The Album That Changed John Mellencamp's Life

In the October 1994 edition of Musician magazine, 57 musicians were asked to pick the album that changed their life. John selected Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited," and in honor of John performing tonight in Los Angeles at the MusiCares Dylan tribute show, I am posting John's 1994 comment on this landmark album below. Enjoy.

That's easy -- HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED by Bob Dylan. To this day I'd say it's the best record ever made. It combined folk and rock, you could dance to it but the lyrics were listenable and had a kind of intelligence that was lacking in pop music. In an era when hit songs were like 1:58, "Like a Rolling Stone" was six minutes long, broke all the rules and crossed the boundaries. I was about 14, I guess. I remember riding around in this souped-up '65 Valiant with this guy who was five years older, and he had a tape of that record; we used to blast the shit out of it. Later, when I realized what I wanted to do in music, it became my standard for excellence. I'd finish my records and go, "Nope, didn't make it." You always hope you can make a record like that, even though you know deep inside you never could.