TERRE HAUTE — That line from “Hoosiers” echoed through my mind as I watched a Webcast on Monday night of John Mellencamp accepting his induction into the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame …
“Let’s win this game for all the small schools that never had a chance to get here.”
I know, it’s cheesy to connect Mellencamp to our official state movie. (It’s not? Well, it should be.) But he was so perfectly Indiana on Monday night, amid the concentration of hipness from the East and West coasts gathered for the induction ceremony inside the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City. Any Hoosier who couldn’t find at least a sliver of their own life in Mellencamp’s speech or the songs he performed, well, just isn’t a Hoosier.
In a small way, Mellencamp won this honor for all of us back home in Indiana.
His portion of the event fit beautifully alongside classy fellow inductees the Ventures, the Dave Clark Five and Leonard Cohen. Mellencamp’s arrival on stage was also a welcome relief after a goofy, rambling acceptance speech by pop diva Madonna — whose list of rock classics includes … uh, er, hmmm.
Billy Joel gave Mellencamp a salty introduction, drawing laughs as he explained how John recruited him for the first Farm Aid. Mellencamp, who helped found that project with Neil Young and Willie Nelson, wanted Joel to participate in that 1985 show in southern Illinois. Joel jokingly recalled wondering how a Jewish easterner would go over to a crowd of 100,000 Midwestern farmers. Worried, Joel enlisted another piano rocker, Randy Newman, to add a Jewish singer from the West Coast.
After hearing Joel’s story Monday night, Mellencamp shrugged and said none of that would bother Indiana folks, who probably figured Joel was Italian.
The struggle for acceptance was the subplot of Mellencamp’s path to the Rock Hall.
Mellencamp used to put rejection letters from record companies on the front door of his apartment in his hometown of Seymour. “He said, ‘These are people that do not want me as an artist,’” former bandmate Dave Parman told the Tribune-Star in 2005. “He was proud of his rejections slips, and he was determined to make it.”
He even accepted an unwanted stage name, Johnny Cougar, because his manager insisted he “couldn’t sell ‘John Mellencamp’ to a record company.” Mellencamp then spent years trying to shed it.
Perhaps fittingly, Mellencamp also experienced rejection by the Rock Hall. Its voters passed him over twice, before Mellencamp made this year’s class. He noticed those snubs, too. In typically undiplomatic fashion, Mellencamp insisted to the Tribune-Star in 2005 that the rest of the nation considers Hoosiers and Midwesterners to be “just a bunch of hillrods. And that’s why you’ve got [Michigan native] Bob Seger going through nine years of being passed over before he gets elected to the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame.”
Still, Mellencamp kept going. Just weeks before learning he’d finally been voted into the Rock Hall, Mellencamp kicked off his 2007 tour with a Terre Haute concert, at age 56.
Reaching Monday night’s moment looked iffy at times during Mellencamp’s lifetime. In his speech, he thanked an Indiana doctor (still living at age 92, Mellencamp learned last week) for performing surgery on an infant John in 1951, saving him from paralysis or death. Mellencamp was born with spina bifida. He also thanked friends and associates, but sounded most emotional as he thanked his wife, his sons and daughters, his parents, and his late grandparents.
His grandmother used to whisper encouragement in his ear every time she saw him.
Mellencamp also survived a heart attack in 1994, prompting him to cut his smoking habit to one pack a day from four.
Finally, he admitted, “I’m lucky to be here for a number of reasons. I’ve been a total walking contradiction my entire career.” Mellencamp said he never cared about making money, “but I always wanted to get paid.” He never cared about having a hit record, “but I always wanted to hear my songs on the radio.” He never cared what the critics wrote, “but I always wanted to read what they thought.”
Humans are full of flaws and contradictions. Hoosiers like Mellencamp admit it, and try to land on the right side of those incongruities. At Monday’s ceremony, a film clip was shown of Mellencamp performing last year for wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. In it, Mellencamp — a vocal opponent of President Bush’s Iraq policy — emphasized that it’s possible to both support the troops and oppose the war.
Then, when his speech ended, Mellencamp and his Indiana band tore through three songs that defined his moment Monday night. After “Pink Houses” and a solo version of “Small Town,” John and the band, complete with his son, Speck, on guitar, launched into an anthem for any of us who’ve experienced an uphill battle — “The Authority Song.”
Mellencamp acknowledged he’s a guy who tries to roll the rock up a hill, only to have it roll back down. Then he does it again.
“And I intend to stay that way,” he said.
Mark Bennett can be reached at mark.bennett@tribstar.com or (812) 231-4377.
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B-sides: Mellencamp’s induction into immortality an honor for all Hoosiers
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