OT John Mellencamp’s new song about homelessness in Portland is very bad (commentary)

John Mellencamp is usually known for using his gravelly voice to sing vague lyrics about the “heartland.” But now, the guy who brought us “Jack & Diane,” “Pink Houses” and “Hurts So Good” has turned his attention away from the center of the country to almost its very edge: Portland, Oregon.

Mellencamp’s new song “The Eyes of Portland” is all about the main thing people who don’t live in Portland love to talk about: How destroyed the city is.

Portland, burned to the ground, ravaged by homelessness, drug users on every corner. Your classic wasteland scenario.

People who live in Portland know that we have some problems. There are people struggling, living outside or in their vehicles. The drug situation is terrifying and dangerous. Yet Portland is also a lovely city, full of beautiful parks, quiet streets, trees, rivers, bike paths, restaurants, friends, shops, ice cream, donuts. It might be the best major city in the entire country. Might be? Is.

People who have visited other major U.S. cities know that homelessness is not just a Portland problem. It’s a nationwide problem, stemming from all sorts of long-standing nationwide issues, which make it very hard to “fix” at the local level.

But that nuance doesn’t make it into Mellencamp’s new “song.” And I am using quotes here because this song has a very “I put a prompt into ChatGPT and this is what came out” vibe.

Take, for example, the opening lyrics: “As I saw through the eyes of Portland one day/ There were so many homeless, they’d all gone astray/ They slept on the corners during the day/ As not to be harmed when the sun went away.”

What? This is just word salad created by a machine that knows the basics of how to rhyme. Whether that machine is a computer or Mellencamp’s brain, I cannot say.

You will be unsurprised to hear it doesn’t get better from there. Because this is a song, there is a chorus. And it ain’t good: “All of thesе homeless, wherе do they come from?/ In this land of plenty where nothing gets done/ To help those who are empty and unable to run/ Your tears and prayers won’t help the homeless.”

First of all, let me be clear that I don’t like to say mean things about people and I don’t like to write negative things on the internet about art, either. I’ve learned the hard way, it’s usually not worth it. But John. John Cougar. John Cougar Mellencamp. This is worth it. What is this?

“These homeless” for one, are people. People who could answer you if you posed the question, “Hey, where are you from?” I get the strong feeling that you’ve never actually spoken to a person living on the street, which is where I would start if I were going to write a song ostensibly about their perspective.

Instead of speaking to a human, Mellencamp falls back on some of the most boring cliches available.

“Some are mentally ill, some are higher than kites,” he sings. “Selling their bodies as day turns to night.”

Really? “Higher than kites?” If I were teaching a middle school poetry class, I would circle this and say, “Can you think about what this means and come up with something more concrete?”

If it were a high school poetry class, I would probably just cross it off with a big red marker and write, “Do better.” (Just kidding. Don’t come after me. I would never teach high schoolers how to write poetry. I am not that brave.)

Possibly the funniest or saddest or best or worst part of this song, depending on your mood, is the fact that the music video isn’t filmed in Portland at all. Nope, that’s the Los Angeles skyline you’re seeing.

All in all, it’s not good on a song level or a human level. That’s going to be a pass from me.

Anyway, watch the video or better yet, don’t.

https://www.oregonlive.com/entertai...JMlTynTFZRjc1EV4y9BFPfibPUmQ8OxPRpnuLiYATzLFM

 

Portland Has a Branding Problem: John Mellencamp’s Portland Video Not Portland
A video for the rocker’s terrible song about the homelessness crisis in Portland shows South Central LA, Manhattan, and Brooklyn.

IN SINGER-SONGWRITER John Mellencamp’s new “The Eyes of Portland” video, something immediately seems ... off. That sign for Seventh Street? Portland doesn’t have numbered streets, only avenues. The city skyline? That’s the Roslyn Hotel and the US Bank Tower in downtown LA—definitely not Big Pink. This is the eyes of Los Angeles.

The lyric video, released May 12 on Mellencamp’s YouTube channel, presents Portland as synonymous with unrelenting homelessness. In reality, you’re looking at LA and New York City: a man pushes a grocery cart in the shadow of Pershing Square and Grand Central Station, and later appears in Brooklyn near the Williamsburg Bridge. And on it goes for four and a half minutes of black-and-white despair, plus a couple quick shots of a child’s hand waving a miniature American flag (ah, patriotism—we get it).

Mellencamp doesn’t wield enough cultural heft to brand Portland, but we don’t appreciate him furthering the faux messaging that Portland is a wasteland. The ignorance is not accidental: he’s been here, and in fact performed the song at Keller Auditorium in March. So he knows that the place he’s reducing to anguished despondency is in fact a colorful city of music and festivals and greenery. Also, why lazily use recognizable images from other cities to make Portland look bad? We have our own brand of urban decay! Just ask Twitter. Or your uncle from Boise.

Portlanders have gotten used to Vancouver, British Columbia, standing in for the Rose City. I, Tonya was mostly shot in Georgia. So was much of Air, though there were a few shots of Portland bridges. But those films don’t have Portland in their titles.

This topic is a departure for Little Bastard (a nickname he willingly took on for a while). Back in his John Cougar days, the singer-songwriter was the bard of the Midwest, singing little ditties about American kids growing up in the heartland, and peppering his video for “Small Town” with shots of Seymour and Bloomington, the Indiana towns where he was born and raised. Cattails, covered bridges, and grain towers appear in “Pink Houses.” So we expected an official video for a song called “The Eyes of Portland,” off the artist’s upcoming Orpheus Descending record, to show a little bit of, you know, Portland.

Beyond the catastrophic geographical renderings, we should warn you that the video may inspire some sadness that the same songwriter who gave us “Oh yeah, life goes on / Long after the thrill of living is gone” is now offering up “There are old ones and young ones and white ones and black / They were all shapes and sizes with rags on their back.” He continues: “Some are mentally ill, some are higher than kites / Selling their bodies as day turns to night.” And in closing: “Your tears and prayers won’t help the homeless.” Neither will geographically inaccurate music videos.

https://www.pdxmonthly.com/arts-and...of-portland-homelessness-los-angeles-new-york

 

For a guy who has camp in his name you'd think he'd have a little compassion for them.

 

Not sure if that's a pro homeless song or anti-homeless song. But what I am sure of, it's not a good song.

 

While it appears John's intent is to call attention to what is a huge problem in our country, his song misses the mark. For one, it's just terribly written, and two it's just terribly written.

Also, if you are going to make a video for a song about Portland, film it in Portland, not basically every other major city and call it Portland. Why, emphasize Portland?

If one is going to do a song like this, use many cities, and show that it's everywhere. That's how you point out how big of a problem it is and that it's a national problem.

I could write a better song than this in my sleep.

I'm glad someone famous is using their position to point out this issue, but the song is disappointing.