John Cougar Mellencamp released The Lonesome Jubilee

The Lonesome Jubilee John Cougar Mellencamp

Released: August 24, 1987 Peak: 6 US, 31 UK, 18 CN, 2 AU, 14 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 3.5 US, -- UK, 4.24 world (includes US and UK) Genre: classic rock

Tracks: Click on a song title for more details. Paper in Fire [3:53] Down and Out in Paradise [3:39] Check It Out [4:20] The Real Life [3:56] Cherry Bomb [4:49] We Are the People [4:16] Empty Hands [3:44] Hard Times for an Honest Man [3:28] Hotdogs and Hamburgers [4:04] Rooty Toot Toot [3:29] Total Running Time: 39:38

Rating: 4.306 out of 5.00 (average of 21 ratings) Quotable: “Song for song, The Lonesome Jubilee is Mellencamp's strongest album.” – Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AllMusic.com Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album “John Mellencamp's fascination with the American heartland came into full flower on Scarecrow, but with its follow-up, The Lonesome Jubilee, he began exploring American folk music, adding fiddle, accordions, and acoustic guitars to his band, which allowed him to explore folk and country.” AM “The expansion of his band coincided with his continuing growth as a songwriter. Song for song, The Lonesome Jubilee is Mellencamp’s strongest album, the record where he captured his romantic, if decidedly melancholy, vision of working-class America.” AM Mellencamp said, “I want to create songs that include a lot of ordinary people, that raise their self-esteem.” TW It is my effort “to report on my boomer generation’s bruised optimism…In the past I’ve tried to sing about overlooked Americans. On the new album, I’m trying to speak for them.” TW “The lyrics are a mix of social comment and reflection, and nostalgic descriptions of younger life and the process of maturing.” WK This is ground he has tread before, but on Jubilee he does it “better than ever, and his music is richer, which gives the album resonance.” AM The songs’ “heavily atmospheric musical settings have an eerie vividness that makes them more than topical.” SS Notes: “Blues from the Front Porch” was added to a 2005 reissue as a bonus track. The Songs Here’s a breakdown of each of the individual songs.

Paper in Fire John Cougar Mellencamp

Writer(s): John Mellencamp Released: 8/15/1987 (single), The Lonesome Jubilee (1987), The Best That I Could Do (1997), Words & Music: Greatest Hits (2004) B-Side: “Never Too Old” First Charted 8/14/1987 Peak: 9 BB, 10 CB, 5 GR, 9 RR, 14 AR, 86 UK, 1 CN, 13 AU, 4 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 10.52 video, 27.04 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: “Paper in Fire” “is the sound of a soul in desperate flight, running either from or toward its destiny.” TW It “is a cautionary tale concerned with the cost of chasing our dreams” WK “against much resistance.” SS Mellencamp said the song was a tribute to his Uncle Joe, who died the year before. SS Mellencamp said his uncle “wasted 53 years…I don’t want that to be my story.” TW “During the mid-to-late 1980s John Mellencamp had one of the three or four greatest rock bands in the business, and it was operating at full throttle on ‘Paper in Fire.’ Razor-sharp guitars, powerful percussion, and – in keeping with his folk/heartland sensibilities during this period – fiddle, banjo, steel guitar, hammered dulcimer, autoharp, and mandolin, provided a unique sound.” SS “Lisa Germano’s fiddle is especially crucial, driving the band forward, helping to generate a tremendous momentum in the chorus.” SS Mellencamp said, “I knew that was a sound people hadn’t heard before – or at least not with the parts we had them playing.” SS

Down and Out in Paradise John Cougar Mellencamp

Writer(s): John Mellencamp Released: The Lonesome Jubilee (1987) Peak: 6 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.66 streaming About the Song: “Down and Out in Paradise chronicles a series of stories of economic and social hardship as if told to the President, who at the time was Ronald Reagan.” WK

Check It Out John Cougar Mellencamp

Writer(s): John Mellencamp Released: 2/6/1988 (single), 5/14/1988 (B-side of “Rooty Toot Toot”), The Lonesome Jubilee (1987), The Best That I Could Do (1997), Words & Music: Greatest Hits (2004) B-Side: “We Are the People” First Charted 2/6/1988 Peak: 14 BB, 22 CB, 13 GR, 3 AR, 96 UK, 10 CN, 22 AU, 9 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 11.96 video, 17.88 streaming About the Song: “Check It Out is a commentary on day to day existence that fosters the hope that future generations will understand better how to live.” WK

The Real Life John Cougar Mellencamp

Writer(s): John Mellencamp Released: The Lonesome Jubilee (1987) First Charted 9/12/1987 Peak: 3 AR, 8 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 1.07 streaming About the Song: The Real Life continues the these of concern about the way lives are lived, and includes two vignettes of the lives of ‘Suzanne’ and ‘Jackson Jackson.’” WK

Cherry Bomb John Cougar Mellencamp

Writer(s): John Mellencamp Released: 10/24/1987 (single), The Lonesome Jubilee (1987), The Best That I Could Do (1997), Words & Music: Greatest Hits (2004) B-Side: “Shama Lama Ding Dong” First Charted 9/5/1987 Peak: 8 BB, 18 CB, 7 GR, 13 RR, 12 AC, 11 AR, 5 CN, 20 AU, 9 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- US, -- UK, 0.08 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 26.0 video, 82.85 streaming About the Song: “Cherry Bomb is a nostalgic but fundamentally happy review of the narrator’s life – ‘we were young and we were improving.’” WK

We Are the People John Cougar Mellencamp

Writer(s): John Mellencamp Released: 2/6/1988 (B-side of “Check It Out”), The Lonesome Jubilee (1987) Peak: 7 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 1.40 streaming About the Song: We Are the People lists categories of people – the homeless, the oppressed, people in pain – against the refrain ‘May my thoughts be with you.’” WK

Empty Hands John Cougar Mellencamp

Writer(s): John Mellencamp, George Green Released: The Lonesome Jubilee (1987) Peak: 38 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.66 streaming About the Song: “Unemployment and its effect on the narrator and his wife Maryanne, is the subject of Empty Hands.” WK

Hard Times for an Honest Man John Cougar Mellencamp

Writer(s): John Mellencamp Released: The Lonesome Jubilee (1987) First Charted 9/5/1987 Peak: 10 AR, 11 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.64 streaming About the Song: “Hard Times for an Honest Man continues the existential theme, noting, against a backdrop of two more cautionary tales, that ‘the rent we pay to stay here gets high.’” WK

Hotdogs and Hamburgers John Cougar Mellencamp

Writer(s): John Mellencamp Released: The Lonesome Jubilee (1987) Peak: 38 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 1.09 streaming About the Song: “Hotdogs and Hamburgers addresses the question of right and wrong, and the need for personal choice, within a narrative describing the a lift given to an Indian girl on Route 66.” WK

Rooty Toot Toot John Cougar Mellencamp

Writer(s): John Mellencamp Released: 5/14/1988 (single), The Lonesome Jubilee (1987) B-Side: “Check It Out” First Charted 5/7/1988 Peak: 61 BB, 7 AR, 19 CN, 54 AU, 20 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 0.50 video, 1.16 streaming About the Song: “Rooty Toot Toot, like ‘Cherry Bomb,’ is a happy nostalgic tale of the narrator’s youth. Mellencamp originally wrote the song as a nursery rhyme for his daughter, Teddi Jo, who had asked her father to use her name in one of his songs. After it was written, Mellencamp and his band turned ‘Rooty Toot Toot’ into a rock song.” WK

Resources/References: AM AllMusic.com by Stephen Thomas Erlewine SS Steve Sullivan (2013). Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings (Volumes I & II). Scarecrow Press: Lanham, Maryland. Page 646. TW Timothy White (1990). Rock Lives: Profiles and Interviews. Henry Holt & Co. Pages 595-604. WK Wikipedia Related DMDB Pages: First posted 3/24/2008; last updated 2/13/2026.