John Mellencamp Quotes

I went to New York in 1974, to either try to get a record deal, get into the New York Art Student League, or be a dancer. So that was my plan. Some plan. And I had no money.

Rock'n'roll starts between the legs and goes through the heart, then to the head. As long as it does those three things, it's a great rock song.

There's a young man in a T-shirt listening to a rock and roll station. He's got greasy hair, greasy smile, he says, Lord this must be my destination.

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

Oh, I think country has changed tremendously. I think country has totally changed. Country music when I was a kid was Hank Williams. If you put Hank and Elvis together, there wasn't that musical difference. But as the Beatles showed up and the English invasion, I think country music got pretty far away from rock n' roll.

She said she wasn't afraid of Satan, in fact, she thought he was a joke. She said she'd tear his tail off and run her fist down his throat.

This is serious business, sex, violence, and rock and roll.

Ain't that America, home of the free? Little pink houses for you and me.

You cannot expect the guy who drove the car into the ditch to navigate it out of the ditch. You have to put a new driver in the seat. I'm not saying the new driver is going to be any better, but we need a new driver. Kerry is the only choice.

She chased after her dream with much desire, but when she got to close to her expectations, well the dream burned up like paper in fire.

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.

In so many musicals today, the story is moved forward by a song. I don't think we're gonna try to do that.

I just think if the song's good, sing it. I don't care who's doing it. I don't care if it's a country act. I don't care if it's a rock act. If the song's good, sing it.

When you live in hysteria, people start thinking emotionally.

We have been lied to and terrorized by our own government, and it is time to take action.

I'm your average Joe guy. I don't really care for politicians.

I'm the guy who wrote The Authority Song. Did they think I was kidding? Did they think it was only a song to entertain?

Sound quality was supposed to be one of the big selling points for CDs but, as we know, it wasn't very good at all. It was just another con, a get-rich-quick scheme, a monumental hoax perpetrated on the music consuming public.

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

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.

You shouldn't even be in a band if you can't play Buddy Holly's Not Fade Away.

Sometimes love don't feel like it should, you make it hurt so good.

All I'm doing is painting. It's my hobby. And that's that.

When politicians use fear, they are playing into the enemy's hand.

It sounds funny, but I always try to keep an open mind about what I'm writing about. Sometimes I squeak my opinions in there, but generally I don't. I try to be objective about things that I'm writing about.

I'm looking for trouble. A lot of people get to be a certain age and they just kind of lose interest or they give up. But I'm looking for trouble.

I know a lot of funny people in a lot of funny places.

I know there's a balance/I see it when I swing past.

I do things my way and I pay a high price.

I need a lover that won't drive me crazy, someone that knows the meaning of hey, hit the highway.

Don't ever lose that innocent laughter, don't let time take that away

What's the difference? One guy's the same as the other.

When you live life for yourself it's hard on everyone. And that hasn't changed. For me, if anything, it's gotten worse.

It's a lonely ol' night. Can I put my arms around you?

Natalie from the Dixie Chicks could have said what she said before 9-11 and no one would have cared.

The simple man, baby, pays for the thrills, the bills, and the pills that kill.

Country sure has changed in the last 10 years. It was one thing, then it was another. Country has slowly marched toward a rock beat and rock preservation. Country artists of today. Man! That's how I used to sound in the '80s.

What is there to be afraid of? The worst thing that can happen is you fail. So what? I failed at a lot of things. My first record was horrible.

With no bottom line, it's hard to know wrong from right. But I ain't ever satisfied.

All the women in the world want a phony rock star who plays guitar.

I don't want to be a politician. I don't like politics. It's petty; it fights dirty.

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

A lot of Woody Guthrie's songs were taken from other songs. He would rework the melody and lyrics, and all of a sudden it was a Woody Guthrie song.

I want you to dance naked, if you like, I'll join you.

I fight authority and authority always wins.

Bob Dylan's first couple of records in the 60's weren't considered cover records, but he only wrote one or two original songs on each album.

All I can do is repeat what I think is the best information that anybody ever gave me.

Be careful of those who kill in Jesus' name; he don't believe in killing at all.

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.

There is nothing more sad or glorious than generations changing hands.

Music actually meant something when I started doing it. Too bad I wasn't mature enough to write anything that meant anything.

If Woody Guthrie set the bar for American songwriters, Bob Dylan jumped right over it. No one I know will ever come close to possessing the beauty of melody and the use of language that Dylan shares with us, with ease.

People have the right to say what they want to.

This is not a rock opera. This is not Tommy. I can write songs that emote, and that's it.

When people are afraid, they make emotional decisions.

Dear Mr. President, can I ask you a question, when the bombs fall down will they hurt everyone in my family?

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.

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

I've never fit in in any music world. I've always been an outsider. I mean, the fact that I live in Indiana - I live in a fly-over state. I'm not running away from anything, that's the problem. Most people go to cities because they don't like where they come from.

I've never had anybody produce my records. I've always produced my own records. I've worked with a guy for a while who was an engineer who helped me produce records, but I've always made my own records. I'm a control fanatic. I've got to control everything.

My thought was I should try to stick with names that people may recognize like Robert Johnson, Son House, and Hoagy Carmichael, so if somebody cared to research, they would find a wealth of material.

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.

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

Immersing yourself in the environment of a real record store where music is celebrated and cherished adds real value to the experience of buying music. In some ways, that retail experience is as important as the music.

I have a bunch of information in my head that I'm not afraid to put in song or onto a canvas. Into any conversation.

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.

Some people say I'm obnoxious and lazy, that I'm uneducated, that my opinion means nothing, but I know I'm a real good dancer.

I would never say John Kerry would be a great president. I will say that George Bush has divided us; he has filled this country with hatred.

Go to work and be a Hollywood stud, drive your four wheel drive right into the mud.

Growing up leads to growing old and then to dying And dying to me don't sound like all that much fun

Grace, Mercy and Forgiveness will help a man walk tall. Walk tall!

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.

For me or a Bruce Springsteen to sit up in our ivory towers and make comments about racism, well, were not really in it, are we?