“Small Town” by John Mellencamp

"Small Town" comes from Scarecrow, John Mellencamp's eighth album, from 1985, and it's his hometown hymn, written about growing up in small-town Indiana. He was born in Seymour and was living in Bloomington, a bigger place, when the song came out, and the video nods to both towns. What he celebrates is the neighborliness, the shared values, the feeling of a place where everyone knows everyone.

He wrote it in the laundry room of his old house while company waited upstairs, and they laughed at him when he came back up. Mellencamp produced it with Don Gehman for Riva, and it's heartland rock at its most plainspoken: chiming guitars, a steady stomp and a chorus built for singing along with the car windows down. It reached 6 on the Hot 100.

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