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People In Indiana Have Known Me For 25 Years. They've Known George Bush Four.

-John Mellencamp

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People In Indiana Have

John Mellencamp

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People In Indiana Have Known Me For 25 Years. They've Known George Bush Four.

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The Internet Is The Wrong Direction For Music.

Wrong Direction

Now I Do Have A Choice, And I'm Not Going To Do Anything I Don't Want To Do.

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.

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.

It's What You Do And Not What You Say. If You're Not Part Of The Future, Then Get Out Of The Way!

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?

It's My Responsibility As A Singer-songwriter To Report The News.

I Fight Authority And Authority Always Wins.

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.

Give Me Someone I Can Look Up To, Show Me Someone I Can Love.

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.

Be Careful Of Those Who Kill In Jesus' Name; He Don't Believe In Killing At All.

The Greatest Thing That Ever Happened To (my Career) Was The Breakdown Of The Record Companies, Because There Were No More Stupid Questions About How Many Hits Are On The Next Record. It Was Very Liberating.

I Remember The First Time I Saw A Cd, A Technology Guy Brought One To My House And Said We Will Be Able To Sell Millions And Millions Of Players, And People Will Have To Restock Their Record Collections. It Was All About Money. It Was All About How Much Money We Would Make, "we" Being "him."

My Voice Has Gotten Better From Smoking.

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.

This Is About Black People Selling Out Other Black People.

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.

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.

What's The Difference? One Guy's The Same As The Other.

We Have Been Lied To And Terrorized By Our Own Government, And It Is Time To Take Action.

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.

All I'm Doing Is Painting. It's My Hobby. And That's That.

I Don't Have To Worry About Any Pop Sensibility. I Can Write Adult Songs, And I Don't Have To Worry About Choruses And Hook Lines.

People In Indiana Have Known Me For 25 Years. They've Known George Bush Four.

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.

It's A Lonely Ol' Night. Can I Put My Arms Around You?

Sometimes Love Don't Feel Like It Should, You Make It Hurt So Good.

We Could Walk 3 Minutes And Be On The Beach. I Think The Music Kind Of Suffered Because Of It. It Kind Of Smelled Like Jimmy Buffett, Which Is A Bad Thing.

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.

Mama, Why Do I Always Fall For The Crazy Ones?

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.

Growing Up Leads To Growing Old And Then To Dying And Dying To Me Don't Sound Like All That Much Fun

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.

When You Live In Hysteria, People Start Thinking Emotionally.

Dear Mr. President, Can I Ask You A Question, When The Bombs Fall Down Will They Hurt Everyone In My Family?

Back In The '80s And '90s, When There Was Still A Record Business, There Was Pressure On Anyone Who Was Fortunate To Have A Few Hits On A Major Label To Continue That Success.

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.

Nobody Wants To Make Great Albums Now Because Nobody Wants To Buy Them And There's No Place To Sell Them.

I Think The Internet Is The Most Dangerous Thing Invented Since The Atomic Bomb.

People Have The Right To Say What They Want To.

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.

Hold On To 16 As Long As You Can.

To Say That We're Doomed Is Just An Obvious Remark.

There Is Nothing More Sad Or Glorious Than Generations Changing Hands.

When Politicians Use Fear, They Are Playing Into The Enemy's Hand.

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.

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?

Go To Work And Be A Hollywood Stud, Drive Your Four Wheel Drive Right Into The Mud.

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 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.

In So Many Musicals Today, The Story Is Moved Forward By A Song. I Don't Think We're Gonna Try To Do That.

Now More Than Ever The World Needs Love, Not Just A Slogan.

When You Live Life For Yourself It's Hard On Everyone. And That Hasn't Changed. For Me, If Anything, It's Gotten Worse.

I Do Things My Way And I Pay A High Price.

Unemployment Is Sky-rocketing; Deflation Is In Our Future For The First Time Since The Great Depression. I Don't Care Whose Fault It Is, It's The Truth.

I Need A Lover That Won't Drive Me Crazy, Someone That Knows The Meaning Of Hey, Hit The Highway.

I Want To Sell To People My Own Age, Because That's The Way I Write Songs.

I'm Not A Nostalgic Person. I'm Not Nostalgic About Much Of Anything.

The Reason I Said The Internet Is Dangerous Is That A Couple Smart Guys Could Hack Into A Computer And Shut Down The Eastern Seaboard If They Wanted To. It's A Terrible, Out-of-control Thing.

I Enjoy The Pleasure Of My Own Company.

The Dust To Which This Flesh Shall Return, It Is The Ancient Dreaming Dust Of God.

You Have To Reinvent Yourself.

Reinventing Yourself

You Shouldn't Even Be In A Band If You Can't Play Buddy Holly's Not Fade Away.

All The Women In The World Want A Phony Rock Star Who Plays Guitar.

When People Are Afraid, They Make Emotional Decisions.

Check It Out, Forgot To Say Hello To My Neighbors. Check It Out, Sometimes I Question My Own Behavior.

Do I Think It's Ok To Fight Authority As Long As You're Only Talking About The High School Teacher? No.

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.

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.

I'm Your Average Joe Guy. I Don't Really Care For Politicians.

My Grandmother Made Sure That I Went To Church Every Sunday. And Shed 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.

What We Do To Each Other Are The Worst Things That We Do.

I Thought I Knew A Lot About Music. Then You Start Digging And The Deeper You Go, The More There Is.

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.

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.

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.

I Couldn't Have Recorded This Record 15 Years Ago. My Voice Didn't Have The Depth To Pull These Songs Off.

I Know There's A Balance, I See It When I Swing Past.

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.

Ain't That America, Home Of The Free? Little Pink Houses For You And Me.

Grandma's On The Front Porch With A Bible In Her Hand, Sometimes I Hear Her Singing Take Me To The Promised Land.

I Want You To Dance Naked, If You Like, I'll Join You.

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.

All My Friends Are So Small Town.

Turning Music Into Digital Was Just A Con, A Record-company Con.

Nobody Heard Anything Ahead Of Time.

Grace, Mercy And Forgiveness Will Help A Man Walk Tall. Walk Tall!

Future Generations, Riding On The Highways That We Built, I Hope They Have A Better Understanding.

This Is Serious Business, Sex, Violence, And Rock And Roll.

The Simple Man, Baby, Pays For The Thrills, The Bills, And The Pills That Kill.

Most People In Life, Give Up Too Early.

You Know, It's Cigarettes That Killed Jerry Garcia. Everyone Thinks It's Heroin, But It Wasn't. It Was Cigarettes.

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.

I Know A Lot Of Funny People In A Lot Of Funny Places.

Music Actually Meant Something When I Started Doing It. Too Bad I Wasn't Mature Enough To Write Anything That Meant Anything.

With No Bottom Line, It's Hard To Know Wrong From Right. But I Ain't Ever Satisfied.

Don't Ever Lose That Innocent Laughter, Don't Let Time Take That Away

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.

We Lost Our Way A Long Time Ago With Technology. Just Because Something Is An Advancement By Going Digital - That Was A Huge (expletive) Mistake. It Was A Way For People To Make Money, But It Sure Didn't Improve Sound Or Quality Of Record Making. It Made It Faster, Cheaper, But It Isn't As Durable.

You Can't Tell Your Best Buddy That You Love Him.

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.

I Look At Some Of My Contemporaries Trying To Emulate What They Were 30 Years Ago And Just Because Of The Age Factor Alone, They Look Silly.

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.

Want Me To Spend The Night? Hey Lover Boy, You Know I Will, And My Best Girlfriend Lives Down The Road, Together We Will Thrill You.

I'm Trying To Write For People My Age. And My Inspiration Over The Years Has Changed Dramatically.

All I Can Do Is Repeat What I Think Is The Best Information That Anybody Ever Gave Me.

An Honest Man's Pillow Is His Peace Of Mind.

I'm Wide Open And Will Entertain Anything Anybody Has To Say, But If It's Mtv And Radio, Well, They're Great Things, But Can't Be The Only Thing. I Don't Know That It Would Work Even For The Beatles.

Natalie From The Dixie Chicks Could Have Said What She Said Before 9-11 And No One Would Have Cared.

His Frustration Running Very High, He Takes It Out On The Ones He Loves Because It's Safe.

They Say Life Goes On Long After The Thrill Of Living

This Is Not A Rock Opera. This Is Not Tommy. I Can Write Songs That Emote, And That's It.

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