in the U.S.A.,” it at least nods toward the kind of record collection that illuminated what Coog missed in rural Indiana. Although I don’t much like the next single “R.O.C.K. It should’ve been the Reagan commercial that “Born in the U.S.A.” wasn’t. Often direct to the point of madness but never confusing, Mellencamp answers no questions. Does he regret being born in a small town? Does he have regrets but understands what it taught him? Should small towns be nuked? All his friends were born in a small town. Obviously no conservative, Springsteen nevertheless became an unofficial avatar for Chevrolet visions of America, a Trojan Horse in which dozens of George Wills in jeans spilled forth armed with maladroitly polysyllabic columns praising the beautiful prose of Robert Bork.Ī hit on momentum and thanks to trends, “Small Town” is the most vacant of Mellencamp’s excellent, under-discussed streak that went from 1980’s “Ain’t Even Done with the Night” through 1994’s surprise smash “Wild Nights.” The snap and tug-and-pull of Kenny Aronoff’s drums and Larry Crane’s rangy guitar riff hold it together when Mellencamp’s gruffness can’t he reverts to the tuff gnarl of his Johnny Cougar days as if afraid people still disrespect him. 1985-1986 was peak Bossmania, peak heartland, peak Reagan. I didn’t know John Cougar Melonhead, to quote The Harvard Lampoon, sang it until consulting Whitburn in the early nineties. Springsteen, I thought for years, with the grim finality of Eric Church in his classic 2012 eponymous hit. Songs beloved by colleagues and songs to which I’m supposed to genuflect will get my full hurricane-force winds, but it doesn’t mean that I won’t take shots at a jukebox hero overplayed when I was at a college bar drinking a cranberry vodka in a plastic thimble-sized cup. I promise my readers that my list will when possible eschew obvious selections. I don’t want to hate songs to do so would shake ever-sensitive follicles, and styling gel is expensive. Like a good single, a terrible one reveals itself with airplay and forbearance.
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