From: Rogers & Cowan
Heartland rocker, John Mellencamp shares his thoughts on aging, songwriting, and his good and not-so-good habits in the June/July issue of AARP The Magazine. Below are quotes from this issue.
On being an untortured artist:
“At this point, songwriting is the easiest thing. I wrote ‘Easy Target,’ a song on my new album, while I was painting. It took eight minutes. The melody came right along with the words. I didn’t even have a guitar. I just sang it into my phone.”
On the granny boost:
“Growing up, my grandmother took care of me. I was very fragile, because I was born with spina bifida. She told me over and over: ‘Buddy , you are the luckiest, handsomest, most talented boy in the world.’ She’s the reason I’m here. A lot of guys do what I do because they have a poor self-image. They need the applause. I don’t need that.
On being the small-town boy in the city:
“I was some hillbilly kid from Indiana. I went to New York to study painting and happened to get a record deal. When MTV happened, we all became movie stars. I couldn’t leave the house. It went on for 10 or 12 years.”
On that famous little ditty (“Jack & Diane”):
“I was young, but I knew what I was doing the night I wrote “Jack & Diane.” Everyone knows that song. Everybody – city, country, gravel road, igloo – it’s their song. That’s magic. I play it every night.”
On his day job:
“Painting is harder on me than being onstage. I stand 8 or 10 hours a day. I used to consider it a hobby, but now I don’t. It’s hard to be taken seriously because I’ll always be considered a celebrity painter. Being a rock star has been a pain in the ass all around.”
On his advice to his son:
“Here’s what I told my son Speck, who’s always fighting everybody and fighting himself. I said, ‘I know you consider yourself a dangerous young man, but I’m a dangerous old man.’ A dangerous old man can use anger to his advantage. He’s cagier and smarter. HE knows what he’s doing. A young man just has outbursts.”
On his good and bad habits:
“I lift weights and I run, but my exercise is not about vanity. I work out because I smoke. If I’m going to afford myself the luxury of smoking, I’d better do something to offset it.”
On his advice to girls:
“Girls, never trust a man under 40, because he’s still a boy. I’ve met thousands of tough guys, thousands of nice guys; they’re all the same.”
On the myth of happiness:
“Happiness is a fleeting moment of a day. It’s not a state of being. If you’re happy all the time, something’s wrong with you. We are put on this earth to toil and to make things. Making the world a better place is not a happy job.”
On what is left for him:
“I intend to make my ending good. I’m hoping it’s one of those long, lingering deathbed conversions. A lot of people go, ‘oh, I hope I just die quick.’ Not me. I need time to put things right.”
