John Mellencamp Quotes

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John Mellencamp

Profession : Musician

Birth : October 7, 1951

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

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

I thought I knew a lot about music. Then you start digging and the deeper you go, the more there is.

John Mellencamp

When I wrote 'Pink Houses,' nobody was talking about that, right? The next thing I know, you can't see the TV without hearing commercials with 'Listen to the heartbeat of America,' or 'Born the American way.' That whole America thing now - I hate it.

John Mellencamp

I want to sell to people my own age, because that's the way I write songs.

John Mellencamp

If you hide information from people, don't want people to see the Ten Commandments or don't want people to hear about Darwin, aren't we hiding things that we know from our future generations? I just think that that's incorrect.

John Mellencamp

As I've matured as a songwriter, I realize that if it's out there, it's mine.

John Mellencamp

If I'm painting, I paint every day. I'll be up in the studio from 8:00 in the morning to 8:00 at night.

John Mellencamp

A lot of record company people, even though they're our age, want to be perceived as young hip guys, and they're hurting the business.

John Mellencamp

My task with 'Uh-Huh' was to make a more even record and get away from juvenile topics like 'Hurts So Good.' But I also knew if I wanted to continue, I had to have more hits.

John Mellencamp

People in Indiana have known me for 25 years. They've known George Bush four.

John Mellencamp

I'm using my art to comment on what I see. You don't have to agree with it.

John Mellencamp

I think it's ridiculous to try to sell records to teenagers, because teenagers don't buy my records. And there ain't that many teenagers out there in the marketplace.

John Mellencamp

I've just been fortunate to havehad a lot of hit records, though Human Wheels doesn't qualify as a hit record-but it's really the best single I've ever had.

John Mellencamp

As I get older, I have a different look on life. I just try to be a little more tolerant and a little bit more centered about what's going on around me and not so emotional.

John Mellencamp

I think Roosevelt had four terms, didn't he? I think we should go back to that, and we should go back to four years for a senator, four years for a congressman, and I think we'd see a huge change in our society.

John Mellencamp

Wait a minute, guys, I have always been on your side. I have always spoken for you, always tried to put on a good face for the state of Indiana. All of a sudden, some of you people think I'm a bad guy?

John Mellencamp

When people are afraid, they make emotional decisions.

John Mellencamp

The CD, it should be noted, was born out of greed. It was devised to prop up record sales on the expectation of people replenishing their record collections with CDs of albums they had already purchased.

John Mellencamp

If fans are going to turn on me because of this, they weren't my fans anyway. I couldn't betray a whole 25 years of record making and not do this. I had to.

John Mellencamp