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" Hanging out is a waste of time. The only time I would hang out was when I was a kid, I would hang out in the streets. But once I started making records, I stopped hanging out. "
John Mellencamp
Kid
Hanging
Time
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" 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
Great
Divided
Us
" 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
" 'Crumbling' Down' is a very political song that I wrote with my childhood friend George Green. Reagan was president - he was deregulating everything, and the walls were crumbling down on the poor. "
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Green
Friend
Political
" 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. "
John Mellencamp
Truth
Time
Great
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
Art
Money
New York
" This is about black people selling out other black people. "
John Mellencamp
Selling
Other
Out
" When politicians use fear, they are playing into the enemy's hand. "
John Mellencamp
Fear
Enemy
Playing
" 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
" 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
" Life should never be viewed from the vantage point of achievements. It is total folly. "
John Mellencamp
Folly
Point
Life
" It's my responsibility as a singer-songwriter to report the news. "
John Mellencamp
Singer-Songwriter
News
Responsibility
" 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
" 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
Good
Like
Away
" 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? "
John Mellencamp
Who
Guy
Authority
" 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
Culture
Okay
Music
" When did Jimmy Stewart not play Jimmy Stewart? When did John Wayne not play John Wayne? But that's what we like about them. When you talk about acting, you really have to respond to somebody's personality. "
John Mellencamp
Personality
Talk
Play
" Everything I have is for sale. Material items are just things that pass through your hands that mean very little or nothing. "
John Mellencamp
Everything
Hands
Nothing
" 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
Think
Society
See
" A painting has to be beautiful. Even in its grotesqueness. "
John Mellencamp
Painting
Even
Beautiful
" All I'm doing is painting. It's my hobby. And that's that. "
John Mellencamp
Hobby
Painting
Doing
" I'm as left-wing as you can get. "
John Mellencamp
You
Get
Left-Wing
" I need a long and lingering death to make sure that I have time to have a deathbed conversion. "
John Mellencamp
Sure
Time
Need
" When people are afraid, they make emotional decisions. "
John Mellencamp
Decisions
Afraid
Emotional
" 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
Always
Song
Life
" I used to think that eating healthy was ordering a fish sandwich at McDonalds. "
John Mellencamp
Think
Fish
Healthy
" I don't want to be a politician. I don't like politics. It's petty; it fights dirty. "
John Mellencamp
Like
Dirty
Petty
" '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
Cool
American
Thought