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" 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. "
John Mellencamp
Song
Songs
Other
Related Quotes:
" 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. "
John Mellencamp
I Can
Songs
Worry
" I couldn't have recorded this record 15 years ago. My voice didn't have the depth to pull these songs off. "
John Mellencamp
Voice
Depth
Off
" When politicians use fear, they are playing into the enemy's hand. "
John Mellencamp
Fear
Enemy
Playing
" I've seen beautiful art on the sides of buildings. I've seen beautiful art in museums. I've seen beautiful art in galleries. Beautiful art is everywhere. "
John Mellencamp
Art
Seen
Beautiful
" Radio was my friend after 'Jack & Diane' and 'Hurts So Good.' "
John Mellencamp
Radio
My Friend
Friend
" I used to think that eating healthy was ordering a fish sandwich at McDonalds. "
John Mellencamp
Think
Fish
Healthy
" I wanted to study at the Art Students League in New York when I was young, but I didn't have the money. Then I was fortunate enough to become Johnny Cougar Mellencamp. At the time, I thought I'd make a couple of records and get back to painting. It never dawned on me that I'd be 64 years old and still making music. "
John Mellencamp
Money
Art
Time
" I want my paintings to look like they were found in a garage. If they get a scratch or a hole in them, it just becomes part of the painting. "
John Mellencamp
Want
Painting
Hole
" I've been around so many people for so long that I take great delight in my own company. "
John Mellencamp
My Own
People
Long
" Natalie from the Dixie Chicks could have said what she said before 9-11 and no one would have cared. "
John Mellencamp
Would
Before
Could
" As I've matured as a songwriter, I realize that if it's out there, it's mine. "
John Mellencamp
Matured
Songwriter
Realize
" 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. "
John Mellencamp
Beach
Music
Think
" I want to sell to people my own age, because that's the way I write songs. "
John Mellencamp
My Own
Age
Way
" 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. "
John Mellencamp
Song
Doing
Care
" I'm using my art to comment on what I see. You don't have to agree with it. "
John Mellencamp
Comment
I See
See
" It's my responsibility as a singer-songwriter to report the news. "
John Mellencamp
Singer-Songwriter
News
Responsibility
" 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. "
John Mellencamp
Long
Doing
You
" There are a lot of actors who try to get records made and try to make record deals, and everybody goes, 'Ugh.' It used to be expected in the entertainment business. I mean look at Sinatra, Bing Crosby. All these guys started out as singers. "
John Mellencamp
Entertainment
Look
Mean
" People in Indiana have known me for 25 years. They've known George Bush four. "
John Mellencamp
Indiana
Me
Years
" One quality of a good songwriter is to be vague. A vague notion, a vague image, but enough to give the listener the opportunity to make more out of what's being said than is there. That's the great thing about Bob Dylan's songs: We the listeners have made more out of them than he ever intended. "
John Mellencamp
Great
Good
Said
" 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. "
John Mellencamp
Thought
Wealth
People
" I'm as left-wing as you can get. "
John Mellencamp
You
Get
Left-Wing
" Life should never be viewed from the vantage point of achievements. It is total folly. "
John Mellencamp
Folly
Point
Life
" In so many musicals today, the story is moved forward by a song. I don't think we're gonna try to do that. "
John Mellencamp
Try
Think
Forward
" 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. "
John Mellencamp
Big
Selling
Quality
" 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. "
John Mellencamp
Time
Sunday
She
" 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. "
John Mellencamp
Young
Age
Business
" We had an exercise in speech class in school, impromptu speaking, that I was always real good at. "
John Mellencamp
Class
School
Good
" When people are afraid, they make emotional decisions. "
John Mellencamp
Decisions
Afraid
Emotional
" 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. "
John Mellencamp
People
Think
Know