Jack and Diane

John Cougar is what happens when you order Springsteen off Wish.com.

It's a decent song from like 40 yrs ago. WTF is your problem, OP? Is your name Rip Van Winkle and you just woke up bitchy from you 4 decade nap?

It’s the most irritating of his major songs, I believe. But he’s a talented musician.

Much prefer this one.

Who the fuck is:

[quote]Brice Springsteen

Scarecrow is an excellent album.

And he unleashed Teddi on the world

My dad bought me the cassingle of his Wild Nights cover with Me’Shell Ndegeocello. Underrated tune.

R5 Brice Springsteen is a perfect nepo baby name.

R1 made me cackle.

But yes, John's record company desperately wanted him to be Springsteen II.

🎶 Suckin’ on chili-dogs outside the Tastee Freeze 🌭

[quote] singing about average schmucks

So you hate Fast Car

I bought his first album when he was just "John Cougar."

I liked the song "I Need a Lover Who Won't Drive me Crazy." Rest of the album was ho-hum.

Fast Car is the saddest song ever written.

It's a good song. I was a kid when this song came out and didn't understand the truth of this line:

[quote] Oh yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone

I much prefer this one, with the skanky motorcycle members.

Hurts So Good is my favorite karaoke song.

Brice Springsteen is the bastard love child that resulted from Bruce’s fling with Helen Marden.

R14 speaks the truth.

I like be the song Cherry Bomb

Agreed.

It’s just a little ditty.

I couldn't escape this song nor its singer, John 'Cougar' Mellencamp, back in 1982.

I was in school at IU in Bloomington which is considered his hometown even though he's really originally from Seymour, IN which is approx 50 miles away from there. So because of that, you'd often hear unfounded gossip among his many fans that they heard he might pop up at this or that bar in town to perform that night and they were going.

Then around that same time, I ordered a pair of Ray Ban Wayfers (That model of shades was coming back in fashion again with New Wave being in etc) which I'd seen advertised in GQ from an eyeglasses store in the mall. They made me pay the entire outstanding balance at the time before they would even order it. My receipt said the glasses would be there on such and such day. So when that day comes, I return to the mall to pick them up. The salesperson said they sold the pair I ordered after it arrived to another customer. I protested that I'd already paid for them and he said if its any consolation they were sold to John Cougar.

Even when I escaped Bloomington from time to time to go whoring up in Chicago, I couldn't escape his presence via that damn song. Chicago had a new radio format called Hot Hits @ WBBM FM which was extremely popular. The Hot Hits format meant they'd ONLY play the same top hit songs at that particular moment ad nauseam, no older songs, no songs further down on the countdown list. So you could hear a top 'hot' song up to 4 times every hour. Younger folks would blast that station from their passing cars during summer of '82. So when Jack and Diane rose to the top of the top of the charts you'd literally hear that song's annoying instrumental guitar riff open starting up continually around town. Walking on Sheridan Road in Lakeview (called New Town at that time), at the Belmont Rocks beach, literally everywhere. Arrgh!

I remember when Mellencamp appeared on SCTV, and there was a story line about Mellencamp turning into Ed Grimley.

R1 Brice Springsteen is what happens when you order Bruce Springsteen from Wish.com

I loved it then and loved it now.

This version makes me laugh tho

Jessica Simpson sampled it in that lame song of hers.

Paper In Fire is far superior.

I always get him confused with Rick Springfield.

My thoughts exactly r2

[quote] I always get him confused with Rick Springfield.

Why? Springfield is an Aussie who is half a foot taller and sings pop/rock.

Who asked for this thread?

Also, OP, trigger warning on this kind of shit, please!

R32, I know, it's weird! Something about their lips. The look of Tiger Beat hotness. I can't put my finger on it.

Pink Houses is my favorite Mellencamp song.

Good gravy. It’s up there with Night Moves and yes, even Born In The USA and Fast Car. they evoke a certain melancholy and longing for days past, even if those days were not as idyllic as we wanted them to have been.

They speak to the realities of living in this country. I know I’m still looking for my pink house and also wanting to change the situations I find myself in.

Jack and Diane also recall carefree days when there were no worries beyond a date night and getting your share.

😬

R12 no Fast Car is original and well done. I find it hard to listen to because of how sad it is. I don’t want to listen to a song about a bunch of teenagers in the Midwest eating chilli dogs.

He had some good songs, none of which have been mentioned on this thread yet. Hand to Hold Onto, Crumblin' Down, Authority Song, Serious Business, etc.

The blue-collar troubadour thing isn't the exclusive province of Brucie, ya know.

This version is better

Mellencamp is no Henry Lee Summer

Uh Huh! is a great album.

R13 ho hum is the perfect description of john meloncamp

Jack and Diane was written after he saw Splendor in the Grass.

I kinda liked him because he was such a horrible dancer but kept doing it in his videos.

Brice Springsteen is a fussy bottom. He wears (skinny) jeans. He loves the opera, silent film, and the arts. He knows nothing of this John Cougar Mellencamp creature you're intent on boring the rest of us with.

R39, Henry Lee Summer's career is a sad one. He was and coming but flipped out after getting addicted to drugs (meth?) and getting arrested.Never bounced back from that.

He wasi living on the Northside of indy, Broad Ripple area i think, and my mom used to regularly see him out dining with the same woman at an MCL cafeteria she liked to frequent near Glendale.

I admire Mellencamp’s John Bender energy, but he seems to be an asshole and not in a fun way.

I think the song has some profound lines:

life goes on long after the thrill of living is gone

and

let the bible belt come and save my soul

OP, I thought the same thing the first time I heard it. A poor version of Springsteen's hit and nowhere near Billy Joel's Brenda and Eddie who hit the high and the lows too young. Mellencamp has a good heart for farmers - just like Willie Nelson -- but he's not a singer.

While I understand the concept of people who peak at age 16, thank god I’ve never known any of them. That’s fucking depressing.

R23 Wayfers? It's way farers, if Don Henley taught us nothing else, he taught us that in one of the best songs ever. Jack and Diane is alright, it's not great but it was good for the time. ANd yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone is so true.

R49 pls don't fucking mention Don Cunt Henley ever again in a thread where I am not expecting it.

R50 How about this?

Hold onto 16 as long as you can...changes come around real soon, make us women and men.

Changes come around real soon, make us women and men

is another fantastic line, R46.

Oh, R52, beat me to it.

One of my favorite Rifftrax lines when two guys stumble upon a derelict gas station- "This is where Jack and Diane suck on chili dogs when the Tastee Freeze is closed."

I love Rifftrax and MST3K. But I digress.

Speaking of songs that make you cry, I can't believe no one has mentioned Jackie Brown yet. It's right there up there with Fast Car and Johnny Cash's version of NiN's Hurt. Back in '88 when I was in grad school, there were still tar paper shacks that were family dwellings on the far west side of town.

Apparently, Jack and Diane was originally a song about an interracial couple.

“Suckin on a chili dog” was the first time ass-to-mouth was covered in a Top 40 song, so you have to give him some credit for breaking ground.

One of his finest.

A lot of suicides in Australia are farmers who've lost or who are facing losing their farms.

One fucking typo and the Aspies are all over it like flies on shit

Here’s a snappy number from the Cougar.

[quote] Brice Springsteen is a perfect nepo baby name.

Fuck you, R9!

Overrated!

Yeah, R59, that's a good one. So many people I grew up with lost their farms.

I love that he wears his FFA jacket in the video.