Let's get the first reaction on the table so we can get it out of the way: "Check It Out" by John Cougar Mellencamp is a relatively lazy three-chord song where he lists stuff that happens in Nowheresville, America. On a first close listen, it's unclear there's any depth beyond a catchy chorus. It's a lot of song without much meat on the bones.

Or is it?

That's where we have to start, because on the surface there's really nothing to this one. The lyrics are Facebook-post-quality poetry, which is a bit par for the course with Johnny Cougar. But John Stoj pitched it for the list of songs that best describe American life, so there has to be more here.

In the episode we get into the non-trivial, very non-Midwestern life of John Mellencamp and his many names. I tell Joseph about the teenage marriage, the life on the road and away from home, and the choices that don't exactly rhyme with the heartland values his songs seem to profess. We talk about him finding his way musically by writing about where he grew up from afar, until he finally moves back and sets up shop full time in Belmont, Indiana.

We gloss over that in the episode, but I kept thinking about it after we pressed stop. Mellencamp saw the world and a lot of life, and presumably realized he didn't want to be a coastal musician. Something at home was calling him back, and there was something in him that he didn't want to lose in those other places. There's a nobility to that. I think he had to go through all of it, the wives, the kids, the girlfriends, the tours, the success, to be ready to write and record a song like this.

Joseph says it best when he calls it a trainspotting exercise of suburban life. We decided that must be what the title means. Check this out, check that out, and so on. The details are all related, but they don't make sense if you think too hard about how one connects to the next. If you just look around, there they all are. So my first reaction, lazy lyrics, turns out to be closer to what the song is supposed to be about.

He supports it musically, too. The song is in G, but its three chords, G, C and F, are the chords of C major, which is also where the song starts. If that sounds confusing, I walk through it with examples in the episode. As Joseph intuitively hears, the F is the odd one out, since it isn't in G major at all (technically it's a flat 7, which we all know from blues and rock, but it's a real choice to use). So Mellencamp is laying the pattern of one key over the home of another, and every drop to that F is a note that shouldn't be there, so we feel the distance until the song lands back home on G. It makes for a tension you feel without the theoretical explanation. There are more layers I'll skip for the sake of not writing a longer post, but the musical tent poles hold up as much weight as the lyrical ones, and the listener gets to infer a lot.

"Check It Out" is a beautiful, thought-provoking song. It's a touch repetitive, but I've come to realize that's on purpose, and the depth of the choices inside it is surprising if you listen closely.

Listen to the episode, where Joseph and I agree it belongs on the list. Pay special attention to how our conversation circles our uncertainty on the way to being sure it belongs.

Oh and don’t forget the Unplugged version I was all fired up about (it really is a cool Unplugged, young Matt thought the band and arrangements were so cool to see live)

PS. Oh and don’t forget John Stoj on The Intentional Investor in case you’re still thinking about “how did this guy go from trading bonds to the sushi business to becoming an advisor?” You should definitely CHECK IT OUT. That’s a Joseph Moore approved joke if ever there was one.