The Decay of the Midwest — Ronald Reagan & John Mellencamp — pt.1 of 4
John Cougar Mellencamp — Uh-huh (1983)
Music
John Cougar Mellencamp — Uh-huh (1983)
John Mellencamp’s commercial peak coincided with the two terms of the Ronald Reagan administration. With 1983’s Uh-huh, Mellencamp began to explore more socially conscious songs. He produced four albums using his songs as a clarion call to the fallacy of “Reaganomics” and its impact.
The relationship between music and social consciousness has a long history. In western culture, socially conscious music is traced back to “The Cutty Wren,” a coded anthem against feudal oppression dating back to the English peasants’ revolt of 1381.
Not surprisingly, America’s first musical social commentary songs have their beginnings with slavery. Songs like “Go Down Moses,” an Old Testament story of Moses freeing the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, were derived from hymns about freedom.
The repetition and simplicity of songs like “John Brown’s Body” (the abolitionist whose Harpers Ferry raid sparked tensions that led to the start of the Civil War) made them easy to learn and share with others:
John Brown’s body lies a-moldering in the grave
John Brown’s body lies a-moldering in the grave
John Brown’s body lies a-moldering in the grave
But his soul goes marching on
The stars above in Heaven are looking kindly down
The stars above in Heaven are looking kindly down
The stars above in Heaven are looking kindly down
On the grave of old John Brown
Glory, Glory, Hallelujah
Glory, Glory, Hallelujah
Glory, Glory, Hallelujah
His soul goes marching on
He captured Harper’s Ferry with his nineteen men so true
He frightened old Virginia till she trembled through and through
They hung him for a traitor, they themselves the traitor crew
But his soul goes marching on
Glory, Glory, Hallelujah
Glory, Glory, Hallelujah
Glory, Glory, Hallelujah
His soul goes marching on
From the songs of Woody Guthrie to “Strange Fruit” to “For What It’s Worth” to “Sweet Home Alabama” to “Fuck the Police,” socially conscious music is interwoven into America’s DNA.
In the 1980s, it would be John Mellencamp who would be one of the most popular performers of the decade. His critical and incisive songs topped the charts, largely because his brand of populist rock and roll was de rigueur.
Unlike his contemporaries Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Bob Seger and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Mellencamp was both witness and documentarian of the impact of the Reagan era on middle America.
Having sold over sixty million albums, Mellencamp has made his way into the Rock and Roll Hall the only way one does …with songs. And in the 80s, many of these songs documented the slow march towards the dystopian economic landscape many Americans, especially in the Midwest, find themselves in today.
John Mellencamp, then John Cougar (after an initial period of Johnny Cougar) ascended to rock stardom just as the Reagan administration’s economic theory of “trickle-down economics” was beginning to get a foothold. Known mostly by the colloquial “Reaganomics,” and is closely linked to Supply-Side Economics, as both use The Laffer Curve to emphasize their theory.
This concept was marketed by the Reagan administration, emphasizing the aphorism “a rising tide lifts all boats” — a quote attributed to John F. Kennedy.
Without going into the weeds on “Reaganomics,” it’s this:
“The implementation of lessened taxes on high earners to incentivize business expansion and investment, with the idea that this growth will trickle down to lower earners in the form of financial and occupational benefits.”
Forty years later, this economic theory, this “idea,” remains popular with many politicians because of its perceived success. The fact is that the policy then, as it does now, does two things. One, it helps the rich get richer — it has never trickled down as promoted and promised.
Between 1979 and 2005, after-tax household income rose 6% for the bottom fifth. That sounds great until you see what happened for the top fifth. Their income increased by 80%.
Two, it caused the national debt to skyrocket.
The national debt in 1981 was 1 trillion dollars, and by the time Regan left office in 1989, the debt had almost tripled to about 3 trillion dollars.
Over the ensuing years, this ideology has been embraced by every Republican administration.
The current national debt is 28 trillion dollars…and counting.
From 1981 to 1990, arguably John Mellencamp’s commercial peak, this “trickle-down” policy eviscerated a large swath of the economic foundation of the Midwest.
According to the Pew Research Center: “The 1980s marked the beginning of a long and steady rise in income inequality.”
But alas, this article isn’t about the failed economic policies of previous administrations — it’s about rock and roll.
Break on Through
As Bruce Springsteen is to the East Coast, John Mellencamp is to the Midwest. After a few years of modest success, in 1982, his album American Fool broke through as he found his voice artistically. With the addition of drummer Kenny Aronoff and producer Don Gehman, he carved out a distinctive sound. A sound that would capture and come to define the region throughout the 80s.
His self-reflective hits like “Hurts So Good” and “Jack & Diane” helped make American Fool a huge hit, peaking at #1 on Billboard’s album charts. The record would go on to sell five million copies in the US alone.
But the self-reflective songs of American Fool would soon give way to some of the most astute societal observations in pop music.
Write What You Know
What separated John Mellencamp from his contemporaries was his focus on the Midwest. Throughout his career, he never strayed, creatively or physically, from his “small town” of Seymour, Indiana. The heart and soul of the region are part of his biological and creative DNA.
Prior to Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980, the Midwest was at its economic peak, and the middle class was thriving. You can hear Mellencamp’s admiration in the song “The Great Midwest,” from his self-titled 1979 album, John Cougar:
Everything is slower here, everybody’s got a union card
They get up on Sunday and go to church of their choice
Come back home cookout in the backyard
And they call this the Great Midwest
Where the cornfields row and flow
They’re all 5 years ahead of their time
Or 25 behind, I just don’t know
And all the young men talk about their 4 wheel drives
And how much money they’re gonna make on Friday night
And, they like to brag about how they mistreat their girlfriends
Hey, let’s get drunk, party it up, start a fight
And they call this the Great Midwest
Sure make a hell of a car
And the old hearts, they race their way through the night
The upheaval of who they really are
Those people Mellencamp sung about in “The Great Midwest” would soon find themselves at the ass-end of Ronald Reagan’s economic policies. In the Midwest, the working middle class was not “lifted up” by the rising tides promised by “Reaganomics.” Quite the contrary.
Through this reckless economic policy, the region imploded as manufacturers shuttered or cut production, and family farms were auctioned off. By 1985, the Midwest had officially begun its decades-long economic descent, reaching the current nadir with the hellscape of the opioid crisis.
As income inequality grew, as a result of “Reaganomics,” John Mellencamp was taking notes. And getting angry (he didn’t gain the nickname “Little Bastard” for his cheerful disposition.)
Beginning with 1983s Uh-huh, Mellencamp produced four albums that capture the impact of “Reaganomics” and its influence on the widening social and economic chasms in America:
1983’s Uh-huh
1985’s Scarecrow
1986’s The Lonesome Jubilee
1989’s Big Daddy
Album 1 of 4 — Uh-huh
Despite the album’s blase’ title, Uh-huh saw Mellencamp beginning to try his hand at more socially conscious songs. After having fought long and hard to achieve the success of American Fool, he was smart and savvy enough to hold his socially conscious ideas close to his chest.
It would be the first two songs on Uh-huh where Mellencamp tipped his hand just a little — “Crumblin’ Down” and “Pink Houses.”
Upon the initial listen of “Crumblin’ Down,” the record’s first single and Billboard Top Ten hit, the song could be seen as a snarky flex (or rebuke) about the success of a rock star:
Saw my picture in the paper
Read the news around my face
And now some people
Don’t want to treat me the same
However, its the first verse of “Crumblin’ Down” that sets his lyrical agenda for the next decade (emphasis mine):
Some people ain’t no damn good
You can’t trust ’em, you can’t love em
No good deed goes unpunished
And I don’t mind being their whipping boy
I’ve had that pleasure for years and years
No, no I never was a sinner-tell me what else can I do
Second best is what you get-till you learn to bend the rules
Time respects no person-what you lift up must fall
They’re waiting outside to claim my crumblin’ walls
In 2016, Mellencamp acknowledged that “Crumbin’ Down” is indeed a very political song:
“Reagan was president — he was deregulating everything and the walls were crumbling down on the poor.”
Where “Crumblin’ Down” may have been a veiled introduction to his political leanings, with Uh-huh’s second single “Pink Houses,” Mellencamp goes all in. Immediately beginning with racial inequality and the subtle acknowledgment of eminent domain and its impact on the less privileged:
Well, there’s a black man with a black cat
Livin’ in a black neighborhood
He’s got an interstate runnin’ through his front yard
You know he thinks he’s got it so good
By the next verse, he addresses the ambivalence and hopelessness that was then creeping in on the next generation:
Well, there’s a young man in a T-shirt
Listenin’ to a rock ’n’ roll station
He’s got greasy hair, greasy smile
He says: “Lord, this must be my destination.”
Mellencamp even seems to be foreshadowing the “winners” and “losers” that would become a political divining rod in the 2016 election:
And there’s winners, and there’s losers
But they ain’t no big deal
’Cause the simple man baby pays the thrills,
The bills and the pills that kill
And, given the opioid crisis that has ravaged the region, it’s hard not to hear something approaching prophetic with a line like “pills that kill.”
“Crumblin’ Down” and “Pink Houses” are the first two songs on Uh-Huh, and they are about as politically charged as he chose to get at that time. But that would change by 1985s Scarecrow.
The rest of Uh-huh finds Mellencamp in familiar territory. The songs reflect all the things that defined him before the success of American Fool and have come to define him over the years:
Rebellion — “Authority Song”
Reflective — “Warmer Place to Sleep”
Snark— “Jackie O”
Playfulness — “Play Guitar”
Pugnacious — “Serious Business”
Goofy — “Loving Mother For Ya”
Sensitive — “Golden Gates”
While he may have only dipped his toe in the social commentary water with “Crumblin Down” and “Pink Houses.” The world would soon recognize that John Mellencamp was taking excellent notes as his family, friends, and neighbors began to feel the full weight of “Reaganomics.”
Uh-Huh, was a solid successor to American Fool, peaking at number 9 on Billboard’s album charts and selling three million copies in the US alone.
Over the years, there have been many jokes made at Mellencamp’s name changes — Johnny Cougar to John Cougar to John Cougar Mellencamp to his actual name, John Mellencamp. I suspect he would say the same, but when you’re young and hungry, you’ll do just about anything to be fed.
Uh-huh stands out for the reasons above, but it is also the first album where he publicly acknowledges his given surname — Mellencamp.
By 1987s The Lonesome Jubilee, Mellencamp made clear how he wished to be addressed (and marketed) with just his last name on the front of the album. He would eventually drop “Cougar” altogether by 1989’s Big Daddy.
Coincidentally, the same year that Ronald Reagan left office.
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