I tuned in to Outlaw Country on Sirius on the way to work yesterday.
I don't do this often. I love the music but hate the DJ's. These fucking people feel compelled to go way over the top with their country twang and slang and bullshit - feels phony to me and makes them sound like fools.
Anyway....................I lucked out. Caught Steve Earle interviewing John Mellencamp.
You might not know Steve Earle, but you should. He carries some weight in the music biz. One of those guys who has made a lot of music but never achieved super stardom. But he is a songwriter's songwriter.
If you don't know who John Mellencamp is, you are an idiot.
Mellencamp just released an album called Strictly a One-Eyed Jack. Got a taste of it yesterday - Earle played a song called Wasted Days, that Mellencamp sings with Bruce Springsteen.
Humbling and delicious.
The music John Mellencamp makes these days is gourmet stuff. Raw emotion and troubling truths. He put out an album in 2010 called No Better Than This. I had it on CD and wore that sucker out driving to and from work at the liquor store. The music and lyrics cut into my heart like an obsidian knife blade, took root and became a part of my psyche.
He has come a long, long way from Jack & Diane.
That is called growth. Growth as a human being, growth as a songwriter.
That is what makes music spectacular.
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