Songoftheday 7/15/12 - two American kids growin' up in the heartland...

John Cougar (Mellencamp) - "Jack And Diane"

from the album American Fool (1982)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (four weeks)

Weeks in the top-40: 17

Today's song of the day is the first and only #1 hit so far for Indiana's native son John (Cougar) Mellencamp. Mellencamp, born in the farmtown of Seymour, got his big break in 1978, when his second album under the Cougar moniker in England and Australia, A Biography, gave him a top-5 single down under with "I Need A Lover". A year later, the song reached the top-40 in America (on his stateside self-titled debut). His next record, Nothin' Matters and What If It Did, reached the top-40 LP chart in the US and spawned a top-20 hit, the Rod Stewart-ish "Ain't Even Done With The Night".

But that was nothing compares to the reception he got on his 1982 American Fool album. The first single, "Hurts So Good", was a #2 hit, and the followup, "Jack And Diane" made an even faster trek to #1...

"Jack And Diane" also made it to #3 on the rock radio chart (curiously, lower than the peak of "Hurt So Good"), and #25 in the UK, which is good considering that market was so entrenched in new-wave and electronic music at that point.

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In the late 80's rap duo Eric B & Rakim incorporated the guitar riff from the song on the Derek B "Urban Respray" remix of "Paid In Full"...

Another rap group, the New Style, cribbed the riff more blatantly in 1989 on "Bring The Rock"..

...and Jermaine Dupri put the riff in a more ominous scratch on AZ's "Rock Me" in 1998...

But the most famous of the samplers is Jessica Simpson, who made the top-40 with the hard-to-resist "I Think I'm In Love With You" in 2000...

Up tomorrow: a punk rocker feels the urban heatwave....