A Leap Of Faith: "Jackie Brown" by John Mellencamp (Song 4/366 - August 25, 2015)

The darkened stage is filled with instruments sitting in the shadows as the sold-out crowd of 3,600 sat in silence while a single spotlight shines on John Mellencamp and his violinist Miriam Strum as they perform his 1989 single “Jackie Brown”. I’ve heard “Jackie Brown” hundreds of times over the last 20-years, but inside the Chicago Theatre on a chilly November night in late 2010, John Mellencamp wrangled with it in a downright evocative and compelling manner. Years of seeing it amidst sledgehammer singles in larger venues, made me look the other way. Mellencamp’s reedy voice provided the crowd with visceral images that were difficult to shake. It was as if I was hearing it for the first time. His tales of a poor man who can’t catch a break is more effective and real than any pie chart of excel spreadsheet. 

You can see the holes in the clothes of Jackie Brown; see the defeat in his eyes and the depth of despair on his face all through the gripping vocal delivery. The job of an artist is to teach and through their art, they hope to educate people on something they may not fully grasp. Just like Travis Bickle (Taxi Driver) become the post child for alienation three-decades back, Jackie Brown is the poster child for a failed government. As we sit around and let the world manipulate us through a series of political talk shows where talking heads spew forth venom, it’s up to the listener to discern the truth. No one knew it at the time, but John Melllencamp’s foresight into the state of America two-decades back was scarily spot-on. Never given the credit he has deserved, Mellencamp has made a career of piercing into the American psyche much like filmmaker Martin Scorsese. Both men obsess about characters that reek authenticity. Scorsese comes from the streets of New York and Mellencamp from the pastures of the Midwest and even though they grew up a thousand miles apart, these two men have helped capture the essence of what it means to be an American. Scorsese has inner insight into backstreet deals where gangsters rule the streets, but Mellencamp has a way of breathing life into the unpretentious characters of our nation whose dreams have been decimated by government thugs. John Mellencamp’s catalog is full of American fools, dreamers, saints, sinners and above all else survivors.