“Well there’s 97 crosses planted in the courthouse yard, Ninety-seven families who lost 97 farms, I think about my grandpa and my neighbors and my name, And some nights I feel like dying, like that ...

John Mellencamp is a septuagenarian, a thrice-divorced grandfather and a chain smoker. He’s a liberal activist and a painter who’s never moved out of ruby-red Indiana. He’s a boomer rock star with a ...