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When you live in hysteria, people start thinking emotionally.
John Mellencamp
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Hanging out is a waste of time. The only time I would hang out was when I was a kid, I would hang out in the streets. But once I started making records, I stopped hanging out.
John Mellencamp
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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?
John Mellencamp
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In so many musicals today, the story is moved forward by a song. I don't think we're gonna try to do that.
John Mellencamp
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Take 'Jack and Diane.' I was so disgusted with people thinking the line 'Hold on to sixteen as long as you can' meant to stay a teenager forever. What I meant was keep doing whatever makes you feel alive.
John Mellencamp
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Do I think it's OK to fight authority as long as you're only talking about the high school teacher? No.
John Mellencamp
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There are a lot of actors who try to get records made and try to make record deals, and everybody goes, 'Ugh.' It used to be expected in the entertainment business. I mean look at Sinatra, Bing Crosby. All these guys started out as singers.
John Mellencamp
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I don't want to be a politician. I don't like politics. It's petty; it fights dirty.
John Mellencamp
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I'm using my art to comment on what I see. You don't have to agree with it.
John Mellencamp
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All I'm doing is painting. It's my hobby. And that's that.
John Mellencamp
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Natalie from the Dixie Chicks could have said what she said before 9-11 and no one would have cared.
John Mellencamp
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Regret should be handled swiftly, and you shouldn't hold onto it. People spend their entire lives regretting what they didn't do and what they should've done. Hey, man, you did what you did.
John Mellencamp
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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.
John Mellencamp
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It's my responsibility as a singer-songwriter to report the news.
John Mellencamp
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I want my paintings to look like they were found in a garage. If they get a scratch or a hole in them, it just becomes part of the painting.
John Mellencamp
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I used to think that eating healthy was ordering a fish sandwich at McDonalds.
John Mellencamp
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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.
John Mellencamp
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I'm your average Joe guy. I don't really care for politicians.
John Mellencamp
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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.
John Mellencamp
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I have to say when a man lives for himself, it's hard to live with him. That's pretty much the story of all my divorces. I've been making records since I was 22 and done things my way, and it's hard for me to compromise. And of course, to have a successful relationship, one has to compromise. Sometimes I'm not good at it.
John Mellencamp
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This is not a rock opera. This is not Tommy. I can write songs that emote, and that's it.
John Mellencamp
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I was born with Spina bifida. That's where you have a hole in your spine, and your nerve endings come out.
John Mellencamp
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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.
John Mellencamp
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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.
John Mellencamp
