7 Interesting Facts And Stories Behind “Hurts So Good” By John Mellencamp

John Mellencamp was still performing under the stage name John Cougar when he released “Hurts So Good”. It peaked at #2 on the US Billboard Hot 100, and it was the first of three major hit singles from his album “American Fool”.

Here are seven interesting facts about it:

1. He actually wrote this as “a goof”.

“My friend George said, why didn’t I write a song with the title ‘Hurt So Good’?” he told The L.A. Herald Examiner in 1982. “We thought of it as like a Shel Silverstein thing. I wrote it in three minutes, scrawled the first line in soap on the glass door in the shower. It was really just a joke. I think all good things probably started as jokes. Wasn’t God having a laugh when he made this whole place?”

2. The childhood friend he talked about was George Green, who received a songwriting credit.

The pair finished writing the song quickly. Green also co-wrote some of Mellencamp’s hits like “Human Wheels,” “Crumblin’ Down” and “Rain On The Scarecrow.”

3. It was experienced by something Mellencamp noticed during his early years as a musician.

“When I first started playing in rock bands, I didn’t realize how crude and mean other fellas could be. How crude they were with women and how crude women were,” he explained on Plain Spoken. “That led me to write a song called ‘Hurts So Good’ because I was playing in these bars and I just could not believe the lows people would go to with each other. The thing that surprised me is that it fit my personality perfectly. I fit right in with all that.”

4. It became his breakthrough hit.

It was a top 5 hit in Australia, Canada, and South Africa.

5. His relatives asked for a “Hurts So Good” tattoo.

Mellencamp once owned a tattoo parlor, and even his aunt asked to be ink with the song title.

6. Because of this track, he took home the Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male at the 25th Grammy Awards.

For his acceptance speech, he told the audience: “I don’t know what to say, I’m just an idiot.”

7. MTV contributed to its success.

It wasn’t Mellencamp’s first music video, but they boosted the budget for its filming. It was worth it though because MTV put it on heavy rotation.