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" Everything I see and hear... I will take ideas from anyplace, anywhere, anytime, and life has become a song to me. I'm always looking for a song. "

John Mellencamp

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" 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. "

John Mellencamp

" Everything I have is for sale. Material items are just things that pass through your hands that mean very little or nothing. "

John Mellencamp

" Music was so important to the culture when I was growing up in the Sixties and Seventies. We just expected that Bob Dylan was going to make a great record, and it was normal. It was like, 'Okay, here's another great record by Bob Dylan; here's another great record by Led Zeppelin.' "

John Mellencamp

" 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. "

John Mellencamp

" My task with 'Uh-Huh' was to make a more even record and get away from juvenile topics like 'Hurts So Good.' But I also knew if I wanted to continue, I had to have more hits. "

John Mellencamp

" Broadway is a very different kind of place. It's kind of like Nashville in that there's a certain amount of people that are involved, and those people are what run it. "

John Mellencamp

" 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

" I wish my grandmother and grandfather were still alive, because they were able to keep me grounded. "

John Mellencamp

" I used to think that eating healthy was ordering a fish sandwich at McDonalds. "

John Mellencamp

" All I'm doing is painting. It's my hobby. And that's that. "

John Mellencamp

" American folk songs were about tragedy, right? They were about suffering and tragedy, and a lot of my songs are about that, even though they were misunderstood. "

John Mellencamp

" 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. "

John Mellencamp

" 'Jack & Diane' was originally about race. I was playing nightclubs, and I was seeing new American couples, mixed-race couples. I thought it was cool. The song was my effort to make a song about that, but of course the record-company guy didn't like it. "

John Mellencamp

" 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. "

John Mellencamp

" This cycle of make a record, tour has been going on for 20 years now. I don't even know why I do it sometimes. Do I need more money? Do I need more platinum and gold records? The only thing I can think of is ego. "

John Mellencamp

" My best songs come from a place outside myself. "

John Mellencamp

" 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

" I think Roosevelt had four terms, didn't he? I think we should go back to that, and we should go back to four years for a senator, four years for a congressman, and I think we'd see a huge change in our society. "

John Mellencamp

" I was one of those guys, you know, playing and singing, and there was no reason for me to write a song, because there were so many beautiful songs out. And Bob Dylan was always the ultimate songwriter, and nobody could ever write a song as good as him, and nobody ever has written a song as good as him. "

John Mellencamp

" Do I think it's OK to fight authority as long as you're only talking about the high school teacher? No. "

John Mellencamp

" 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

" I'm using my art to comment on what I see. You don't have to agree with it. "

John Mellencamp

" A lot of the time, I write in the third person, but I'm mostly describing my own ordeals. When those unsettled struggles prey on your mind, you become haunted. To get free, you must defeat your ghosts. "

John Mellencamp

" As I've matured as a songwriter, I realize that if it's out there, it's mine. "

John Mellencamp

" People have the right to say what they want to. "

John Mellencamp

" I couldn't have recorded this record 15 years ago. My voice didn't have the depth to pull these songs off. "

John Mellencamp

" People in Indiana have known me for 25 years. They've known George Bush four. "

John Mellencamp

" I need a long and lingering death to make sure that I have time to have a deathbed conversion. "

John Mellencamp

" 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. "

John Mellencamp

" 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. "

John Mellencamp