The Record Company's Goin' Out of Business
The first thing you need to know about me is I'm an unabashed John Cougar fan. Not John Cougar Mellencamp, and certainly not John Mellencamp. I mean John Cougar. Back when he was dumb as a rock and blindly enthusiastic. I think he made some of the best straight-forward American rock n' roll of the time. If you think that's stupid then move along.
For a guy who was commonly-known as the "poor man's Spingsteen," John Cougar meant a hell of a lot more to me than Bruce. Bruce was always putting on a show. Bruce was a phoney. (insider tip: the whole "working man" thing was made up by his manager. Google it.) John Cougar wanted nothing more than to be a rock n' roller - and that he was. He didn't write prose, but his songs were not nearly as shallow as critics charged. It wasn't until he changed his name in the name of "art" that he became something he wasn't - and thereby "shallow". Give me honesty over fake artistry any day.
Ah well. John Cougar - the brash, naive rocker - had a good run. (As with everything I write here, I rely on memory. I could Google dates, but so can you.) I think he started in about '75 as "Johnny Cougar" and released at least three records before his "proper" debut, "John Cougar," which got him noticed with the awesomely-rocking "I Need a Lover." But it was in 1980 Cougar made what I still consider his best record - "Nothin' Matters and What if it Did."
What a great title! I mean, that pretty much says it all right there. And the cover was priceless - Cougar staring unflinchingly at the camera, dressed in wife-beater, with a haggard woman behind grinning knowingly. A makeshift clothesline and dirty mop completes the picture. Flip the record over and you see they are indeed standing in front of a trailer. It's just classic. And this was 25 years before "white trash chic."
But spin the platter and you get a whole different story. The songs are tender and reminiscent. Arpeggiated piano is sprinkled throughout the big choruses and handclaps with lots of shout-alongs and pleadings to lost love. I don't know if "Riva" records and young Johnny were sophisticated enough to manufacture the dichotomy, but it's clearly a "tough on the outside, soft on the inside" kinda thing.
And the songs are really good. Maybe it's just because I grew up listening to this record, but they've always struck me as sincere, melodic and well-arranged with plenty of dynamic range. Cougar spends most of the record in a dialog with a girl or girls from the past, remembering lots of little details and confessing the simplest of emotions, as if he simply couldn't when the time was right. Again, I don't know if this was sincere, or just a young songwriter trying to be "real," but I bought it. He pulls off the wounded, silent guy act perfectly.
"Nothin' Matters" contains my two favorite John Cougar songs, "This Time" and "Ain't Even Done With the Night," which were both decent hits for him and would lead to the major success he had with "American Fool" and "Uh-Huh," Both were good albums, but only hinted at the emotional honesty and devil-may-care attitude of "Nothin' Matters." I suppose I'll never know if these songs were bullshit, as Mellencamp has publicly derided his pre-Scarecrow work as juvenile and he's pretty much refused to talk about it. That's a shame. This stuff is infinitely more interesting than "Paper in Fire." (And he surely never would rock again to the extent of "I Need a Lover.")
The selections here show absolutely nothing of what I just spent 30 minutes typing about. The first, "Cry Baby" is a little 30-second segue from side two. It's credited as "Traditional," but I'll be damned if I've ever heard it. But...hey - did I mention Steve Cropper produced this record? Yeah, he did. And if anybody could dig up some unknown Rn'B Doo-Woppy ditty like this, Cropper is the man. I still get a kick out of it. And I had a good time at 10-years old trying to decipher just what in the hell they were talking about.
The second cut in the album closer, and another track that makes me grin. At this point, Cougar had at least 5 albums under his belt, and although he couldn't have been any older than 25, he was a weary industry vet.
Cheap Shot
Well the record company's goin' out of business
They price the records too damn high
And the boys in the band could use some assistance
Get a daytime job just to get by.
Well the PDs, they won't play the record
they're too worried about that book.
And the DJs they all hate the song
but they're in love with the hook.
So na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na
I bet you've heard this song before.
na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na
Take your cocaine and hit the door.
Well folk-rock, punk rock, power pop music
turned out to be the latest trends.
And there aint no more progressive music
The business has put it to an end.
Ol' Rolling Stone has gathered some moss
No they ain't what they used to be
They try to look like "Look" with their political pages
And advertising all over T.V.
The track is hilarious for its digs at Greedy Program Directors, Weak DJs, Rolling Stone and trend-followers in general, but the musical tribute to "Summertime Blues" and the swipe at "My Sharona" is worth the listen alone.
And yes, even then he was pissed about changing his name. Ha.
P.S. You can buy all John Cougar's preceding LPs, and everything after, but this record is strangely out-of-print.
Cry Baby
Cheap Shot
For a guy who was commonly-known as the "poor man's Spingsteen," John Cougar meant a hell of a lot more to me than Bruce. Bruce was always putting on a show. Bruce was a phoney. (insider tip: the whole "working man" thing was made up by his manager. Google it.) John Cougar wanted nothing more than to be a rock n' roller - and that he was. He didn't write prose, but his songs were not nearly as shallow as critics charged. It wasn't until he changed his name in the name of "art" that he became something he wasn't - and thereby "shallow". Give me honesty over fake artistry any day.
Ah well. John Cougar - the brash, naive rocker - had a good run. (As with everything I write here, I rely on memory. I could Google dates, but so can you.) I think he started in about '75 as "Johnny Cougar" and released at least three records before his "proper" debut, "John Cougar," which got him noticed with the awesomely-rocking "I Need a Lover." But it was in 1980 Cougar made what I still consider his best record - "Nothin' Matters and What if it Did."
What a great title! I mean, that pretty much says it all right there. And the cover was priceless - Cougar staring unflinchingly at the camera, dressed in wife-beater, with a haggard woman behind grinning knowingly. A makeshift clothesline and dirty mop completes the picture. Flip the record over and you see they are indeed standing in front of a trailer. It's just classic. And this was 25 years before "white trash chic."
But spin the platter and you get a whole different story. The songs are tender and reminiscent. Arpeggiated piano is sprinkled throughout the big choruses and handclaps with lots of shout-alongs and pleadings to lost love. I don't know if "Riva" records and young Johnny were sophisticated enough to manufacture the dichotomy, but it's clearly a "tough on the outside, soft on the inside" kinda thing.
And the songs are really good. Maybe it's just because I grew up listening to this record, but they've always struck me as sincere, melodic and well-arranged with plenty of dynamic range. Cougar spends most of the record in a dialog with a girl or girls from the past, remembering lots of little details and confessing the simplest of emotions, as if he simply couldn't when the time was right. Again, I don't know if this was sincere, or just a young songwriter trying to be "real," but I bought it. He pulls off the wounded, silent guy act perfectly.
"Nothin' Matters" contains my two favorite John Cougar songs, "This Time" and "Ain't Even Done With the Night," which were both decent hits for him and would lead to the major success he had with "American Fool" and "Uh-Huh," Both were good albums, but only hinted at the emotional honesty and devil-may-care attitude of "Nothin' Matters." I suppose I'll never know if these songs were bullshit, as Mellencamp has publicly derided his pre-Scarecrow work as juvenile and he's pretty much refused to talk about it. That's a shame. This stuff is infinitely more interesting than "Paper in Fire." (And he surely never would rock again to the extent of "I Need a Lover.")
The selections here show absolutely nothing of what I just spent 30 minutes typing about. The first, "Cry Baby" is a little 30-second segue from side two. It's credited as "Traditional," but I'll be damned if I've ever heard it. But...hey - did I mention Steve Cropper produced this record? Yeah, he did. And if anybody could dig up some unknown Rn'B Doo-Woppy ditty like this, Cropper is the man. I still get a kick out of it. And I had a good time at 10-years old trying to decipher just what in the hell they were talking about.
The second cut in the album closer, and another track that makes me grin. At this point, Cougar had at least 5 albums under his belt, and although he couldn't have been any older than 25, he was a weary industry vet.
Cheap Shot
Well the record company's goin' out of business
They price the records too damn high
And the boys in the band could use some assistance
Get a daytime job just to get by.
Well the PDs, they won't play the record
they're too worried about that book.
And the DJs they all hate the song
but they're in love with the hook.
So na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na
I bet you've heard this song before.
na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na
Take your cocaine and hit the door.
Well folk-rock, punk rock, power pop music
turned out to be the latest trends.
And there aint no more progressive music
The business has put it to an end.
Ol' Rolling Stone has gathered some moss
No they ain't what they used to be
They try to look like "Look" with their political pages
And advertising all over T.V.
The track is hilarious for its digs at Greedy Program Directors, Weak DJs, Rolling Stone and trend-followers in general, but the musical tribute to "Summertime Blues" and the swipe at "My Sharona" is worth the listen alone.
And yes, even then he was pissed about changing his name. Ha.
P.S. You can buy all John Cougar's preceding LPs, and everything after, but this record is strangely out-of-print.
Cry Baby
Cheap Shot
posted by Billy K at 12:25 PM
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