Little Punk Houses For You And Me

Little Punk Houses For You and Me
John Mellencamp

by Don Allred
September 1 - 7, 1999 Issue 36

Years later, the crows are still scared.

John Mellencamp
Rough Harvest
Mercury

The former Mr. Cougrat's latest offering, Rough Harvest, is a compatible
collection of big hits and personal chestnuts, energetically re-worked with his mainly
fiddle-and-drum band, during rehearsals, gigs, and other moments gracefully
gleaned from the glimmering old gravytrain. 
However. Once I got used to jigging around RH's immediately engaging
hoedown, I started fretting the prominence of its folkie keep-on- truckin' farm,
good-taste-bound. Bumper crop of beats notwithstanding, the invitation to taste-test comparisons 
 with the hard-(Coug Age)-won, and even harder-(via Human
Wheels, Dance Naked, Mr. Happy Go Lucky, John Mellencamp)-established balance of
acoustic/electric, loud/soft, boy/girl "secret" alliances was not always worth a chew..

Once, time and John found said fine balance for "Jack and Diane."
Ever the astute collector, Mr. Camp copped (one of) this song's famous phrases
from Garland Jeffreys' Ghost Writer. GJ's "Spanish Town" was as much limbo as
ghetto, about a guy who's "gonna suck on a chili dog"— seems like that's all
his Hot Latin Heritage comes down to. Likewise, Jack and Diane are about to
see their chili dreams left on ice, down by the Tastee-Freez. The set-up:  there's
something almost luxurious in the way John rasps "Ohhh Yeahhh," and then positively
flourishing is "Life! goes on"— one hand's resting on the wheel, the
other's magnanimously waving another driver by. So, " . . . long after the
thrill/of livin' is gone" still is foreboding, cautionary, almost resigned, 

but ends up presuming it's got
all the time in the world to be that way (and to take moody-broody
satisfactions where it can).

My favorite bits involve the guitars. Acoustic serenades for Jack and Diane; 

mushy stuff offset by a remarkable refrain. Stern electric chords move in,

only to meet a little patch of finger-, gum-, and even
string-pops, not quite rhetorically spelling out "So what?"

 (As in "What are you rebelling against?" "Whaddaya got?") 

The sucker punch: 1985's "Rain on the Scarecrow,"  where "Jack And Diane" 's well-fed "So what?"

became two notes endlessly repeated by a definitely rhetorical guitar:
"Dur-dur?" automatically shredding a glare-ice storm over a farm being taken, in the reflected reality of massing foreclosures,
burying John's merely human, merely eloquent outrage. RH's rendition is
merely eloquent, period. And "Jackie Brown" 's new folkie purism dilutes
Jackie's possible solace, glimpsed in Human Wheels' more "commercial" string
arrangement. 

 But the rest of it's a trade-off that gets better all the time.

Human Wheels' title song is now minus some of the studio version's
catchiness, but also its arty-farty vocal filtration.  One or two other numbers do miss Kenny Aronoff
(he's with Melissa Etheridge now), but new drummer Dane Clark (plus the return of
Me'shell Ndegéocello's bass and vocals) keeps a live "Wild Night"
shoulderbopping by Van Morrison's  nostalgic Tupelo Honey original. And the
traditional "In My Time of Dying" 's buoyantly celebratory momentum makes Led Zep's
(copyrighted) 11-minute Physical Graffiti wankathon seem positively Spïnal
Tap.

As for the appropriately smoother stuff, that Pied Piper glint in Dylan's
(Bootleg Series box) "Farewell Angelina" ain't here, probably because Mellen
figures we'll never get out of this world alive, so rather than tease, he takes
us on a merry-go-round tour of the song. Then he decides what the heck: his
own "Minutes to Memories" forgoes its original antsiness to float a few
between-the-Earth-the-Moon-and-the-Greyhound suspensions in its title's process.
"Under the Boardwalk" 's harmonies have a cookout by the sea. Overall, Miriam

Sturm's violin plays off Janas Hoyt's vocals, as well as her own (and
everybody's rhythm): hazy one minute, prismatic the next..JM remains in 

good cig-tested voice as well.

When told about this piece, a Louisville art historian exclaimed,

 "Ooh, even I know who that is! He's a Hoosier Expressionist." Right awn. 

.