In the same summer that gave us Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” and Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf”, John Cougar (before he reclaimed his name Mellencamp) gave American kids a song about themselves. It was infectious and engaging because it sounded like us - like our lives. That memory sticks with me because the song simply sounded different and demanded attention of the teens in the neighborhood. I can vaguely remember the first time it came across the boom-box playing in the lifeguard’s shack of River-Aire Pool where I grew up and spent my summers. Now, 37 years after it became a summer anthem, Mellencamp’s signature breakthrough song resonates as a tale of a simpler time mythologizing small town rural life and making peace with the hard reality that “life goes on, long after the thrill of living is done.” As members of Generation X settle comfortably into middle age, the nostalgia and reality of the song offer a time machine back to carefree youth before we became “women and men”. Far beyond a simple song, “Jack and Diane” became the song of the summer, playing out on car radios and at swimming pools, topping the charts at number one by October. The contrast between the two sounds almost sweetly reflects the contrasting themes of the ditty – the loud brash promise of youth with a melancholy realization of the fading days of passion and innocence.įor an unassuming pop song posing as a little ditty, it leaped onto radio playlists and the music charts with an addictive sound nearly impossible to ignore. At a time of emerging New Wave and the early rise of synthpop, John Mellencamp‘s breakthrough and most enduring song opens with an innovative guitar hook merging a raucous anthem rock chord that’s quickly tempered with an innocent and oddly appropriate twangy clip.

In the summer of 1982, a “little ditty” about growing up “in the Heartland” became the most unexpected of anthems for a group of young people in the US later known as Generation X.

John mellencamp jack and diane