MELLENCAMP: Well you know, as I've matured as a songwriter, I realize that if it's out there, it's mine. Can you talk a little bit about your process of writing a song like this? You were telling us that the main hook, the life is short line, basically came from your grandmother, but what about the rest of it? GROSS: Now I mean, you're obviously feeling that song that we just heard, "Longest Days," but it's also great songcraft. He goes, you've got to do something for yourself, have fun every day because if you don't, then life is going to pass you by, and you'll just - you know, what good is it? He says, did you do anything fun for yourself today? And I'll go no, dad, I'm working. My dad has been retired from his job since he was 49 years old, and he's 79 now, and every day, he says the same thing to me. I mean, I look at my kids, and I look at myself, and I go wow, what happened? Where did this all go?Īnd of course, my parents were very explicit with me about you know, John, time goes by real quick, and you know, you better enjoy, try to enjoy every moment. MELLENCAMP: Well you know, I don't really see it as a contradiction itself. Like Roger Miller has a song called "More and More I Miss You Less and Less," you know, that kind of, like, contradiction. GROSS: You know, it's funny that, you know, your grandmother would've said life is short in its longest days because one of the things I like so much about the song is that hook, and it's so - although this isn't a country song, per se, there are so many country songs that have that kind of contradictory language in its title. And then she turned to me and looked at me right in the face, and her face all of a sudden looked like a little girl, and she goes Buddy, life is short in its longest days.Īnd I always remembered that line, and I thought well surely, someday I'll be able to work that line into a song. MELLENCAMP: You're ready to come home, Buddy's only 45, he's not ready. And so she starts praying, and she says God, you know, Buddy and I are ready to come home. So I'd lay in bed with her, and we'd talk sometimes, and you know, she was great up until about 99, and then she started getting kind of dementia and stuff like that.Īnd one afternoon, I was laying in bed with her, and she said let's pray, and I said okay. You know, I was like 45 years old or something, and my 100-year-old grandmother, but she called me Buddy, and she'd go Buddy, come and lay down with me. I used to go see her in the afternoons, and sometimes she'd make me lay in bed with her. My grandmother lived to be 100 years old, and it's a funny it's not a funny, ha-ha story, but this is how the line came about. The song - the song actually was that line. Sometimes you really need songs like this. It was the middle of winter, and it really spoke to me. When I first started listening to the song, I think I was kind of depressed. It's just so much about mortality and things that aren't necessarily ever going to get better. I have to say, you know, I just wasn't prepared for this song that opens the new CD. GROSS: John Mellencamp, welcome to FRESH AIR. That's when life is short even in its longest days. Sometimes you get sick, and you don't get better. I was too busy raising up Cain.īut nothing lasts forever. I walked like a hero into the setting sun. My vision was true, and my heart was, too. MELLENCAMP: (Singing) Seems like once upon a time ago, I was where I was supposed to be. ![]() Here's the opening track from that album, a song called "Longest Days." ![]() He ain't got me, no.īIANCULLI: Terry spoke with John Mellencamp last year, when his album called "Life, Death, Love and Freedom" was released. ![]() See the devil, he's right behind me whistling in my ear. I ain't kidding, walking out the door forever more. JOHN MELLENCAMP (Musician): (Singing) This town I'm leaving. The result, with no overdubs, is a sound that's vibrant and vital from the opening notes, as with this song, "Right Behind Me." That's what Mellencamp was doing last year on his days off, while touring with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson. ![]() Mellencamp's new CD, "No Better Than This," revisits an earlier era not by re-recording old songs but by recording new ones in places where some of the great artists recorded their records and using vintage equipment, like an old, Ampex reel-to-reel tape recorder and just one microphone. And at the Obama inaugural celebration at the Lincoln Memorial, Mellencamp sang his song, "Pink Houses," the one with the refrain: ain't that America for you and me. His hits in the '80s include "Jack and Diane" and "Small Town." His song "This is Our Country" first became famous when it was used in a Chevrolet ad. John Mellencamp has been performing and writing songs for three and a half decades. I'm David Bianculli of, sitting in for Terry Gross.
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