It was a very hateable name.

my opinion of Springsteen’s music, I’ll admit, is based on that “Born to Run” period when you pretty much couldn’t avoid hearing him every time you left the house. Seemed to me at the time, and still does, that the wall-of-sound approach had already been done, his singing was monstrously over-emoted, and the lyrics, what I could make out of them, just didn’t say anything to me. New Jersey accents bother me too, not as much as New York but they’re still bad enough.

Mellencamp is pretty good though, if you catch his act at Deer Creek in July.

Nothing like hearing Little Pink Houses in an open air theater amidst an Indian cornfield

The record company forced his hand; he hated the faux name.

I’ve never been able to get beyond Mellencamp originally using the name “Johnny Cougar.” Sorry. I hold grudges against lameness.