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" I need a long and lingering death to make sure that I have time to have a deathbed conversion. "
John Mellencamp
Sure
Time
Need
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" I ended up writing songs and growing up in public with my songwriting. And it's a good thing for me back then: in the early '70s, there was a thing called artist development, where an artist could find his feet, find himself, find his voice. I think I made five or six albums before I sold five or six albums. "
John Mellencamp
Good
Think
Voice
" If I laugh a couple of times a day, I'm doing good. People think it's their God-given right to be happy, and it's just not. It's something you've got to work at. I like to paint the human condition, and the human condition is not smiles and happy people. "
John Mellencamp
Day
Good
Happy
" 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
" 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
" '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. "
John Mellencamp
Green
Friend
Political
" When you live in hysteria, people start thinking emotionally. "
John Mellencamp
You
Live
Thinking
" 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
" This is not a rock opera. This is not Tommy. I can write songs that emote, and that's it. "
John Mellencamp
Rock
Emote
Write
" 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
" 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
Single
Been
Best
" 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
Mind
Ghosts
Defeat
" It's my responsibility as a singer-songwriter to report the news. "
John Mellencamp
Singer-Songwriter
News
Responsibility
" I was born with Spina bifida. That's where you have a hole in your spine, and your nerve endings come out. "
John Mellencamp
Hole
Your
You
" The CD, it should be noted, was born out of greed. It was devised to prop up record sales on the expectation of people replenishing their record collections with CDs of albums they had already purchased. "
John Mellencamp
Greed
Expectation
Sales
" Life should never be viewed from the vantage point of achievements. It is total folly. "
John Mellencamp
Folly
Point
Life
" If we have any hope for survival of the music that we all love, compassion must replace name-calling, fairness must replace greed, and we need to come together as a musical community and try to understand each other's problems. "
John Mellencamp
Love
Community
Compassion
" 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
" 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
" I think it's ridiculous to try to sell records to teenagers, because teenagers don't buy my records. And there ain't that many teenagers out there in the marketplace. "
John Mellencamp
Ridiculous
Sell
Teenagers
" As I get older, I have a different look on life. I just try to be a little more tolerant and a little bit more centered about what's going on around me and not so emotional. "
John Mellencamp
Try
Life
Emotional
" 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
" 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
Right
Tragedy
American
" 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'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
" 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
" 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
" When politicians use fear, they are playing into the enemy's hand. "
John Mellencamp
Fear
Enemy
Playing
" I want to sell to people my own age, because that's the way I write songs. "
John Mellencamp
My Own
Age
Way
" 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
" What's the difference? One guy's the same as the other. "
John Mellencamp
Same
Guy
Difference