The Real Meaning Behind John Mellencamp’s Song Pink Houses

The opening strains of “Pink Homes” set the scene: “There’s a Black man with a black cat / Dwelling in a black neighborhood / He’s obtained an interstate runnin’ by his entrance yard,” the tune goes, by way of American Songwriter. Mellencamp truly noticed that very factor together with his personal eyes: in the future he was driving alongside Interstate 65 by Indianapolis when he noticed a Black man and his black cat sitting on a garden chair in entrance of a pink home. 

The juxtaposition of a person’s dwelling being inside toes of 70-mph site visitors and his obvious acceptance of his destiny struck Mellencamp. “I believed, ‘Wow, is that this what life can result in? Watching the f***in’ vehicles go by on the interstate?,” he mentioned. As he fleshed out the lyrics, the tune took on a deeper which means: a have a look at the demise of the American Dream. “The American dream had just about confirmed itself as not working anymore,” he mentioned. Or to place it one other approach, as defined by way of Indianapolis Month-to-month, the hook, “Ain’t that America,” is definitely code for “Ain’t that some bull***t.”