Chords for John Mellencamp - 1982 Interview with WHAS-11(Louisville) Part 2

The days of being drunk and messed up on drugs and laying in your hotel room all day for a person in rock and roll are over.
You know, there's a couple, three bands that can still do it, but they're old-timey guys and, you know, _ they'll be able to do it forever.
That's how it was when they started and they can still do that, but they're huge now.
So, but, you know, us new guys have got another business.
John Cougar has spent eight years learning about the music business.
Last year we had a couple hit records and a couple guys in the band thought they were famous, right?
Drugs, women, everything you read about, they were into it.
And I was in a studio down in Miami and, man, I was spending a lot of money and getting nothing done because the guys would stay up until seven in the morning.
I had to be in the studio at eleven.
Came to the studio at eleven, you know, I hate guys that wear sunglasses in the studio, right?
All that, you know, too cruel to even talk to, you know.
I think this guy works for me and he's got this attitude, right?
So, _ you know, I'd say, hey man, you know, [D] why don't you try doing this, try doing that?
He'd say, oh, I'm not into it, guy.
And I said, hey, listen, man, [N] for $200 an hour, you better get into it.
You know, and that goes on a couple of times and that's it, you know.
How did you get kind of wild on the road?
Well, been known to.
Things [Ab] get out of hand sometimes.
I mean, you know, let's face it, up until this year before I turned 30, like, we were young [G] guys out on the road, right?
Seeing America and [Bb] Europe and Australia for the first time in our [Ab] lives, right?
[Eb] But now that we're getting older, it's kind of going to be [N] tamed down this year.
I hope we don't, you know.
I said no more hotel rooms being torn up, none of that kind of stuff.
It's just too expensive.
Occasionally, Cougar [E] performs without pay, but with a purpose at [N] Bloomington bars like this one.
Imagine the audience reaction when they found out the group they thought was cops stood for Cougar out playing [A] secretly.
[E] _ _
Knocked up the door.
_ [A] [E] I'm going to the jail.
I'm [A] going to the bars without a car.
[E] It's part of polishing [A] the [E] performance, like these [A] twice a [E] day rehearsals [D] at his Bloomington home.
John Cougar is, he's probably pretty hard to work [A] for because I want things right.
[E] His real name is Mellencamp.
[A] His first manager [N] decided John Cougar sounded more like [A] a rock singer's name.
And I'm some dumb kid from [E] Seymour, you know, and [A] I [E] think, yeah, he's rich.
[A] _ [N] Is John Cougar separate from John Mellencamp?
They're more than the same.
I like to talk about John Cougar as another person because _ he's a lot more brash than I am.
But John Mellencamp can be that way too.
You know, sometimes my wife says I get a different walk when I turn in John Cougar.
It's like Popeye or something she says, you know.
And I slip into that mold sometimes.
But I try, I really don't even think about it.
The only time I really think about it is when I'm getting ready to walk on stage.
And what do you think?
Okay.
This is it.
I'm excited that people come to see this, so make sure you give them a show.
And John Mellencamp's not interested in putting on a show.
John Cougar is.
His wife Vicki travels with him on concert tours.
I like traveling with him.
I like being with him so that at the end of a show that he may feel a little bit [Dm] depressed after
or just exhausted after, [N] maybe I can kind of say, hey, there's a reason for all of this.
_ We're still happy about it.
_ Cougar says he's in control of his image right down to the Tough Guy album covers.
Tomorrow he talks about his future.
Melissa Forsyth, Action 11. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [A] _ [E] _ _ [A] _ [E] _
_ _ [A] _ [E] _ _ _ _
[A] John [E] Cougar says he's a commercial [A] success now because he's not trying to [E] be one.
Joni [A] Mitchell said it best.
She says the times that you [Bm] impress me most are the times when you don't [E] try.
And that connected with me a couple years, well, a year or so ago.
And it's like, hey, don't try to say anything in your songs and they won't be pretentious.
I wrote a song called This Time.
[N] And every time I hear that song on the radio, it's always the embarrassment of my life.
It's like, quit playing that song.
You know, because it was, I sat down and I said, I'm going to write a hit record.
And it became a song that went, this time I really think, I mean, it's like, it's so wimp.
I mean, I can't even believe it's me.
It's like, what are you doing with that song, you know?
_ So after that, that taught me a lesson.
Are you happy doing what you're doing?
Some days I get up and I think I'm the luckiest guy in the world.
You know, I've never really had a good day.
I've had fabulous moments in the day, though, where I felt great for like an hour or two.
And I guess the ultimate thing in life is to spring a whole bunch of those hours together and make one whole good day.
Cougar says he's taking things one day at a time and rarely makes plans, but he is thinking about the future.
I'm pretty sure I'll be in the music business some way or another.
Not the music business, the film business or something, you know.
You'd like to be on that big screen?
Well, no, I don't necessarily like to be, but I mean, I've had numerous things offered to me, right?
But I'm not going to go in the movies and play John Cougar, you know, forget it.
You'd play him on stage.
Well, I know, but that's the music business.
And that's what he was made to be.
_ But to go on and make movies and have to sing and be like Robert Goulet or something in his movies,
driving down the street with What's Her Name, singing her song, [B] well, I'm not into it, you [N] know.
I'm not into being in a movie and pulling down a guitar and start playing, you know.
That's not what I'm interested in.
So when the [B] right part comes along and is offered to me, and to be honest, if the money's good, I'll be there.
No matter where his career takes him, Cougar plans to stay rooted firmly in Indiana.
In here, [Bb] Bloomington, you know, _ I don't think people are that impressed with John Cougar.
[N] You know, they see me so much, they go, the guy that makes records, [Fm] you know.
Me and my cousin from Adore, Indiana, stood on the street in Bloomington [F] with our Harley Davises
and smoked [Fm] cigarettes and laughed, you know.
[N] It was all right.
Then we couldn't do it very long, but it was okay for a while.
A lot lasted.
I was sitting in a Wendy's eating a hamburger, and this black girl looks at me, and I know she's looking at me.
I go, oh, God, here we go, you know.
She looked at me, she goes, somebody told you you look a lot like John Cougar.
I said, yeah, I've heard [E] that.
I said, he's ugly, ain't he?
_ _ She goes, no, I don't think so.
And that was it, you know.
[Ab] And she actually thought, I think she, and I can pretty much tell when somebody's going to say something [N] to me,
but she actually thought, you know, this little guy looks like John Cougar, you know.
I've had adults and kids alike come up and ask for an autograph, and I could tell to them it was really important, right,
even though it's always kind of blown me away, because it's not, you know,
they could have had my autograph when I put your phone in a few years ago, right,
and they would have just said, boop, you know, forget this guy.
_ _ _ [A] _ [D] _ Melissa [E] _
_ [A] _ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _
[A] _ [D] _ _ [Gm] _ [D] _ _ [A] _ _
[D] _ _ [E] _ [A] _ _ _ [D] _
Forsythe, [E] Action 11.
[A] _ _ _ _ _
_ [E] _ _ [A] _ _ [E] _ _ [Bm] _
[A] _ _ _ A little tea.
[Bm] About Jack [E] and I.
_ [A] Jim [E] Haggerty is doing [Bm] the best [A] he can.
_ _ I love you.
I love you.
_ _ [G] _ _ Skyner. _