“Hurts So Good” by John Mellencamp

"Hurts So Good" was one of three hits from American Fool in 1982, back when John Mellencamp was still billed as John Cougar, and it struts like a heartland greaser who knows everybody's watching. He wrote it with George Green, his childhood friend and sometime writing partner: the title phrase slipped out of Mellencamp's mouth, the two of them tossed lines back and forth, laughing, and the whole thing came together fast. Then he picked up a guitar and found the chords almost instantly, and you can hear it in that tough, swaggering riff.

It shared the spotlight with "Jack & Diane" and "Hand to Hold on To", climbed to number two on the Hot 100, and won him the Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male in February 1983.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.