![]() ![]() it takes a certain kind of colorful person to want to be up there. “You get this thing, particularly at night when the winds blow. Situated on six acres, the retreat is a remote one. Put more specifically, the former ranch is positioned on one of the peaks of Santa Barbara’s Toro Canyon, a perch which yields bracing views all the way out to the Pacific Ocean. “It does have a very romantic feel to it. ![]() “Quite honestly, I see it as a place for me to go with an invited guest,” he explains, from his suite at the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles. But I was surprised by the reaction.On his 1983 album, Uh-Huh, John Mellencamp sang, “Little pink houses for you and me, oh yeah, for you and me.” But, in 2022, the iconic musician is humming about a little white house in Montecito, California. Quite clearly in my mind what they were doing was wrong. “When the song came out, everyone was really gung-ho on revenge. “It was not received very well,” he says. Mellencamp added new anti-Bush lyrics to this traditional folk tune for his 2003 covers set, Trouble No More, released in the run-up to the Iraq War. “When I heard that, I said, ”˜I can’t be with Columbia anymore. But the cut brings back unpleasant memories: To Mellencamp’s disgust, a record exec criticised the song because it featured an African-American singer (India.Arie) and the lyrics tackled racism in the US. “All of these songs start in the same place, as folk songs,” Mellencamp says ”“ and there’s no better example than this meditative acoustic number, which took on new meaning after 9/11. ”˜Peaceful World’ (acoustic version) 2001 “If I read something in a book or hear something on a record, then it’s part of my vocabulary.” The version here is a solo acoustic demo found in a box with more than 50 cassettes of home recordings. “I’ve always had the cavalier attitude that if it’s out there, it’s fine,” he says. The Bobby Fuller Four’s 1965 hit ”˜I Fought the Law’ was the inspiration for this 1983 single. I walked in, played it a couple of times, and bam! We were amateurs, but we were the best amateurs in the country.”Īlso See Eight Korean Variety Shows that Will Add Spice to Your Life “The engineer was in the kitchen, the band was in the living room. ![]() “We recorded in this broke-down house,” he says. “I could have written a better last verse for that,” Mellencamp says of his 1983 hit. In the meantime, Mellencamp reflects on some key tracks from On the Rural Route: An LP of music from the show ”“ featuring Elvis Costello and Rosanne Cash ”“ is also in the can. And in 2012, he’ll premiere Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, the musical he co-wrote with Stephen King. But it’s not like Mellencamp, 58, is living in the past: In August, he’ll release a new album, the T Bone Burnett-produced No Better Than This. “People will discover that I have songs besides ”˜Pink Houses,’” he says. “You go to the hits and you skip the rest.” But the rocker saw an opportunity to turn casual fans on to his deep cuts ”“ so each disc intersperses hits with lesser-known album tracks in non-chronological order. “I didn’t have any interest in doing a box set ”“ I know what happens with them,” he says. John Mellencamp admits he wasn’t stoked about compiling On the Rural Route 7609, his new four-disc retrospective. ![]()
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