JOHN MELLENCAMP : STRICTLY A ONE-EYED JACK

JOHN MELLENCAMP : STRICTLY A ONE-EYED JACK

I Always Lie to Strangers
Driving in the Rain
I Am a Man That Worries
Streets of Galilee
Sweet Honey Brown
Did You Say Such a Thing (with Bruce Springsteen)
Gone So Soon
Wasted Days (with Bruce Springsteen)
Simply a One-Eyed Jack
Chasing Rainbows
Lie to Me
A Life Full of Rain (with Bruce Springsteen)

Label : Republic Records

Release Date : January 21, 2022

Length : 48:37

Review (AllMusic) : Through much of its history, rock & roll has walked hand in hand with youth culture, and most major artists have seemed wary of advancing age. Conventional wisdom has it that the greatest compliment you can pay a veteran musician is that they sure don't look or sound as old as they actually are, and that they still appear young at heart. Through much of his career, John Mellencamp has seemed ambivalent about rock stardom, so it makes a certain sense that from 2010's No Better Than This onward, he's been content to let his music reflect his time served on the planet. These days, he leans more to folk than the heartland rock that made him famous, and his vocals are steeped in audible grit caused by many years of smoking and even more time shouting out his songs. 2022's Strictly a One-Eyed Jack was released when Mellencamp was 70 years of age, and he seems proud to be something of a relic, a bit cranky and worn but with plenty to say and no shyness about sharing his thoughts. He casts himself as a cynic and a rogue in many of these songs, one with a certain charm and a plentiful amount of swagger, and his rasp more than suits the character, complementing the mournful, jazzy tone of "Gone Too Soon," the bitter cynicism of "I Always Lie to Strangers," and the fatalistic caution of "Streets of Galilee." Mellencamp can still rock when he feels like it, though his attack is lean and sharp like a razor, aiming to cut rather than pummel. One of the major selling points of Strictly a One-Eyed Jack is the appearance of Bruce Springsteen on three songs, and while Springsteen is two years older, the grand irony is he brings a more youthful energy to his tracks with his incisive guitar work and vocals that show the passage of time while befitting the mind of a man determined to make the most of every day he has left. The rueful "Wasted Days," the album's first single, feels like a look at one of the characters from The Lonesome Jubilee 35 years down the road, and Mellencamp and Springsteen make the most of its sadness and introspection. However, the real winner is "Did You Say Such a Thing," where Springsteen's wiry guitar and sly backing vocals goad Mellencamp into a cockiness that bridges the gap between the Enlightened Grouch and the Artist Formerly Known as Johnny Cougar. More than most musicians of his commercial stature, John Mellencamp embodies the stubborn independence of an artist who unquestioningly follows his heart and his muse, and Strictly a One-Eyed Jack is the work of a man accepting the passage of time rather than fighting against it. As a songwriter and a performer, it's a gambit that works in his favor.

Review (Written In Music) : Respectvol oud worden in de muziek is niet voor iedereen weggelegd. Soms ligt daar muzikale bloedarmoede aan ten grondslag of het idee dat de muziek die je populair maakte in je jonge jaren nog altijd datgene is wat het publiek wil horen, maar de passie die je ooit bezat ontbreekt. De songwriters die durven veranderen, hun leeftijd bewust zijn, zijn degenen die nog steeds indruk kunnen maken. Of zelfs des te meer. John Mellencamp ontwikkelde zich al vroeg in zijn muzikale carrière van een muzikant en songschrijver die met aanstekelijke rocksongs de wereld veroverde naar intieme songsmid. De overgang die hij halverwege de jaren 80 bewerkstelligde vanuit albums Uh-huh (1983) en Scarecrow (1985) naar The Lonesome Jubilee (1987) en Big Daddy (1989) bleek de omslag naar meer introspectief werk. De stevig rockende Mellencamp was dan op het verrukkelijk rockende Whenever We Want It (1991) nog optimaal te horen, na zijn (lichte) hartaanval in 1994 en een verandering van levensstijl (Mellencamp rookte rond de 80 sigaretten per dag) werd het werk intiemer. En de veelgeprezen albums volgden elkaar. Albums met songs in sobere sferen met retrospectieve gedachten waarvan een aantal met de hulp van de vermaarde producer/muzikant T-Bone Burnett boven alles en iedereen uitstegen. Hij nam vijf jaar de tijd om zijn 25ste album te maken. Een album dat uiteindelijk voor de helft voor de pandemie en voor de helft tijdens de pandemie tot stand kwam. Een album dat een ouder wordende songwriter laat horen die op zijn leven terugblikt in machtige teksten over sobere tegelijk prachtige melodieën opgezet. In samenwerking met leeftijdgenoot en decennialange vriend Bruce Springsteen (in Amerika was Springsteen altijd de rocker met verhalen over de mensen die in de stad hun weg proberen te vinden en Mellencamp was dat juist van de dorpen en het platteland) werd einde vorig jaar de eerste track van het nieuwe album gelanceerd. Wasted Days is een ontroerend mooie 'in retrospectief' song. 'How can a man watch his life go down the drain? / How many moments has he lost today? And who among us could ever see clear? / The end is coming, it's almost here'. Die twee vrienden daar in de clip hun sterfelijkheid horen belichten in die machtige melodielijnen door Mellencamp uitgezet, is niet alleen tranentrekkend mooi maar tevens een absolute klassieker. Het mooie is dat Springsteen zijn 'oude' vriend (Mellencamp is 70, Springsteen 72) op nog eens twee songs terzijde staat op Strictly A One-Eyed Jack. De magische combinatie komt ook op Did You Say Such A Thing geweldig over. De 25ste van Mellencamp laat in volle glorie horen waarom hij één van de meest belangwekkende songschrijvers van de afgelopen vijf decennia is. In Europa helaas nooit echt op waarde geschat, daar kwam hij gewoonweg te weinig voor over de oceaan vliegen en had hij niet die grote hits die bijvoorbeeld vriend Springsteen wel had, staat zijn oeuvre als een machtig huis dat even tijdloos als indrukwekkend is. Strictly A One-Eyed Jack brengt alles weer eens samen wat Mellencamp zo overweldigend goed maakt. Het sobere I Always Lie To Strangers, Drving In The Rain en het stuwende I Am A Man That Worries. Hard rocken doet hij niet meer maar vanuit de akoestische basis rockt deze track net zo lekker, is gelijk een fascinerend sterk openingstrio aan songs. En die stem van hem is er door al dat roken over de jaren alleen maar intenser op geworden. Omringd door een fantastische groep muzikanten, met onder meer de geweldige gitarist Andy York, prominente toetsenman Troye Kinnett en die van Mellencamp onmiskenbare viola (deze keer gespeeld door Merritt Lear en Miriam Sturm), ontspint zich een wonderlijk mooi album. Streets of Galilee en het lekker rockende Sweet Honey Brown zijn ook alweer van die prachtige prachtige Mellencamp tracks die op het openingstrio volgen. Het daarop volgende Did You Say Such A Thing is zo'n onvergetelijke catchy medium rocker zoals alleen Mellencamp ze kan schrijven. De samenzang met Springsteen is fantastisch en als Mellencamp op het einde van de song even aanzet al helemaal. Het door piano gedragen Gone So Soon is vervolgens een even ontroerende als verrassende (want met piano frontaal) Mellencamp ballade met een prachtige trompetsolo als fraai extra. Als Wasted Days daarna binnenvalt wordt je je gelijk weer duidelijk wat voor legendarische status deze song zal krijgen. Twee ouder wordende mannen die nog net zulke gepassioneerde muziek maken als die waar ze ooit bekend mee werden. De titeltrack ('I come across alone and silent / I come across dirty and mean'), het gloedvolle Chasing Rainbows en Lie To Me zijn vervolgens al net zulke ijzersterke songs vol passie, overtuigingskracht en verbeelding. Albumafsluiter A Life Full of Rain is één van de prijsstukken van de plaat en één van de allermooiste die hij ooit maakte. Met een tekst die, zoals zovele op dit album, diep raakt. Een songschrijver die weet dat zijn leven eindig is (hij heeft interviews gezegd dat hij nog 10 zomers denkt te hebben, zomers waarin hij dus nooit zal gaan toeren om ze optimaal te kunnen beleven) en deze in zulke prachtige muziek weet te vatten is een absolute grootheid.

Review (Bluestown Music) : Nee, uitdrukkingen zoals "op je lauweren rusten" of "achter de geraniums plaats nemen" gaan voor de Amerikaanse singer-songwriter John Mellencamp, hoewel hij toch al 71 is, niet op. Dit nieuwe album is zijn 25e wapenfeit en telt een dozijn zelf gepende liedjes die opvallend ingetogen uit de boxen komen. De rustige folky liedjes hebben de overhand met als uitschieters Driving In The Rain, Streets Of Galilee, Simply A One-Eyed Jack en de mooie afsluiter A Life Full Of Rain, waarop zijn maat Bruce Springsteen acte de présence geeft. Gelukkig vergeet hij niet om enkele liedjes op standje rock te zetten zoals het heerlijke Sweet Honey Brown, Wasted Days, Did You Say Such A Thing, nog twee songs waarop vocale assistentie wordt verleend door Bruce Springsteen) en Lie To Me. En zo levert Mellencamp vier decennia na imposante platen als 'American Fool' (1982, met daarop een van de beste rocksongs ooit, Jack And Diane), 'Scarecrow' (1985) en 'The Lonesome Jubilee' (1987), wederom een waardevolle aanvulling van zijn toch al glanzende oeuvre af. Vraag is wel hoe lang zijn stem het nog zal houden, want die heeft het nodige geleden.

Review (Pop Matters) : Quarantine suits John Mellencamp fine. He likes being alone-painting, writing somber music, brooding-and the solitary life complements the dusty folk-music fields Mellencamp has been plowing for the last couple of decades. He never wanted to be a pop singer, never wanted to hang out after the show. And as Mellencamp has gotten older, and the rollicking heartland anthems of his 1980s hit-making heyday have been consigned to oldies stations, Mellencamp has dropped the rock persona entirely and stripped his songs down to scratchier, scorched-earth, largely-acoustic music rooted in rustic folk and blues idioms. Ain't that Americana? Producer T Bone Burnett helped Mellencamp roll things back to a leaner, sparer style on 2008's Life Death Love and Freedom and even further into rough-hewn folkiness on 2010's No Better Than This and 2014's Plain Spoken. Time and a four-packs-a-day habit helped Mellencamp's lived-in rasp get even raspier as the songwriter meditated on mortality, regrets, and the conflicts that we carry within us to the end. Then again, his songs were always filled with a certain bleakness. His biggest hits-from "Jack & Diane" to "Pink Houses" to "Check It Out"-are freighted with life's disappointments, albeit masked by what sounds like fist-pumping musical bravado. The juxtapositions between Mellencamp's musical swagger and his downcast lyrics fooled everybody. To this day, packed crowds at football games joyfully sing along to "Oh, yeah, life goes on / Long after the thrill of living is gone." But an undercurrent of existential fear has always been part of the Mellencamp milieu. He was barely in his 30s when he was writing about someday being buried in his "Small Town". In "Authority Song", he sang, "Growin' up leads to growin' old and then to dyin' / And dyin' to me don't sound like all that much fun." Hell, a 20-year-old kid, performing as John Cougar was already offering the advice to hold on to 16 as long as you can. But now, at 70, Mellencamp puts the lyrical melancholy front and center and wraps it in a sad musical shroud to match. For Strictly a One-Eyed Jack, Burnett is gone, in favor of Mellencamp's production and the backing of longtime members of his touring band. The result is his most homegrown album ever, a dozen new originals that make up a song cycle about taking stock of one's life as the end draws near, all narrated by the One-Eyed Jack, a stand-in character for Mellencamp. (The cover art depicting an eye-patched Mellencamp was painted by Mellencamp's son, Speck.) The arrangements are lean, at times desolate, and Mellencamp delivers the songs in a wasted croak that will draw comparisons to Tom Waits and Bob Dylan. Likewise, there are musical echoes of the Waits-style weary-carny or dead-of-night barfly archetypes and the pre-rock explorations favored by 2000s Dylan. Throughout, Mellencamp emphasizes his growl and widens his vibrato. Time waits for no man but Tom Waits for Mellencamp. So now that Mellencamp finds himself rounding life's final turns-he recently told an interviewer that he figures he has about "ten summers left"-the emotional weight of the accumulation of years and the inventorying of a lifetime of relationships have Mellencamp in the mood to ruminate about loss and little else. In the loping, accordion-abetted "Driving in the Rain", the narrator compares the grace of youth to the harsher realities of later life: "When I was young.I saw people smiling / Happiness was guaranteed / But now there's so many crying / And that's all my eyes can see." The narrator of the album-closing "A Life Full of Rain" observes that "there's a blue-eyed world that said it once loved you / But that was in your youth / Long, long ago" but now realizes that "it's all been a trick / A little sleight of hand." For decades, Mellencamp has been writing about fighting for dreams amid dark realities. Strictly a One-Eyed Jack is the sound of shadows overtaking the twilight and rendering one's old dreams no longer visible. In these songs, the narrator does not think much of himself but knows he is not alone in his shortcomings. In "I Always Lie to Strangers", the narrator beats himself up across minor chords and a drowsy fiddle, but points out that "this world is run by more crooked men than me". After all these years, Mellencamp is more convinced than ever that some people ain't no damn good. People who tell lies make for a prominent motif on the record. While he admits to always lying to strangers, Mellencamp is quick to point out that people who talk shit about him can't be trusted in "Did You Say Such a Thing". In the life-as-poker allegory of "Simply a One-Eyed Jack", players "are telling stories / That are impossible to believe." Toward the album's end, on "Lie to Me", he appears to have resigned to accept the inevitable of our worst instincts: "You can lie to me / Lord knows we're used to it." Mellencamp even sounds pessimistic about his continued vitality as a musician. He has become the singer of the sad, sad song in "Lonely Ol' Night" who is singing about standing in the shadows of love. But now that song is "Sweet Honey Brown" on which he declares, "The show is over / And the monkey is dead / Turn that music down / Put that cold rag on my head." And the saving power of love in his old songs-everyone needs a hand to hold on to-has given way to the hopeless heartbreak of the piano ballad "Gone So Soon". He once sang that "sometimes love don't feel like it should". For Mellencamp these days, the sometimes in that line sounds like naive idealism. But for all of the lyrical bummers on the album, Mellencamp remains a writer of sturdy melodies. Each song contains instrumental embroidery that gives the record a subtle but artistic sonic beauty: the vocal background sighs that punctuate "Driving in the Rain", the mournful trumpet solo in "Gone So Soon", Miriam Sturm's harmonizing twin fiddles on "Chasing Rainbows", the chain-gang rattles and shouts in the John Lee Hooker-esque "I Am a Man That Worries". And, yes, Bruce Springsteen shows up, another septuagenarian rock legend who knows a little something about the darkness on the edge of town. Springsteen contributes to "Did You Say Such a Thing", which doesn't say much of anything. But it evokes the most classic-Coug sound on the album and proves that Mellencamp's upper register is still powerful and relatively clear when he wants it to be. Springsteen harmonizes on the chorus and executes one of his trademark guitar-strangulation solos, and on "Wasted Days", Bruce gets his own verse, jumping in long enough to sing, "The end is coming / It's almost here." Like Mellencamp, it's a theme Springsteen has been mining since he was a kid; he wrote, "you're thinking that maybe we ain't that young anymore" when he was 24. In the end, Strictly a One-Eyed Jack is an album of cohesively designed and beautifully articulated performances and arrangements from an artist whose tough swagger always belied a pained vulnerability. Moreover, despite being a songwriter who has decided that his crazy dreams just came and went, Mellencamp pours himself into his music with an undiminished passion. The album is a pleasure to listen to-even if for Mellencamp what used to hurt so good now just hurts.