Coke Talk*

Longest Days - John Mellencamp

So I’ve been loving this song for a few days now, and I thought I’d share it. I heard Mellencamp sing it the other weekend, and it got me. I’m kind of a sucker for ballads that manage to turn a rear view mirror on life without being drippingly sentimental.

Besides, this shit was so good live. Seriously, it was gorgeous. That’s no surprise, really. A man doesn’t make twenty-five albums without having something worth saying about the human condition, and Radio City Music Hall was the perfect room to hear a legend like John Mellencamp hurl out every last ounce of his soul.

In all my trips to New York, I’d never been to Radio City. Lemme tell ya, that joint was a candy store for an architecture whore like me. Art Deco was dripping out of every nook and cranny. My friends think I’m crazy, but I still haven’t stopped talking about the original foot pedal hand dryers in the woman’s lounge.

It was a New York crowd, a lot of industry types and hipsters pretending to be there ironically. There were only a few hardcore fans scattered throughout the hall, and to their credit, they were the ones doing their level best to swill beer like it was a fairground in Bloomington.

There wasn’t an opening act. Instead, they screened “It’s About You,” a documentary about John shot entirely on Super 8 film that set the gritty, foot-tapping tone for the music we were about to hear.

The band was a well-greased machine. Bacon grease, with a side of hot damn. You could tell they’ve been jamming together for decades, and it was hard not to be impressed by the general badassery of Miriam Sturm, the fiddle playing Tinkerbell who zigged and zagged around the stage rocking the fuck out.

Naturally, Mellencamp owned the room. Dude sang with perfect pitch, and even though his voice sounded like he gargles with charcoal briquettes, it all still came out sounding like honey.

Some things are just timeless, ya know?