The guitar scrapes grimly, the man growls: “I always lie to strangers/ I always lie to people I may know/ There’ll be no church bells chiming for me/ No contest is my only plead.” So we’ve got someone to do who is aware of his guilt – a bad guy in a bad world who should not be trusted. Well, that’s a good start! Strictly A One-Eyed Jack is John Mellencamp’s 25th album and it doesn’t get any happier. He recorded again in his Belmont Mall studios in Indiana, but this time he didn’t produce it himself, leaving it to David Leonard. The usual band was there too.
At that time there was still a little more hope at the end of despair
So relatively good conditions in these isolation times, yet Mellencamp obviously has the blues looking around in this world. “I Am A Man That Worries,” he states dryly – and now almost sounds like Tom Waits at times, only without the staggering elegance. Here you can always hear the checked shirts and Levi’s jeans. In between, a bit of confidence shimmers through, for example in the gospel-like “Chasing Rainbows” with the (perhaps not so simple, especially for an American) moral: If you’re not just greedy for money, you might find happiness: “At the end of the rainbow / Turns out it’s not somewhere/ Look around it’s everywhere/ For anyone who cares.” That doesn’t seem certain, there’s always trouble around here.
However, there is one ray of hope: Bruce Springsteen stops by for three songs. “Wasted Days” was released in advance in autumn, a solid carpe diem rock song, “Did You Say Such A Thing” grooves along comfortably and casually, “A Life Full Of Rain” is particularly melancholic. How many songs about forgiveness and the ghosts of the past have they actually sung? At the end a lost piano jingles, one is left behind a bit sad. Maybe just hang up “Uh-huh”, back then there was still a little more hope at the end of despair.
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