John Cougar Mellencamp Speaks Out (on politics, racism, the music industry)
…They had a long laundry list of problems. Their complaint was, “You have this beautiful chorus [‘Come on baby take a ride with me/ I’m up from Indiana down to Tennessee’], why do you have to fill the song with these things that will agitate people?” Well, that’s what the song is.
Did they come around in the end?
No. That’s why I left Columbia Records.
Because you didn’t feel you could work with people who felt that way?
Because I always thought it wasn’t the record company’s job to like the song. I thought it was their job to sell them. And I just didn’t see the point of me arguing with people about the material.