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" When you live in hysteria, people start thinking emotionally. "
John Mellencamp
You
Live
Thinking
Related Quotes:
" 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
Nashville
Place
Run
" As I've matured as a songwriter, I realize that if it's out there, it's mine. "
John Mellencamp
Matured
Songwriter
Realize
" 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
" 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
" 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
" A painting has to be beautiful. Even in its grotesqueness. "
John Mellencamp
Painting
Even
Beautiful
" '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
" 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
" When I wrote 'Pink Houses,' nobody was talking about that, right? The next thing I know, you can't see the TV without hearing commercials with 'Listen to the heartbeat of America,' or 'Born the American way.' That whole America thing now - I hate it. "
John Mellencamp
Hate
American
America
" 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
" 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
Know
Good
Beautiful
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
Two
First
He
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" We had an exercise in speech class in school, impromptu speaking, that I was always real good at. "
John Mellencamp
Class
School
Good
" 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
Know
Ego
Think
" I believe in something, even if it's just me. "
John Mellencamp
Believe
I Believe
Me
" I don't want to be a politician. I don't like politics. It's petty; it fights dirty. "
John Mellencamp
Like
Dirty
Petty
" 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
" It sounds funny, but I always try to keep an open mind about what I'm writing about. Sometimes I squeak my opinions in there, but generally I don't. I try to be objective about things that I'm writing about. "
John Mellencamp
Mind
Funny
Writing
" 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
" 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