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Opening Arguments

Mellencholycamp

John Mellencamp is quite the sour man:

In rock singer John Mellencamp's latest musical epistle from the heartland, Americans are vengeful, unforgiving, ignorant of other cultures and led by a president he describes as a "rodeo clown."

Maybe he's in training to replace Hoosierland's most famous misanthrope, Kurt Vonnegut, who is talking about himself in the title of his most recent book, 2005's "A Man Without a Country." Most of it is like this:

In case you haven't noticed, as the result of a shamelessly rigged election in Florida, in which thousands of African-Americans were arbitrarily disenfranchised, we now present ourselves to the rest of the world as proud, grinning, jut-jawed, pitiless war-lovers with appallingly powerful weaponry - who stand unopposed.

In case you haven't noticed, we are now as feared and hated all over the world as Nazis once were.

And with good reason.

In case you haven't noticed, our unelected leaders have dehumanised millions and millions of human beings simply because of their religion and race. We wound 'em and kill 'em and torture 'em and imprison 'em all we want.

Posted in: Hoosier lore, Music

Comments

tim zank
Wed, 01/24/2007 - 6:53am

From the Jack & Diane days on through Scarecrow in the 80's I was a huge fan of Mellencamp. As a young man I could relate to his rebellious and thoughtful songs and lyrics.
Of course then I grew up, got a job and a haircut,and had a family. Somehow, without the benefit of gazillions of dollars and millions of adoring fans, our idealogies seemed to go different directions. Go figure...
He's still a consumate musician & performer, but his music just didn't sound as good to me after I realized he's a moron.

Dave White
Wed, 01/24/2007 - 11:21am

I've thought for a long time that John isn't aging well. Never quite figured out, after I grew up, why I should put a lot of stock in the beliefs and thoughts of people who barely got out of high school and struck it big by doing things that weren't a traditional life path, so to speak.

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