LISTENING PARTY: Dance Naked

John Mellencamp can't get no respect. He's seriously like the Rodney Dangerfield of rock and roll. Part of it his own fault: a lot of his stuff is pretty terrible. And nobody will ever forget his decision to spend much of the 80s wearing either a vest with no shirt or his grandmother's eyeglasses. And yes, who the hell wants to live in a pink houses? But he's released a number of really pretty excellent albums that are considered, thoughtful and soulful (Big Daddy, Human Wheels, Mr. Happy Go Lucky).

I'm not going to talk about any of those albums today. I'm going to talk about Dance Naked.

"Dance Naked"- I don't think rock lyric writing gets more zen then the opening couplet of this song. "I want you to dance naked/so I can see you." It's really a simple request, really. I know that it sounds pretty misogynistic, or sexist, or really just kind of creepy, but John does tell you near the end that you can dance naked "but only if you want to." There are a great many pick-up lines that I have heard that I cannot imagine ever working, but having a rock singer from Indiana who not only has cauliflower ears but a cauliflower face say to you "I want you to dance naked, but only if you want to"? I can actually see that working.

"Brothers"-I've never had a brother, and I don't think I would like to have one. John Mellencamp's tale of two brothers who wreck each other cars, get each other beat up, and don't approve of anything the other one does, well, it isn't doing too much to make me rethink my position. Especially, because with my luck, my brother would become a high-selling but critical ignored or underestimated singer-songwriter who would write songs about how much he can't stand me. Luckily I have sisters who are far more attractive and successful than me, with doctorates in biomedical engineering. I dodged a bullet there.

"When Margaret Comes to Town"- I love songs with girls' names in them. Especially when the name in the title is part of a statement, or a question, or just a dependent clause. "When Margaret Comes to Town." "Meet Virginia." "Amy Hit the Atmosphere." "Debbie Does Dallas." I can't remember who that last one is by. This song has a pretty cool little breakdown section right before the guitar solo. T

This album's history, from what I can remember from an issue of Entertainment Weekly I read 15 years ago, was that after the commercially disappointing "Human Wheels" album, Mellencamp decided to record an album really quickly (like two weeks-quickly, although that seems like a long time to me) and a side effect of this is that only three of the songs have a bass guitar on them! So it's two guitars and drums and that's it. Where was his bass player? On vacation? How badly did John Mellencamp want this album done? Bass player: 'I'll be fishing until the 12th, but I'm available after that.' Mellencamp: 'Screw you. I'm getting this album done in 3 hours or I'm not doing it.'

"Wild Night"-This is the one you know, the cover of the Van Morrison song that you probably don't know. It's also the first one to feature a bass guitar, played by the then unknown Me'Shell Ndegeocello, who sings duet. This is the only song that songs really fleshed out and produced, which might have something to do with the fact that somebody else wrote it in 1971. That would be like dressing a 24-year old up as a baby and talking about how well behaved it is. Clearly cheating.

"L.U.V."- I started writing songs by myself the summer this album came out, and I used this song as the template for most of them. To whit: verses filled with nonsense rhymes semi-rapped like Dylan in Subterranean Homesick Blues, with a rather catchy chorus. There's a great moment, however, right after the solo section where Mellencamp sings a capella "Wait a minute, let me check my tan/ Am I the same color as Superman?" My guess is probably, since Superman grew up in Kansas, which is right near Indiana. You guys were practically neighbors. Also, because of his Kryptonian ability to absorb the yellow sun, I'm going to guess he can't tan.

"Another Sunny Day"- This is the ballad on the record. I think it's about the environment. Actually, the more I listen to it, it seems like John's complaining about people complaining about the state of the environment. I always thought he was a bit more progressive, because, frankly Mr. Cougar Mellencamp, even back in 1994 the planet was going to hell. I wonder if he still sings this song after watching "An Inconvenient Truth"? Probably not, as it's kind of sucky no matter what the lyrics say. Listen, Mr. Mellencamp, I know that you're going to die soon, but I'm hopefully not going to, so I might have to worry about where I live being underwater when I'm older. I'm sorry if that's bumming you out. But it wasn't like "Rain on the Scarecrow" was exactly a real upbeat number.

"Too Much to Think About"- We're back to rocking out, without the bass again, and I think this is the album that made me really appreciate what a good bass player could bring to a song. Or even a really terrible bass player. Namely: bass.

This title of this song may refer to any number of different things. One thing it certainly does not refer to? This album.

"The Big Jack"- I've been ragging on this album and it certainly deserves a lot of it, but frankly, I own it and know it well because when I was 15, I kind of liked it. Hell, I still kind of like it, in the same way that I like Count Chocula--I like it but at least now I'm aware that it's not any good. And I like it anyway. One thing that makes the album really likable? It is about 30 minutes long. I think kids today would feel ripped off, especially since CDs can hold more than twice that, but for me, there's something comforting about putting this CD on and knowing that it will be over faster than an episode of "Herman's Head."

"The Break-Out"- This album is what used to be called an EP, which was like a single but longer. EP stood for Extended Play, and full-length albums used by called long players, as though long and extended were different measurements on the same scale. Like there's hot and cold? This is like hot and warmer. Warmer than what? Hot? Cold? Isn't extended relative to what it's been extended from?

In case you haven't figured it out, "The Break-Out" has nothing discernible interesting going on in it. It's a pretty standard plate rock song, the kind you'd throw on the end of the EP you were recording in two weeks while your bass player is on vacation as a stop-gap measure between two excellent critically acclaimed but commercially disappointing albums. This disc probably sold more than all of his really great albums combined, which is too bad, because if this were my first exposure to John Mellencamp, I'd spend the whole album messing with the EQ on my stereo trying to figure out why every song was so trebly and then Me'Shell Ndegeocello would start playing the bass line to "Wild Night" and blow out my speakers and I'd throw this album in the trash.