Friday, June 27, 2003
And inside a jukebox roars, just like the night.
I’ve been a fan of John Mellencamp for a long time. Being from his home state of Indiana, it’s hard not to, especially as his maturation into a superb songwriter and performer coincided with my mine into adulthood. “Hurt So Good” was fairly juvenile, like I was at 11; “Lonely Ol’ Night” yearned the way I did at 15; “Love and Happiness” mirrored my thoughts at 20. John’s never expressed sheer joie de vivre like he did on his last top ten single, however, 1994’s cover of Van Morrison’s “Wild Night,” which he performed with Me’Shell Ndegéocello. The musical marriage of the heartland rocker with the black, urban lesbian funk queen turned out far better than anyone could have imagined. The song commences with a whip-crack snare tattoo, and Ndegéocello’s bass taking on one of Van’s most famous riffs and imbuing it with a playful kind of gravitas, as if to say, “this ain’t yo’ Daddy’s Mellencamp - or Van, for that matter.” And it rolls on from there, John and Me’Shell’s voices hooting and hollering their way through the “Night” with unbridled joy, and even more than that – and oh-so-refreshingly – a sense of fun.
I’ve been a fan of John Mellencamp for a long time. Being from his home state of Indiana, it’s hard not to, especially as his maturation into a superb songwriter and performer coincided with my mine into adulthood. “Hurt So Good” was fairly juvenile, like I was at 11; “Lonely Ol’ Night” yearned the way I did at 15; “Love and Happiness” mirrored my thoughts at 20. John’s never expressed sheer joie de vivre like he did on his last top ten single, however, 1994’s cover of Van Morrison’s “Wild Night,” which he performed with Me’Shell Ndegéocello. The musical marriage of the heartland rocker with the black, urban lesbian funk queen turned out far better than anyone could have imagined. The song commences with a whip-crack snare tattoo, and Ndegéocello’s bass taking on one of Van’s most famous riffs and imbuing it with a playful kind of gravitas, as if to say, “this ain’t yo’ Daddy’s Mellencamp - or Van, for that matter.” And it rolls on from there, John and Me’Shell’s voices hooting and hollering their way through the “Night” with unbridled joy, and even more than that – and oh-so-refreshingly – a sense of fun.
# posted by Thomas : 2:13 PM
