Dan Quayle won't listen to John Mellencamp bash Bush

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

The former vice president, miffed about a comment made by Mellencamp about Pres. Bush's administration, walked out of the singer's July 14 show at Harvey's Lake Tahoe Casino in Lake Tahoe, Calif.

Mellencamp, unaware that Quayle was in the audience, introduced the song Walk Tall by saying, "This next one is for all the poor people who've been ignored by the current administration."

Click here for the rest.

Weird. Did Quayle wander into the wrong casino or something? What was he expecting? My estimate is that something like a third of all John Cougar's radio hits are laced with images and themes of a meaningless and desolate America, with its working class left behind by the winner-take-all economic policies of the Reagan era. That is, to anybody who has been listening for the last quarter century or so, Mr. Mellencamp is obviously no friend of the Conservative Movement. Hasn't Quayle ever heard "The Authority Song" or "Pink Houses" or "Jack and Diane?" I bet he doesn't listen to the lyrics, figuring JCM as some sort of greasier Elvis for the new millenium. But then, this is the guy who got all pissed about fictional TV character Murphy Brown having a child out of wedlock, the guy who spelled "potato" incorrectly on a chalkboard when speaking to some elementary school students. Yeah, he's still an idiot.

Here are the lyrics to one of my favorites:

Pink Houses

There's a black man with a black cat
Living in a black neighborhood
He's got an interstate runnin' through his front yard
You know, he thinks that he's got it so good
And theres a woman in the kitchen cleanin' up the evening slop
And he looks at her and says:
hey darling, I can remember when you could stop a clock

Oh but ain't that america for you and me
Ain't that america we're something to see baby
Ain't that america, home of the free
Little pink houses for you and me

Well there's a young man in a t-shirt
Listening to a rockin' rollin' station
He's got a greasy hair, greasy smile
He says: lord, this must be my destination
cuz they told me, when I was younger
Boy, you're gonna be president
But just like everyting else, those old crazy dreams
Just kinda came and went

Oh but ain't that america for you and me
Ain't that america we're something to see baby
Ain't that america, home of the free
Little pink houses for you and me

Well there's people and more people
What do they know know know
Go to work in some high rise
And vacation down at the gulf of mexico
Ohhh yeah
And there's winners, and there's losers
But they ain't no big deal
cuz the simple man baby pays for the thrills,
The bills and the pills that kill

Oh but ain't that america for you and me
Ain't that america we're something to see baby
Ain't that america, home of the free
Little pink houses for you and me

Check out the video here via YouTube.



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