Less than two weeks late?
I've noted a time or two that during the worst of the pandemic when I took my youngest son to Tae Kwon Do that there were several months where only the students were allowed in the school, and I'd sit in our car and listen to tunes while he had his lessons. On one such evening, I came across this week's tune in my YouTube queue, and was taken aback because I had no idea John Mellencamp had a new album, let alone one with three songs featuring Bruce Springsteen. I immediately gave it a listen--and literally immediately added it to my Friday Night Jukebox lineup. It never ceases to amaze me that even fifty years into my musical journey I can still be absolutely blown away, thrilled and chilled, by a song just like this week's featured post....
This is the third time I've featured a song by John Mellencamp, which is a bit surprising since he's one-third of my Holy Trinity of Working Class Rock with Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty (first Mellencamp post here, second Mellencamp post here), which, as my pandemic comments above, I've noted before. As I wrote about him just last February, there hasn't been anything of note in his career, though I would like to mention that he has now released twenty-four studio albums and seventy-one singles which makes for quite the musical output for the guy who started out as Johnny Cougar....
"Did You Say Such a Thing" was the third single from Mellencamp's 2022 album, the rather knavely entitled Strictly a One-Eyed Jack. The single did not chart (should have!), while the album showed that Mellencamp's heyday is long gone, peaking at #196 on the Billboard 200.
Fun Fact: There's a line in "Did You Say Such a Thing" where Mellencamp intones "You got your bird seed all wrong" which I though was some clever backwoods country witticism. Nope, looked it up online and it's just a lyric in a song, though it sure seems like it could become some kind of hillbilly wisdom.
No matter how hard I try, I will not be able to do this week's song justice. Every time I've played it this week while doing my half-assed research it shakes me to my core with how good it is. From Springsteen's ominous guitar at its outset to Mellencamp's gravelly vocals, from the defiant lyrics to Springsteen's fiery guitars and his devil may care backing vocals, "Did You Say Such a Thing" hits every right note and shows us that rock and roll will never die, that at its finest it can say so much about the human experience and our participation in it. A stunning, stunning piece of work from two artists showing us how to not only age gracefully, but purposefully. Just beautiful.
Lyric Sheet: "I guess I'll see you tomorrow/Unless you'd be gone/Never too soon for me/You got your bird seed all wrong..."
Enjoy:
Fuck Donald Trump
Peace,
emaycee
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