John Mellencamp Quotes
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As I get older, I have a different look on life. I just try to be a little more tolerant and a little bit more centered about what's going on around me and not so emotional.
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When people are afraid, they make emotional decisions.
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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.
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People have the right to say what they want to.
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I thought I knew a lot about music. Then you start digging and the deeper you go, the more there is.
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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.
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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.
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A painting has to be beautiful. Even in its grotesqueness.
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People in Indiana have known me for 25 years. They've known George Bush four.
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When did Jimmy Stewart not play Jimmy Stewart? When did John Wayne not play John Wayne? But that's what we like about them. When you talk about acting, you really have to respond to somebody's personality.
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My best songs come from a place outside myself.
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I believe in something, even if it's just me.
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It sounds funny, but I always try to keep an open mind about what I'm writing about. Sometimes I squeak my opinions in there, but generally I don't. I try to be objective about things that I'm writing about.
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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.
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If I'm painting, I paint every day. I'll be up in the studio from 8:00 in the morning to 8:00 at night.
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I just think if the song's good, sing it. I don't care who's doing it. I don't care if it's a country act. I don't care if it's a rock act. If the song's good, sing it.
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Music was so important to the culture when I was growing up in the Sixties and Seventies. We just expected that Bob Dylan was going to make a great record, and it was normal. It was like, 'Okay, here's another great record by Bob Dylan; here's another great record by Led Zeppelin.'
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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.
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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.
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When I wrote 'Pink Houses,' nobody was talking about that, right? The next thing I know, you can't see the TV without hearing commercials with 'Listen to the heartbeat of America,' or 'Born the American way.' That whole America thing now - I hate it.
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I've been around so many people for so long that I take great delight in my own company.
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Everything I have is for sale. Material items are just things that pass through your hands that mean very little or nothing.
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I wish my grandmother and grandfather were still alive, because they were able to keep me grounded.
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'Jack & Diane' was originally about race. I was playing nightclubs, and I was seeing new American couples, mixed-race couples. I thought it was cool. The song was my effort to make a song about that, but of course the record-company guy didn't like it.