Cuttin' Heads

Background

"'Peaceful World' was extracted from a conversation with Pat Peterson, who's been singing backup in my touring band since 1981," Mellencamp explained to the Denver Post in an August 2001 feature. "She's my age, and I asked her, 'What's the one thing that's really disturbing to you?' There was no question about it - it's how this new rap music is really harmful to the black race.

"You have the new Uncle Tom, the guy wagging the $200,000 watch and saying, ... 'Gimme the money, man, look what I got that you ain't got ... I'll say whatever you want me to say, and when this (ends), I'll just go back to whatever I'm doing, and I don't care about the damage that I've done.' Meanwhile, white kids in suburbs who buy these records find it entertaining if not comical half the time. They have a really distorted view of what the black race is about. It's a very bad thing."

Chuck D of the rap group Public Enemy sang a verse on the album's title track, which addresses Mellencamp's annoyance and chagrin at the use of the "N" word in rap music. "They just had a rap seminar in New York, and Chuck got up and said, 'Hey, look, I just came back from the cornfields of Indiana, and Mellencamp said something in a song that you guys should have been saying about yourselves 10 years ago!,'" Mellencamp told the Denver Post in the aforementioned August 2001 article. "I'm just an observer here - I thought coming from me alone, it would be obtuse. But Chuck is the conscience of the whole black community. He was the only choice to do this song with me, because he's the only guy that never participated in it, always kept his integrity and his wits about him.

"Columbia Records died when they heard it. They don't want any problems because of this song. But they were very understanding - they just said, 'Why do you want to do this?' I said, 'Hey, man, I'm a ... folk singer. If I'm not going to have some issues here, that makes me a puppet.'"

Cuttin' Heads is also noteworthy for "Deep Blue Heart," a love song that Mellencamp recorded as a duet with country star Trisha Yearwood. "He played me this song," Yearwood told Country.com, "and he said, 'I kind of have an idea of like when Emmylou Harris sang on Bob Dylan's record, just kind of harmony all the way through.'"

Track listing

All songs written by John Mellencamp, except where noted.

1. "Cuttin' Heads" (Mellencamp/Ridenhour/Jason) – 5:03
2. "Peaceful World" – 4:05
3. "Deep Blue Heart" – 3:29
4. "Crazy Island" – 3:47
5. "Just Like You" – 4:04
6. "The Same Way I Do" – 3:20
7. "Women Seem" – 5:14
8. "Worn Out Nervous Condition" – 3:32
9. "Shy" – 3:25
10. "In Our Lives" – 4:03

Best Buy Bonus Disc

Initial copies of the album sold at Best Buy contained a bonus CD with two live recordings taken from Mellencamp's Good Samaritan Tour in August 2000.

1. "In My Time of Dying" (Traditional) - 2:27
2. "Hey Gib" (Traditional) - 3:28

Personnel

Charts

Album - Billboard (America)

Singles - Billboard (America)