John Mellencamp got married at 18 and had his first child a short time later. He knew the vagaries of young romance and fear of commitment quite well, which certainly qualified him to write this song about a couple deeply in love, with the guy unsure what to do and the girl reassuring him. Mellencamp, though, is an observational songwriter and hardly ever writes about himself. "I see things that other people don't see," he said in his Plain Spoken DVD. "I pay attention to detail. That's where my songs come from. They're not about me." This method of songwriting proved very successful and comes into play on this song: There was probably a time when your heart was beating like thunder, etching a memory so powerful you can remember the song that was playing on the radio.
This song came during a transitional period for Mellencamp, after his first hit but before his star turn. In 1978, "I Need A Lover," a song from his second album, took off in Australia, giving him a leg up on the other young rockers he was competing against. From there, he set out to create hits, which he felt was essential to his survival - he was a strong-willed, hard-headed country boy who didn't get along with his record label and most industry folks, so unless he could become invaluable, he wasn't going to make it. "Ain't Even Done with the Night" came from his quest to make hit pop songs, and even thought 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. It helped keep him on the charts until his breakthrough fifth album, American Fool, with the hits "Hurts So Good" and "Jack & Diane." After that, he no longer had to care even a little what people think. His songs that followed are the ones he considers his best work.
This song falls smack in the middle of the "John Cougar" years - the name he used from 1979-1983; before that he was "Johnny Cougar." In 1983 he started using "John Cougar Mellencamp," then in 1990 just John Mellencamp.
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