AMG Review of Scarecrow [Bonus Track]

Stephen Thomas Erlewine & Thom Jurek
All Music Guide

Uh-Huh found John Mellencamp coming into his own, but he perfected his heartland rock with Scarecrow. A loose concept album about lost innocence and the crumbling of small-town America, Scarecrow says as much with its tough rock and gentle folk-rock as it does with its lyrics, which remain a weak point for Mellencamp. Nevertheless, his writing has never been more powerful: "Rain on the Scarecrow" and "Small Town" capture the hopes and fears of Middle America, while "Lonely Ol' Night" and "Rumbleseat" effortlessly convey the desperate loneliness of being stuck in a dead-end life. Those four songs form the core of the album, and while the rest of the album isn't quite as strong, that's only a relative term, since it's filled with lean hooks and powerful, economical playing that make Scarecrow one of the definitive blue-collar rock albums of the mid-'80s. [In 2005 Universal remastered and reissued the album and included the B-side acoustic version of "Small Town." Of all the reissues in this series, this small bonus sheds light on what went into the full-blown single version, adding depth and weight to Mellencamp's seemingly simple celebration of the dignity of mainstream and rural American life. The mandolin break, slightly out of tune, comes just after a back-porch singalong bridge; it gives the entire thing a chilling authenticity that seems to suggest that the singer is attempting to convince no one, not even himself, that this truth is, if not self-evident, at least one of serene resignation.]