(Credits: Far Out / John Mellencamp)
Thu 15 January 2026 23:00, UK
When considering the heroes of heartland rock, John Mellencamp will likely spring to mind after a certain New Jersey E Street Band frontman.
Finding fame in the 1980s as a blue-collar songsmith penning anthems that spoke to the romantic, working-class idyll of middle America, Mellencamp managed to launch himself into the pop charts before Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA whirlwind across the Billboard 200. But success wasn’t overnight. As early as 1974, Mellencamp had been slogging it under David Bowie’s old manager Tony DeFries’ eye, adopting the moniker Johnny Cougar under DeFries’ suggestion before a sudden drop by MCA Records when 1976’s Chestnut Street debut flopped.
Yet, soldiering on through several albums with Riva, dubbed “stupid little pop songs” by the singer on reflection years later, Mellencamp finally came into his own with 1982’s American Fool. It was here that Mellencamp, still marketed with the Cougar stage name, lifted the emerging trends in beefy, pop production, but balanced the commercial grab with a rootsy rock stroll, winning fans from John Fogerty to Johnny Cash.
It was American Fool’s second single that would forever define Mellencamp. Based on the 1962 film adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth play, ‘Jack & Diane’ would mine tried and tested heartland themes, detailing the titular couple’s high school sweetheart romance, tested by the realities of life for the common folk.
For such a Billboard smash, ‘Jack & Diane’ wasn’t a smooth single to cut. First was the subject matter. Mellencamp had intended the Jack character as a young Black man rather than an aspiring American football star, before the Riva label grew anxious at the racial commentary and convinced Mellencamp to reluctantly make lyrical revisions.
Then there was the task of actually cutting the song, a ditty that seemed to breezily work when sketched out by Mellencamp himself, but proved trying in Miami’s Criteria studio.
“‘Jack & Diane’ was a terrible record to make,” Mellencamp reflected in 2008. “When I play it on guitar by myself, it sounds great, but I could never get the band to play along with me. That’s why the arrangement’s so weird. Stopping and starting, it’s not very musical.”
It turns out that ‘John & Diane’s distinctive clap breaks only feature as a measure to help keep time, intended for removal in the final mix, but kept in due to worrying the song just wouldn’t work without it. Much was owed to Mick Ronson’s arranging skills, the former Spiders from Mars member lending his guitar chops as well as borrowing the Bee Gees’ LinnDrumm machine for its percussive punch and conceiving the song’s “Let it rock, let it roll” choir bridge.
Through hell and high water, ‘Jack & Diane’ finally was released in July 1982, shooting to the top of the Hot 100 for four weeks, and its American Fool topping the US album charts too. Despite harbouring mixed feelings about his rootsy pop smash, Mellencamp has grown to appreciate its cultural hold in later life. “I watched a football game this past weekend, and 80,000 people were singing that song at halftime,” he revealed to Forbes in 2022. “Can you imagine? I thought, ‘Shit!’ I said, ‘How do all these fucking people know this song?’”
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