B-side "Can You Take It" Format 7" 45 RPM Length 4:16 | Released July 1982 Genre Heartland rock | |
Recorded 1982 at Criteria Studios, Miami, Florida | ||
"Jack & Diane" is a 1982 hit rock song written and performed by American singer-songwriter John Mellencamp, then performing as "John Cougar." It appears on Mellencamp's album American Fool. It was chosen by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) as one of the Songs of the Century. The single spent four weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1982, and, to date, is Mellencamp's most successful hit single.
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Background and production
According to Mellencamp, "Jack & Diane" was based on the 1962 Tennessee Williams film Sweet Bird of Youth. He said of recording the song: "'Jack & Diane' was a terrible record to make. When I play it on guitar by myself, it sounds great; but I could never get the band to play along with me. That's why the arrangement's so weird. Stopping and starting, it's not very musical." Mellencamp has also stated that the clapping wasn't supposed to be included in the finished song. It was recorded with the clapping in order to help keep tempo and then it was to be removed. However, he realized the song did not work without it.
The song was recorded at Criteria Studios in Miami, Florida, was produced by Mellencamp and Don Gehman (with Gehman also engineering), and backing Mellencamp were guitarists/backing vocalists Mick Ronson, Mike Wanchic, Larry Crane, drummer Kenny Aronoff, bassist/backing vocalist Robert Frank, and keyboardist Eric Rosser.
In 1982, producer and guitarist Mick Ronson worked with Mellencamp on his American Fool album, and in particular on "Jack & Diane." In a 2008 interview with Classic Rock magazine, Mellencamp recalled:
"Mick was very instrumental in helping me arrange that song, as I'd thrown it on the junk heap. Ronson came down and played on three or four tracks and worked on the American Fool record for four or five weeks. All of a sudden, for 'Jack & Diane,' Mick said 'Johnny, you should put baby rattles on there.' I thought, 'What the fuck does put baby rattles on the record mean?' So he put the percussion on there and then he sang the part 'let it rock, let it roll' as a choir-ish-type thing, which had never occurred to me. And that is the part everybody remembers on the song. It was Ronson's idea."
Derivatives
The opening guitar riff and drum beat of "Jack & Diane" were sampled as a hook on Jessica Simpson's single "I Think I'm In Love With You", released in the summer of 2000, as well as "Rock Me" by AZ and Jermaine Dupri, released in 1998.
The song is parodied in The Simpsons episode "Three Gays of the Condo", when "Weird Al" Yankovic serenades Homer with a new version about Homer and Marge to convince him to move back home. A new version about TV credits plays during the credits. At The Simpsons Take the Hollywood Bowl, he would perform a full version of the parody.
Mutant X #18 opens with a variation on the opening lyrics of "Jack & Diane": "This is a story about Jack Lang and Diane Davidson. Two American kids from very diverse backgrounds."
Jack and Diane are the two Great Khans responsible for the Red Rocks Drug Lab in Fallout: New Vegas. All illegal "chems" in the game are said to originate with these two characters, either directly or indirectly, as Khans are the primary drug runners.
MKTO's 2014 song "American Dream" claims Jack left Diane thirty years ago.
In the American ABC sitcom Black-ish, the protagonist's six-year-old twins are named Jack and Diane.
The fourth episode of the Netflix sitcom Lady Dynamite is called "Jack and Diane", as Maria Bamford assumes the fictional identity of one Diane to date a man named Jack Tripper. The episode concludes with a song named "People Pleaser" that parodies "Jack & Diane", edited in the style of the original video.