Poor John Mellencamp; he was dissed by Lileks not that long ago
for heartland-bashing, and now he gets used as a stand-in for
heartland patriotism. He doesn't really make a very good
representative of Heartlandism:
There's a black man with a black cat livin' in a black neighborhood
/ He's got an interstate runnin' through his front yard / You know
he thinks that he's got it so good / And there's a woman in the
kitchen cleanin' up the evenin' slop / And he looks at her and
says, "Hey darlin', I can remember when you could stop a
clock."
There's a young man in a t-shirt / Listenin' to a rockin'
rollin' station / He's got greasy hair, greasy smile / He says,
"Lord this must be my destination." / 'Cause they told me when I
was younger / "Boy you're gonna be president." / But just like
everything else those old crazy dreams / Just kinda came and
went
Well there's people and more people /What do they know know know
/ Go to work in some high rise / And vacation down at the Gulf of
Mexico / And ther's winners and there's losers / But they ain't no
big deal / 'Cause the simple man baby pays for the thrills, the
bills, the pills that kill
There's more irony in that "Ain't that America for you and me" than
gets noticed, I think.
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