I’ve never thought he was a ‘waste of carbon’, but I regarded him pretty much as just another pop star (albeit a rather rural one) until Lonesome Jubilee. That was the album (plus the band that he had assembled and the sound he had coaxed out of it’s members) that made me sit up and take notice, and I’ve thought highly of him ever since.
As far as Cherry Bomb goes, it does a wonderful job of evoking the images and feelings and memories that someone around our age (I’m around three years older) experienced as we entered our mid-to-late thirties and looked back on life as it was in the fifties and early sixties and upon our experiences as teenagers during that time. It’s probably the most moving song in that regard that I know of and not just any old tool could craft it. The guy has significant talent.
As an aside, I remember having something of a mini-crush on Lisa Germano (the fiddle player) during that period. She seemed so tiny and shy and out of place while at the same time so soulful and authoritative and talented in her playing that I couldn’t take my eyes off her during those short snippets that actually showed her in action. I just finished watching Paper In Fire on Mellencamp’s site and she really smokes (sports? ;)) in that one too. If anybody’s interested, it can be found here. The cute banjo player, IIRC, is Crystal Taliefero, the same woman who sang the soulful backing vocal on Cherry Bomb.
And now that you’ve got me on a John Mellencamp kick I just discovered another mondegreen. In the song Paper in Fire I thought the line was “There’s a good life, right across in Stringfield (or maybe Springfield)”, but I couldn’t quite decipher what happened in or to Stringfield after that. So I Gooled and watched the video on his website to find out and discovered that the line is actually “There’s a good life right across the green field”.
Haha, good call! I have a lot of respect for Mr. Mellencamp, he’s a fine songwriter and sounds like a hell of a guy but his dancing ain’t none too good
Especially since he appears to be in denial in the song “Crumblin’ Down.”
*
But I know I’m a real good dancer
Don’t need to look over my shoulder
To see what I’m after*
On all of the lyric websites I only found “sport was a sport”.
In one verse he’s talking about getting his ass beaten for running his mouth, but when he sees those people today, they can laugh about it.
Maybe he doesn’t mean ‘sport’ in the football/basketball sense, but rather a person who responds well to teasing, defeat, or a similarly trying situation; rather than all the cry babies around today.
Amazing, this thread has been alive for 10 years now!
I always heard it as That’s when a smoke was a smoke and never even though it might be something else. As Argent mentioned (a loong time ago), it’s pretty well known that’s he a very heavy smoker, so in my mind he was just thinking back to his younger days, back when smoking was just a normal thing to do, not something that came with a guilt trip or a lecture or an illness. It’s just what people did.
