I thought he didn't want to be no pop singer

I'm pretty sure they did that, five or so years ago. Unless I was hallucinating.

It was just a Mercedes driving down a desert road, with that song playing.

 

If music has an Albom, it's John Cougar Mellencamp.

 

Oh

We laugh about Reagan wanting to use "Pink Houses" to campaign on because he was a 70-plus spokesman for corporate interests and reactionary politics who couldn't pick JCM out of a police lineup that included him and the Lennon sisters. I don't like J. Cougar Melonball's music because I think it's mediocre music, not because I believe that the people who do like it are rubes. I've spent too much time in the Midwest - including the five most important years of my life -- to believe that.
However, anyone who votes against his own economic interests because a bunch of cynical politicians -- and heartland heroes like Ronald Reagan and both Bush boys! -- yell about Jeebus and talk nasty about Eastern liberals laughing at them is a sap, no matter how salt-of-the-earth.
That said, I think LJB's crack was completely uncalled-for.

 

Sorry man, the song -- and most of his music -- makes me as sick as I would be if I ate a tub of frosting. "My Country" is a treacly Albom column.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am an admitted Eastern snob who spent four and a half important years drinking beer in the Midwest.

 

Which is why I think that the Eastern liberals who want to get Dems into office should be pretty careful about the funny little jokes about Midwestern simpletons. I think people here have visceral reactions to being put down. Is the GOP pandering? Absolutely. But I guess people would rather be pandered to than put down. There's a lot of pride here, and sometimes it's misguided. The GOP might put a steel worker in the unemployment line, but at least they're not making fun of him or talking down to him.

 

Wasn't ripping Fogerty, I was ripping the cynical assholes who ignored the meaning of the original song to sell jeans.

Fogerty can't be ripped for that, but he can be ripped for being a dick when he led CCR.

 

Dude, I live in Indiana, have lived in the Midwest all but two years of my life.

What he's done to commercialize and sanitize his voice-of-the-people status is nothing short of embarassing. He's a long fucking way from Scarecrow these days.

And your rant above cements as many bullshit stereotypes about the Midwest as the supposedly evil "Eastern" liberals do.

Not to mention that ripping Mellencamp has nothing to do with politics, since last I checked, the man himself leans Democrat.

 

Turns out, an honest man's pillow isn't his piece of mind.

It's a mound of dollar bills, stacked high and wide.



Wasn't Mr. Integrity found cheating on his wife about a decade ago, on tour?

 

sorry, friends. i like mellencamp. i like this song. i just ignore the commercial.

beyond that, i don't make any connections at all.

 

The commercial's not good. The song is better, when you hear the whole song, like I did last night at the ballpark. Naturally, the commercial includes only the most jingoistic part to sell trucks, not the lines about how America is a big enough country to have faith both in science and in God, if we so choose. That, of course, would be too common-sensical to put in a commercial selling trucks.

Another day in sound-bite America.

 

Who --on this board or in the national democratic party -- has made a "funny little joke about midwest simpletons" any time in memory?
JCM's music is hackwork to me. That's all.

 

I think I'm talking more about people like John Stewart (who I like) and other people that the public sees as the pop voice of the Democratic party. The bit I mentioned really sticks out - where they said, "We go to Indiana!" And they zoom in on a map of Ohio. Then he says again, "No, Indiana!" And they zoom in on Illinois or Iowa.

There is a lot of subtle condescension toward the Midwest out there and if you don't see it, you're in a bit of denial. The GOP snake oil salesmen certainly notice it because they have run roughshod over the Democrats out here lately.

East Coasters smirking at someone like John Mellencamp - and I've encountered plenty of them in real life - is one of those subtle little indications that we're not up to NY/Washington/Boston's intellectual level, and it gets very, very old.