John Mellencamp - Scarecrow (2005)

It's surprising to remember, but up until the mid-80s, John Mellencamp was looked down upon as some sort of illegitimate little brother of American rock. "He sings like Springteen," sniped some critics. "He writes like Tom Petty" whined others. After the commercial successes of 1982's American Fool and Uh-Huh the following year, however, even the most hardcore critics had to admit that Mellencamp had developed a loyal following entirely of his own making. Half-dozen albums into his career, the onetime "Johnny Cougar" had experienced a sort of adolescent "growth spurt," finding his creative voice with a mix of electric roots rock and small-town populist imagery. With the release in 1985 of Scarecrow, Mellencamp's eighth album, all arguments became moot...any critic that would deny the rocker his hard won artistic credibility just wasn't listening.

With Scarecrow's song cycle, Mellencamp championed the common man in a manner separate though equal to Springsteen's best work, concentrating on the trials and tears of Middle America, the land he grew up in. True, some of the material on Scarecrow, most notably the rambling "Rumble Seat" or the hit "Small Town," is somewhat cliched in its handling and presentation. The best songs here stand up tall alongside the works of any populist songwriter, from Woody Guthrie through Bob Dylan to Springsteen, Seger and Petty. Mellencamp's salute to his musical forebears, "R.O.C.K. In The U.S.A." or the allegorical "Justice And Independence '85" each score a musical and lyrical bull's eye.

It is with two cuts, both from the first side of the original vinyl release of Scarecrow, with which Mellencamp lays low any criticisms ever leveled in his direction. The countryish "Minutes To Memories" is the engaging story of an old man handing down his mantle of wisdom, unheard, to a young man during a chance encounter on a cross-country bus. The young man later relates his regrets over ignoring the old man's advice (to his misfortune). The masterpiece here, though, is "Rain On The Scarecrow," a dark, disturbing song, tragic in its story of America's betrayal of the farmers who pioneered the Midwestern badlands.

Opening with a driving beat swelling towards a powerful crescendo and joined by a massive guitar riff, Mellencamp relates his sad tale of the diminishing American family farm. Delivered matter-of-factly, Mellencamp bitterly sings "rain on the scarecrow, blood on the plow/this land fed a nation, this land made me proud/and son I'm just sorry, there's no legacy for you now." This moment, as powerful as any in rock & roll, is the equivalent of Joe Grushecky's steeltown blues or Springsteen's lament for the lost Jersey shore. Art can make you think; great art will make you cry in terror at the truth it conveys. In the three minutes and some odd seconds of "Rain On The Scarecrow," Mellencamp achieved that which most rockers strive their entire lives to create: a fleeting, immortal moment of perfection.

The incredible success of Scarecrow and Mellencamp's increased role as the voice of a largely-forgotten Mid-America would help to make him one of the biggest stars of the decade, a heartland rocker whose popularity and artistic credibility remains strong today. It would also enable him to gain near-total control of his music from the label and producers, resulting in a pure representation of Mellencamp's vision on subsequent albums like The Lonesome Jubilee and Big Daddy. Twenty years after its initial release, Scarecrow stands tall as a timeless classic of rock & roll, the album an integral part of John Mellencamp's canon and a long ways from the Chestnut Street of the artist's misguided early days. (Mercury Records)

(Click on the CD cover to buy Scarecrow from Amazon.com)