More importantly, that woodshedding is felt within the marrow of Scarecrow. Mellencamp croons sweetly on an acoustic revision of the Drifters’ “Under the Boardwalk” and his band approximates a good JB’s groove on their take on James Brown’s “Cold Sweat,” two tracks among the 11 pleasant, enjoyable tunes on the reissue’s bonus CD. Some of those cover versions show up on the 2022 deluxe edition of Scarecrow. (A Salute to 60s Rock).” Mellencamp even put his longtime backing band in a boot camp of sorts, marching them through a hundred oldies prior to cutting a note of his new songs. He concentrated on the ravers that served as a soundtrack at frat parties, shindigs, and clambakes, the kind of hits he celebrates on “R.O.C.K. As much as he treated Bob Dylan as his spiritual guide, Mellencamp didn’t rely on earnest folk-rock for Scarecrow, nor did he indulge in baroque pop or trippy journeys to the center of your mind. Mellencamp married his vignettes of middle America with the music he associated with the heartland: the hit singles pumping on the AM airwaves throughout the 1960s. Save the pointed “Rain on the Scarecrow,” Mellencamp avoids antagonistic politics-despite its stirring title, “You’ve Got to Stand for Somethin’” is a stroll down Boomer memory lane that functions as a proto-“We Didn’t Start the Fire.” Throughout the album, he traffics in stories and nostalgia, painting a picture of a middle America so romantic that it could’ve served as the soundtrack for a Reagan campaign advertisement if it wasn’t for the pugnacious presentation of these songs. The near-simultaneous release of the album and the staging of the concert created an illusion that Scarecrow had a political bent, which isn’t quite true. Mellencamp took this issue to heart, organizing the Farm Aid charity with Willie Nelson and Neil Young just after completing Scarecrow. There are storm clouds gathering on the horizon, peeking through on the deceptively bouncy “The Face of the Nation” and swirling on the ominous opener “Rain on the Scarecrow,” a vivid portrait of the wreckage left behind when all the farms in a town shut down. He was fighting for their hopes and dreams, mourning the disappearing downtown drags, and preserving the memories of the good times. Similarly, after offering a litany of anxieties on “Rumbleseat,” he ends the song on a note of self-help triumphalism that seems at odds with the roiling paranoia delivered in the previous stanzas.Īll this is a deliberate choice, part of Mellencamp positioning himself as an advocate for the everyday American on Scarecrow. Take “Lonely Ol’ Night,” a cathartic rocker that served as the album’s first single: After singing it’s “a sad, sad, sad, sad feelin’ when you’re livin’ on those in-betweens,” he offers an offhand reassurance “but it’s OK,” deflating pitch black loneliness lurking in the song’s verses. A fatalist by nature, Mellencamp chose to battle his instincts when composing the songs for 1985’s Scarecrow, tempering his Midwestern gloom with notes of inspiration and solidarity. Smalltown America is a milieu that treated John Mellencamp well in the past, providing the backdrop for both the rousing “ Jack & Diane” and the biting “ Pink Houses,” a pair of hits whose popularity helped obscure the grim cynicism lingering at their core.
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