He hadn’t even heard me play the song once, and he was already playing that rhythm against my folk rhythm. And that happened within, no exaggeration, thirty seconds of him hearing the song. I said, 'Listen to this song, and see what kind of R&B feel you can put to it.' I think I played one verse and one chorus and he had already come up with the feel. I played it for Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds, who’s a real R&B guy. But I knew right away that I wanted to have an R&B feel for that song. If you take a song like 'Walk Tall,' when I play it acoustically, it’s a folk song in the tradition of Woody Guthrie. Mellencamp told American Songwriter magazine how he brought the song to Babyface: fear and hatred toward each other, it seemed like, 'If you can write an inspirational song, John, you should probably try to do it,' you know? So that's where that came from. I didn't always do that, but in today's world where there seems to be so much. He said, 'I ain't gonna write no more songs that would make anybody feel bad about themselves.' And I always kind of took that with me as a songwriter. you know, I heard Woody Guthrie say in some kind of documentary that it was important for him to write songs about people and try to make them feel good about themselves. In 2004, Mellencamp spoke to CMT about his inspiration for writing the song: "Walk Tall" was produced by Babyface, who also plays guitar and provides backing vocals on the song. The album version contains the lyrics: "So be careful of those killing in Jesus' name/He don't believe in killing at all." The single version that was released to radio replaces those lines with: "And I wish you all a long sightline/And the strength to walk tall." Mellencamp said the record company asked him to provide less controversial lyrics for the version sent out to radio stations to give the song a better chance of getting airplay.
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It can be found on his 2004 compilation Words & Music: John Mellencamp's Greatest Hits. " Walk Tall" is a song written by John Mellencamp which protests the George W. 2004 single by John Mellencamp "Walk Tall"įrom the album Words & Music: John Mellencamp's Greatest Hits