#56: "Ain't Even Done With The Night" - John Mellencamp / "Concrete Sky" - Beth Orton
Encouraging comments to confirm these songs sound eerily similar to where I was standing in a pharmacy hearing one song start, thinking it was the other!
I bet John Mellencamp and Beth Orton are two names you’d never thought you would see linked together in any way. Well, when I saw one song title show up in the randomizer, a lot of thoughts came my way. As always, I began to think about the process of writing about music especially since I’m interested in pitching ideas elsewhere soon. I was about to zig, so I decided to zag and combine this song with another very different one for reasons that should be obvious once you listen to both of them back to back.
I feel like a lot of changes are in order. No more podcast website for Director’s Club since I pay for it monthly and I’d rather just archive everything in one spot (here for now, an all-things Jim website later this year). Change is never easy. About a year ago, I was at the CVS Pharmacy from across where I work shopping for a health-related remedy. I felt a little old realizing, “oh I have to start buying this regularly now.” That and it’s do or die, when it comes to making dietary changes too. Time to turn and face the strange changes.
You may be wondering, where am I going with this preamble (you may ask that every time you read my work)? Well, I was standing in the claustrophobic CVS aisle, pricing items when a song came over the loudspeaker. My first thought was, “oh this is a comforting song, I feel a little better,” when I heard the opening chords. I was excited to hear “Concrete Sky” by Beth Orton because I hadn’t heard it in quite a while and I was a huge fan of her first three albums.
Only much to my surprise, it wasn’t “Concrete Sky” by Beth Orton especially once the male vocal kicked in. No, it was actually a song from the 80s called “Ain’t Even Done With The Night,” and honestly, I’m sure I had heard it many times in the past but it was never committed to memory. Now it’s possibly my favorite song by a songwriter I didn’t really click with much when I was younger.
My parents owned a record called Uh-HUH by John Mellencamp. I recognized the cover but I can’t remember them ever listening to it. I have no memory of exploring it the way I did with my dad’s other vinyl. You couldn’t escape his follow-up, Scarecrow, that’s for sure. “Small Town” was everywhere and I used to think Bruce Springsteen wrote that. I was also convinced for a while that both “Jack and Diane” and “Hurts So Good,” must’ve come from that album but nope, it was three years prior, both tracks opened American Fool.
His path to success was also surprising. Mellencamp first scored a Top 5 hit in Australia in 1978 with his debut single “I Need a Lover,” a song that would not get released here until his third album in 1979 and go Top 40. Pat Benatar would cover the track for her debut album in that same year, streamlining it by removing its extended intro. Really it wasn’t until 1980 to where he broke through and radios started paying attention especially with this sweet, soulful attempt at an R&B song.
I feel a little bad that neither Bruce Springsteen or Mellencamp really did much for me back in the day. For a while the only Springsteen song I would put on any playlist was “Streets of Philadelphia.” But things changed, I hit middle age, I started to appreciate music that I used to dismiss and then one day, I became a huge fan of Springsteen to where I’m putting together a playlist of favorite songs by him. I finally get the undying love for The Boss now. What took me so long? I mean, “Born To Run” alone is a masterpiece.
Mellencamp is another story. I wouldn’t call myself a fan of his at all. Sorry, JCM, no playlist for you. But something weird happened at a CVS Pharmacy in the summer of 2023. I was standing there, having just turned 45 and this song came on and I immediately started to feel better. Later that day, I listened to the whole record this song came from and I skipped most of the tracks. None of them got in my head the way “Ain’t Even Done With The Night” did. So why did this song become a favorite? This was only a year ago. Honestly, it’s just a quality pop song with a lead guitar line that is instantly memorable.
Not everything has to some transcendent work of art. It made me think of how you can be standing somewhere, anywhere in a certain state of mind, and a song can suddenly become the soundtrack of that singular moment in time. Something as mundane as shopping can feel cinematic or important. Not every song requires a deep deconstruction of lyrical content or it’s complex chord structure or why it reminded you of a person you used to love. It’s really as simple as being in the right place at the right time and the universe deciding, “Jim, maybe you need to hear this Mellencamp song right now, even though you’re not a fan of his. This is catchy, you’ll like it.”
“Don’t ask me why, because I couldn’t tell you, but ‘Jack and Diane’ makes more money today than it did when it was a hit,” he says. “I mean, I don’t play ‘Hurts So Good’ anymore—it’s too childish. It’s kind of odd to be a 69-year-old man singing, ‘Come on, baby, make it hurt so good!’ I’m just not comfortable doing that. But if I play ‘Jack and Diane’ with an acoustic guitar, it sounds like a folk song. And here’s the other piece of magic about that song that I didn’t even realize when I wrote it,” he continues. “If you listen to the chorus—‘Oh, yeah, life goes on/Long after the thrill of living is gone’—that’s not exactly a positive message. But people sing along with that song like it’s the national anthem.”
“The best compliment I ever got on that song was from my daughter, Justice. She said, ‘Dad, I cry every time I hear that song.’ I said, ‘What? You’ve heard that song a million times. You must be crying all the time!’ And she said, ‘It’s that line, ‘Hold on to 16 as long as you can,’ because we were all 16 and we all know what it felt like to leave that portion of our lives.’ It’s bittersweet, and it surprises the shit out of me. Because I was a kid when I wrote that song.” - Anthony DeCurtis
(Sidenote: I’ll forever give Mellencamp props for writing that lyric he cites above in “Jack & Diane,” mainly because there’s a lot of truth in it).
“Ain’t Even Done” does have these cute little hand-claps about a minute in that make you think this could’ve been an oldie of another era. Which also might explain this music video he made at the time. I also simply love the melody and delivery of the song title when it’s sung too. But let’s now transition a bit into Beth Orton’s “Concrete Sky” Because the little lead guitar lick in Mellencamp’s song is so identical (maybe a couple of notes less) that I don’t think it’s crazy of me to mix up the two songs. (Both songs are linked at the end).
Listen to Mellencamp’s song at the 1:37 mark for a few seconds and tell me it’s not precisely utilized in “Concrete Sky,” an entirely different song recorded two decades later. Yet when I did a Google search with both song titles, nothing came up. Usually there’s someone on Reddit who agrees or thinks the same. In fact, I am actively encouraging comments this time for this essay to tell me I’m not wrong that they are so close in sound (focusing on the lead guitar melody). Obviously, the vocalists are vastly different, the production is also dated and clearly from the 80s for JMC, but it’s weird how my brain can immediately detect the chords as being identical (Bmajor-Emajor) to where it can stop me in my tracks.
Beth Orton’s voice immediately drew me in with her first record Trailer Park. I vividly remember picking it up at a CD store off of US 30 in Merrillville, not too far from the first library I worked at. It still had the embolden glossy text of “for promotional purposes only,” meaning that record companies were sending out “screeners” if you will, for the owners to sample and play. But they weren’t meant for sale. The owners didn’t care. The music is the same, the artwork is the same. Why not make a buck if someone was willing to pay for a used copy?
Other examples of CDs I purchased that way were of The Flaming Lips, Urge Overkill, many others of that era. I’ll have to dig through my CDs inserts for an example sometime. Beth Orton’s song “She Cries Your Name,” hit the airwaves and I sought out the album Trailer Park. Seeing her being interviewed on MTV, I remember she came across as shy, awkward but with a beautiful English accent. Back then and I guess it’s still true, it’s hard not to be smitten by any songwriter who had a unique look and didn’t fit the typical rock star ideal. In a recent article, the photo they included makes her look a lot like Beth Gibbons of all people.
What’s wild is that her first couple of records were dubbed “folktronica,” meaning she combined acoustic guitars with programmed instrumentation. I remember eagerly anticipating her third album, Daybreaker because I had heard the first single, “Concrete Sky,” which also included backing vocals from a songwriter I liked at the time, Ryan Adams (who looks a bit like Mellencamp especially when he was trying to emulate 80s rock at one point in his career). Oh and the fact that Johnny Marr has a co-writing credit too can’t hurt.
Orton hit the UK Top 10 with her next, Daybreaker, but in truth it was overproduced and underwritten. “I started to strive for something that just wasn’t ... it all got a bit messy and confusing and you lose your way,” she says, over a cup of tea in a local pub. “I’m not a fucking folk singer, a tidy little girl, it’s never been that way. The first gig I went to of my own volition was the Fall when I was 12. I learned to just go: ‘OK, I am all these very contradictory parts and it’s all right to just encompass that.’ - Ben Beaumont-Thomas
Going back and listening to Daybreaker, I was surprised at my indifference now. It’s an okay record I suppose but most of the songs do seem to lack a certain conviction found previously. Her best work actually came a few years later with the help of producer Jim O’Rourke on Comfort of Strangers. Throughout most of Daybreaker, she seems a little detached and less confident but I can’t deny the ear worm that is “Concrete Sky.” It is one of her more mainstream breakthrough successes for a reason.
The backing vocals from Adams are warm and complementary, there are little “oohs” and “ahhs” in the pre-chorus that are pleasant too. Lyrically, it’s relatively simple, much like the Mellencamp song. Both work their own kind of special magic without being substantial. They are just high quality pop songs that I consider to be favorites without a lot of analysis needed.
It’s funny now going back to listen to Orton and Mellencamp’s albums and shrugging them off outside of these two singles that sound incredibly alike. I’m a little surprised there wasn’t more said about the similarity of the guitar line at the very least. It’s not like “Concrete Sky” rips off the other song, note for note because there are changes that are different and distinctive. But once “Ain’t Even Done With The Night” kicks in, upon first listen, I truly thought I was having some sort of strange out-of-body experience. Not only that, I was like, “Oh wow, I really like this Mellencamp song now!” Even if it has a rather cheesy, unremarkable sax solo (come on, it was the 80s!).
"Ain't Even Done with the Night" came from his quest to make hit pop songs, and even though he has shown no affinity for it, the song became one of his most enduring, showing up on playlists decades after it was first released. You did something right if it doesn’t serve as background fodder for a guy shopping in a pharmacy. My ears perked up for a reason but yes, a lot of it had to do with the surprise element.
It sounded exactly like a song I heard back in 2002 when I was going through a very different time. “Concrete Sky” was certainly an alternative radio hit for Orton but she struggled a lot over the years, with health, with songwriting, with being a mom. She’s still out there, persevering so I’m happy to hear she’s still making music even if I am not going back to it as much.
Both songs have lyrical refrains that warm me right up. I love when Mellencamp sings about Sam Cooke being on the radio and I’m quite sure he didn’t think that decades later, I’d be writing about Mellencamp being on the satellite radio playing at the local CVS. I also like when Orton sings about how she’s “been out walking and not doing too much talking,” since those are two things I have gravitated towards. Though I still have a podcast where a lot of my ramblings emerge after all. Let’s just face the music here, sometimes you have no idea why you love a song or a film, you just do and that’s that. Such is the case for both of these songs in the key of Bmajor.
Neither of these songs are profound, they just cause the synapses to fire in the right way at the right time. Like Mellencamp did for me a year ago and Orton did for me many years ago. If they pop up randomly on my playlist of favorite songs (which you can find on Spotify), I immediately feel better, which is what happened when I was at the CVS a year ago. I’m so glad both songs exist. But seriously, let me know that I’m not crazy in thinking, they sound so much alike that I’m surprised Mellencamp’s lawyers didn’t take action. Listen below then comment with your thoughts on their similarities.