Mellencamp's "Rodeo Clown" [View All]

[Jack Bone]

I listened to John's most recent CD last night and I caught the hidden track "Rodeo Clown" at the end....I was blown-away by this great song...I tried to find the lyrics someplace online to no avail..but I did find this nice article...It concludes what I thought, that it's about bush...

Mellencamp All Fired Up
Los Angeles
January 24, 2007

In rock singer John Mellencamp's latest musical epistle from the heartland, Americans are vengeful, unforgiving, ignorant of other cultures and led by a president he describes as a "rodeo clown."

Yet it's an unusually mild outburst from the self-styled "outsider," whose state-of-the-nation observations are contained in his first album in three years, Freedom's Road.

Mellencamp, 55, has sung often about the flawed American dream throughout a career spanning 30 years, 19 albums and 10 Top 10 singles.

Famous for his short temper, the chain-smoking Indiana firebrand has also pilloried politicians, label executives and any other hapless souls who crossed him.

In a recent interview from the lakeside home in Bloomington, Indiana, that he shares with his 37-year-old wife and their two boys, an eerily calm Mellencamp recalled that his 1983 hit Pink Houses was "the biggest slam on America that you could ever write." But people never dug deeper than the catchy chorus line, "Ain't that America, home of the free," and interpreted the song as a patriotic ditty.

There's no misinterpreting Rodeo Clown, which appears as a hidden track, a few minutes after the main selection has ended.

President George Bush is the title character with "bloody red eyes," while the United States is an "arrogant nation" with "blood on her face" after the September 11 attacks.

While he considers himself "a very liberal person," he's also skeptical about politicians in general. "When you take their pants down they all have the same underwear on," he says.

He describes his album as more social than political, and says his songs offer a positive experience, as long as fans listen between the lines.<snip>

http://www.theage.com.au/news/music/mellencamp-all-fired-up/2007/01/23/1169518702722.html