John Mellencamp's latest music video features locations in coastal Georgia
STORY BY LYNN HAMILTON
PHOTOS BY ALAN S. RUBIN
Rock and roll legend John Mellencamp started shooting his latest music video at Cockspur Lighthouse, off the coast of Savannah, Georgia this morning. The crew was good and muddy by the time they got to their next location: a monument in historic Fort Pulaski. From there, Mellencamp and his production crew, "Radical," moved to various other island locations including the beach at Tybee Island.
Mellencamp's new album, which currently bears the working title "Freedom's Road," is projected to hit the shelves of Barnes and Nobles sometime in January or February. A lead single on that album, "Our Country" subtly challenges Americans to be bigger than they are--to abolish poverty and racism.
The song also makes a veiled plea for tolerance on the evolution vs. creationism question with the lines: "Therešs room enough here/For science to live/And therešs room enough here/For religion to forgive."
"There's room enough for both," Mellencamp said in an exclusive interview with the Tybee News, conducted at Fort Pulaski. "I don't understand why you would want to block one theory. They go hand in hand." Mellencamp said when he was growing up that people were allowed to hear both views. And he thinks that's the way it should be now.
It's not the first time Mellencamp has taken a controversial position. The rock star is openly political in his music and his comments both on and off stage. Many of his songs offer a critique of suburban complacency and make a bid for peace.
Mellencamp's recent public criticism of the George W. Bush administration drew some media attention(mellencamp.com). His song "A Peaceful World" came out after the invasion of Iraq.
"I don't think any American should be afraid to speak his mind," said Mellencamp. "My voice is just a little louder because I have a guitar."
Mellencamp, perhaps best known for the hit, "Small Town," recently reconfirmed his dedication to small town life. He sold his property on Hilton Head which he said is getting "a little crowded." And he bought a house on Tybee's historic Officer's Row. Mellencamp says he loves Jaycee Park which his new home faces. And he enjoys motorcycling around the islands--except that a policeman recently stopped him for violation of the helmet law. Mellencamp has been motoring bare-headed around Indiana and South Carolina (where there are no helmet laws) with impunity and didn't know there was such a law in Georgia. He said he outran the police, but both his wife Elaine and his publicist Bob Merlis say he might be invoking poetic license.
Mellencamp wouldn't commit himself on how much time he plans to spend on Tybee. He still has a home and studio in Bloomington, Indiana. But the Indiana native notes that airplanes make it easy to be on Tybee when he pleases.
