If you told me to guess which songs we would absolutely get pitched for a playlist of songs that describe American life, I would have put “Jack and Diane” near the top.

We’ve all heard it a million times, and we all know why. It’s like “Born in the U.S.A.” in that it’s almost too obvious.

So I expected it, but I also knew people would be clever, which meant maybe we wouldn’t get it at all. Good thing we asked some non-Americans to contribute. Julia Duthie, host of People Are Everything, came through with this one. She told us those first few chords take her straight back to the road trips she’s taken across America. I was a guest on her show last year, and here’s that conversation if you want to hear more from both of us.

Joseph Moore and I got into the feel of the song. He explains Bobby Brooks slacks to me (very cool regional manufacturing detail!), and I shared a mix of music theory, studio lore, and my love for the comedic value that is “suckin’ on a chili dog.”* Here’s the episode, and then I want to talk a minute more about the studio story.

Joseph calling out how the demo of “Born in the U.S.A.” was totally not the song that ended up on the record was really (really) spot on here. “Jack and Diane” was supposed to be just a folk song. I know there’s an older version somewhere on a CD reissue or something, but in the meantime, listen to how the song goes when John Mellencamp does it totally solo.

Here he is in 2017 with just a guitar and no band. Notice how different a song it is.

So they get into the studio and the idea is they have to make it sound like anything but a folk song. They need it to sound like Phil Collins, “In the Air Tonight.” How they got that in their heads is probably a whole other story, but the insight is perfect. The song was a story and they made it into an arrangement. Different parts, sounds, and feels.

Kind of like “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant,” in that it’s built in sections, but layered with studio sound instead of Broadway staging.

The drums in particular got the drum machine treatment. See how not a folk song this is? It is genius though.

Kenny Aronoff has the best retelling of this story, and I was able to track it down after we recorded. He talks about the iconic fill too, so for you music nerds, if you want to hear how he inverted a bunch of the normal drummer logic since he saw himself as competing for his job against the drum machine, I’ll put the video below. He talks about how most drummers fill down the toms from high to low, and his fill goes low to high. There’s even a Steve Gadd shoutout. I love this so much. It’s integral to the pulse of the song.

And, at the highest level, the song’s arrangement reminds me how sometimes art happens in the editing.

In the “Jack and Diane” case, that’s kind of the whole story. The sentiments are all there. The image and feeling and weight of the poetry is all there. But I think the edit is what makes it iconic, and I think it’s what lets the song sound like the American highway on a road trip, the way it did for Julia. The story of the iterations, the Phil Collins influence, and the battle with a drum machine that put it all together is creative and inspiring, and it belongs on our list.

Go suck on a chili dog and have a listen.

PS: *Fair warning that the chili dog video linked above will change how you hear that line forever.