Tonight’s features artist was spurred on to write one of his biggest hits after getting the impression from some that if you don’t want to live in New York you’re a hick.

 

So who will leave New York to New Yorkers?  John Mellencamp, who after having a number of conversations with folks from New York who seemed to think he - and everyone else from the middle of the country - was an uneducated bumpkins wrote his hit ‘small town’. "I wanted to write a song that said, 'you don't have to live in New York or Los Angeles to live a full life,'" he told Rolling Stone in 2013. "I was never one of those guys that grew up and thought, 'I need to get out of here.' It never dawned on me. I just valued having a family and staying close to friends."

Here he is in an acoustic version from Farm Aid in 2008

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John Mellencamp will release one of the most distinguished records of his career, Plain Spoken, on Tuesday, September 23, 2014, followed by an 80 city North American Tour starting in January. This is his 22nd full-length album and first release for Republic Records.

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