.
