John Mellencamp Performs at Farm Aid: Set List

John Mellencamp hit the stage at this year's Farm Aid festival on Saturday in Saratoga Springs, New York.

"The younger people who are doing this work [farming] need to get out and make some noise about it. Make some f---ing noise," Mellencamp said at a pre-show press conference. "[Because if you don't], corporate America will take it away. ...If you want a better world, it starts with you."

You can view Mellencamp's complete set list below.

A Very Brief History of Farm Aid

Farm Aid was founded by Mellencamp, Willie Nelson and Neil Young in 1985. The first incarnation of the festival took place in Champaign, Illinois, and also featured Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, B.B. King, Loretta Lynn, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty. At that concert, approximately nine million dollars was raised to aid family farmers in America. This is the second time the festival has been held in Saratoga Springs.

"We're energized to be back in New York," Nelson said in a previous statement (via Rolling Stone). "The farmers here have always found ways to innovate and contribute to their communities, even as they deal with uncertainties, extreme weather and policies that favor corporations over people. Farmers need us to stand with them as they work to grow our future."

READ MORE: John Mellencamp's 'American Fool': Beyond 'Jack and Diane'

Among this year's lineup, in addition to Mellencamp, Nelson and Young, is Dave Matthews, Mavis Staples, Margo Price, Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats, Lukas Nelson with the Travelin' McCourys, Charley Crockett, Joy Oladokun, Southern Avenue, Cassandra Lewis and Jesse Welles.

John Mellencamp, Farm Aid 2024, Set List
1. "John Cockers"
2. "Paper in Fire"
3. "Small Town"
4. "Check It Out"
5. "Longest Days"
6. "Jack & Diane"
7. "Rain on the Scarecrow"
8. "Pink Houses"

24. 'Chestnut Street Incident' (1976)

It wasn't just that this largely forgettable debut didn't chart. 'Chestnut Street Incident' sold only 12,000 copies, ultimately getting Mellencamp thrown off his label. There were hints, here and there, of the singer-songwriter that he'd one day become, but songs like "American Dream" and "Dream Killin' Town" aspire to far more than they can credibly reach – and the musical approach is rote. Worse, the rest is misguided cover songs. He tried for a follow-up, which was shelved and then released without Mellencamp's input after he finally became a star. (Nick DeRiso)

23. 'Cuttin' Heads' (2001)

A Top 20 hit but a creative failure nevertheless, 'Cuttin' Heads' is symptomatic of a period in which Mellencamp seemed to be utterly without direction. That's how you end up with a series of headline-grabbing but, at the same time, head-scratching duets with India.Arie, Trisha Yearwood and (no kidding) Chuck D. Dig deeper, and we find a writer turning toward the kind of social commentary that would eventually revive his career in full. Unfortunately, that wouldn't happen until after a return to the country's musical roots on 'Trouble No More.' He wasn't quite there yet. (DeRiso)

22. 'Other People's Stuff' (2018)

As the name suggests, 'Other's People's Stuff' is a place-keeper compilation of cover songs. Mellencamp collects tracks he previously recorded for tribute albums, a soundtrack and his own studio albums over a period of some 25 years. There's only one new offering, a 2012 song called “Eyes on the Prize.” He also updated “Teardrops Will Fall,” from the far-more-interesting 'Trouble No More,' adding a new duet partner in Karen Fairchild from Little Big Town. For completists only. (DeRiso)

21. 'Mr. Happy Go Lucky' (1996)

Mellencamp spent the mid-'90s focused on muscular rock, making this post-heart attack turn toward more radio-friendly pop sounds surprising. He scored his last Top 40 U.S. single with the insistent "Key West Intermezzo (I Saw You First)," but elsewhere the results were decidedly uneven as Mellencamp began a lengthy search for the path to third-act success. (DeRiso)

20. 'Rough Harvest' (1999)

Mellencamp hadn't had an album chart this low since his debut, but 'Rough Harvest' actually has one other thing in common with 'Chestnut Street Incident': both are dotted with largely forgettable cover songs. The rest of this LP is filler, as Mellencamp rounds out his Mercury Records contract by working up intimate but nonessential acoustic versions of previously released songs. The only saving grace here is a rambunctious live take on "Wild Night," featuring Me'shell Ndegeocello. (DeRiso)

19. 'Plain Spoken' (2014)

Mellencamp's typically frank lyrics certainly lived up to this album's title. What was different could be found in microcosm on a song like "Sometimes There’s God," which was both brutally honest and (in a change from his more recent work) ultimately uplifting – boasting something just shy of a Byrdsy jangle. Elsewhere, the fiddle-driven "Troubled Man" (despite its roiling night of a title) represents the album's general – and quite welcome – return to the rootsier era between 'Scarecrow' and 'Big Daddy' in the late '80s. (DeRiso)

18. 'Nothin' Matters and What If It Did' (1980)

A top-heavy, pop-leaning album featuring a pair of Top 40 songs, 'Nothin' Matters ... ' arrived at an emotional low point for the long-suffering Mellencamp – who ultimately quit the sessions and then disavowed this Steve Cropper-produced product. Still, "Ain't Even Done With the Night" (which went to No. 17) has remained a radio staple, and hindsight tells us this album set a rough if incomplete template for the breakthrough to come on 'American Fool.' (DeRiso)

17. 'Sad Clowns and Hillbillies' (2017)

This album was recorded in Nashville, Ind., not far from Mellencamp's home in Bloomington, with country star Carlene Carter, stepdaughter of the late Johnny Cash. But 'Sad Clowns and Hillbillies' isn't technically a duets record, since Mellencamp sings some of the songs alone. The LP was originally conceived as a collection of spiritual country numbers, but it's not that either. Instead, like many albums from Mellencamp's past, 'Sad Clowns and Hillbillies' takes a rustic, rootsy path to American music, underlining the tracks with acoustic instruments and a stripped-down, front-porch approach. There's also a political side to songs like "Battle of Angels," "Grandview" and "Easy Target." (Michael Gallucci)

16. 'Life, Death, Love and Freedom' (2008)

Mellencamp begins his T Bone Burnett production era with an album that continued his late-career streak of Top 10 hits, even as it refined his quickly sharpening sense of moralistic fatigue. Mellencamp felt that it captured everything he'd been trying to do, saying he would put 'Life, Death, Love and Freedom' "up against any record ever made." It's hindered, however, by Burnett, whose airless production style tends to give the project a feeling of emotional distance. (DeRiso)

15. 'John Cougar' (1979)

Though still saddled with an unfocused sense of air-quote rebellion, 'John Cougar' begins a notable move toward ratty Faces-style rock rather than rote Stones-isms. The label attached the flippantly chauvinist "I Need a Lover" from an import-only release, giving Mellencamp his first charting U.S. single. As such, this can be seen as the start of something big. He was finally starting to construct the cornerstone for an early '80s breakthrough. (DeRiso)

14. 'Strictly a One-Eyed Jack' (2022)

On 'Strictly a One-Eyed Jack,' Sweet 16 has turned 70 and is looking at "a life full of rain, coming down on my shoulders" with a reflective, gray-tinged gaze that doesn't like what he sees but, importantly, doesn't regret or apologize for feeling that way. Mellencamp may want you to get off his lawn, but not before he's said his piece, in a gruff, sandpapery growl lined with a lot of miles – and a lot of cigarettes. (Gary Graff)

13. 'Trouble No More' (2003)

'Trouble No More' was Mellencamp's most present, racket-raising success in years. The roots of the project go back to his performance of an old Robert Johnson song at a pair of 2002 benefit concerts for 'Billboard' magazine editor-in-chief Timothy White. Columbia Records execs hatched a plan to release a full album of covers in that vein and the results – deeply sourced, banged out quickly and done in the style of his classic late-'80s period recordings – finally got Mellencamp back on track after a long period of career confusion. A second peak was just ahead. (DeRiso)

12. 'Dance Naked' (1994)

The zenith of a leaner throwback to Mellencamp's Rolling Stones-inspired early days, as he began focusing more on a hard-eyed playing style that suited guitarist Larry Crane and drummer Kenny Aronoff -- rather than the rural Appalachian flourishes of fiddle and accordion that dominated earlier releases. Mellencamp rounded things out with a fun (and Top 3 hit) studio version of Van Morrison's "Wild Night," his first duet with Me'Shell Ndegeocello. (DeRiso)

11. 'John Mellencamp' (1998)

Frustrated by his inability to reach the singles charts again, Mellencamp left Mercury for a brief run at Columbia – beginning with this smart summation of his strengths. He didn't get the hit he wanted out it, but Mellencamp seemed to regain his rock footing after the pop-styled 'Mr. Happy Go Lucky.' It didn't break any new ground, but it didn't surrender any either. At this point, that was a huge victory. But he still had some experimenting to do. (DeRiso)

10. 'Orpheus Descending' (2023)

As with 2022's 'Strictly a One-Eyed Jack,' Mellencamp takes on some seriously dark subject matter, which ranges from America's complex relationship with guns ("Hey God") and the suffering of the unhoused ("The Eyes of Portland") to our growing national division ("Amen") and the self-explanatory "The So-Called Free." Yet shards of sunlight cut through the clouds, in a reminder of the determination and hope that bolstered the best of his turn-of-the-2010s material. This time, he promises that "there's always a fuckin' way" – and it's welcome, indeed. (DeRiso)

9. 'Human Wheels' (1993)

Mellencamp kept his guitar strapped on, extending a period of rock-focused intensity that began with 'Whenever We Wanted.' The difference here was the intriguing way his band's tough new musical turn was combined with darker themes and a few slow-burning R&B touches. That made for one of Mellencamp's most emotionally satisfying records, one where hope is inevitably balanced by despair. (DeRiso)

8. 'Better Than This' (2010)

These 13 songs were written in a mirrored 13 days, then recorded across the Deep South during time off from a 2009 summer tour. This time, producer T Bone Burnett's presence is a plus. He and Mellencamp carried around a half-century-old monophonic tape recorder and a single vintage microphone, putting down a string of tracks marked by this steely third-act realism. Full of dark worry and brutally honest sentiments, 'Freedom's Road' was his boldest rebuke yet of the facile hopes surrounding his own pop-star prepackaging as Johnny Cougar. (DeRiso)

7. 'Big Daddy' (1989)

Mellencamp dove even deeper, one final time, into the introspective sociopolitical themes he’d begun exploring on 1985's 'Scarecrow' and 1987's 'The Lonesome Jubilee,' even as the music became more raw and spare. 'Big Daddy,' despite its reflective tone, became his fifth-consecutive Top 10 hit – but also heralded the end of an era. By the time he returned in the '90s, Mellencamp had shifted gears. (DeRiso)

6. 'Whenever We Wanted' (1991)

Ironically, just as Mellencamp was finally shedding the "Cougar" moniker he’d been saddled with early on as a faux-rebel rocker, he took a turn back toward feel-good music. In fact, he’s described this platinum-selling album as an attempt to write "'American Fool' with better lyrics." Mission accomplished. Now the stage was set for a return to the Top 10 with 1993's 'Human Wheels.' (DeRiso)

5. 'American Fool' (1982)

This belated breakthrough didn't happen by accident. Instead, 'American Fool' emerged after nine grueling weeks of sessions in which the perfectionist side of Mellencamp led to two sidemen firings. "Jack and Diane," the big hit, may have been the hardest to nail down. Only after someone dragged in a Linn drum machine was Mellencamp satisfied – though he ultimately demanded a drum solo from Kenny Aronoff anyway. It all finally paid off, but nothing came easy. (DeRiso)

4. 'Freedom's Road' (2007)

Chevy optioned "Our Country" and proceeded to run the song into the ground. But there was much more to 'Freedom's Road,' which boasted a rangy activism, as Mellencamp ruminated on the issues of forgiveness and tolerance. That actually gave this album a tenor far more in keeping with 1985's 'Scarecrow' – one of only two Mellencamp albums to go higher on the chart – than with the commercial’s flag-waving jingoism. (DeRiso)

3. 'Uh-Huh' (1983)

Mellencamp took the basic elements that made 'American Fool' a blockbuster success – that is, basic rock structures and a man-of-the-people approach – and applied them to the follow up, with the notable addition of two things: songs with far more narrative heft and, for the first time, his real last name. In both respects, 'Uh-Huh' marked an important turning point for Mellencamp, as he finally took control of his destiny. (DeRiso)

2. 'The Lonesome Jubilee' (1987)

'The Lonesome Jubilee' didn't sell as well as the blockbuster 'Scarecrow' from 1985, but it's actually the musical distillation of his resonant, rootsy new turn. Those elements, from the hammer dulcimer and accordion to the Dobro, might have given the album a jaunty flair – if the subject matter wasn't so, well, lonesome. This remarkably effective dichotomy plays out across an album that found Mellencamp bravely wrestling with the aftermath of his early '80s populism: the inevitable, though certainly not always easy, acceptance of our lot in life as middle age arrives. (DeRiso)

1. 'Scarecrow' (1985)

This artistic breakthrough didn't happen in a vacuum. Instead, Mellencamp and his band work-shopped for a month, playing old rock songs in order to fully absorb what worked back then – and how they could mold those timeless lessons into something new. Mellencamp then came up with a stark set of songs that chronicled a dimming of the long-held American dream, setting the stage for superstardom. But 'Scarecrow,' filled as it is with so many small-town characters struggling to find their way despite seemingly insurmountable odds, is more than the sum of its three Top 10 hits. In a way it's Mellencamp's story. (DeRiso)

Next: How John Mellencamp Celebrated His Roots With ‘Small Town’