A Biography (1978) 


 


  1. Born Reckless
  2. Factory
  3. Night Slumming
  4. Taxi Dancer
  5. I Need a Lover
  6. Alley of the Angels
  7. High C Cherrie
  8. Where the Sidewalk Ends
  9. Let Them Run Your Lives
  10.Goodnight
  11.I Need a Lover

 

By the time A Biography was recorded in 1977, John Mellencamp—still going by the stage-managed alias “John Cougar”—had already endured two lackluster commercial efforts. His debut, The Chestnut Street Incident, and its intended follow-up, The Kid Inside, failed to leave much of an impression, prompting his label to shelve this third release in the United States entirely. It was issued only in the U.K., where it quietly vanished into obscurity, and for many years it remained the missing piece in Mellencamp’s early catalogue.

Ironically, A Biography is easily the strongest of the so-called “lost years.” Though still far from the confident, heartland rock sound that would come to define his later work, the album hints for the first time at a real identity forming behind the marketing image. The production remains slick and dated in places, and Mellencamp’s delivery can veer toward grating—with a snarling, youthful petulance that hadn’t yet matured into conviction. But unlike the flat imitation of his debut or the muddled songwriting of The Kid Inside, this album occasionally connects.

The comparisons to early Springsteen are inevitable—and not entirely unfair. Mellencamp leans heavily on working-class imagery, romanticized rebellion, and angst-laced storytelling. But while the shadow of Born to Run looms large, there are moments when his own voice begins to break through.

One such moment is Taxi Dancer, a stripped-down ballad that stands as the first genuinely moving song of Mellencamp’s career. It’s tender and melancholic in a way that few of his early recordings even attempted. So much so that Mellencamp saw fit to re-record it for his next album, John Cougar. Still, the version presented here—more intimate and raw—is arguably superior, offering a glimpse of the emotional honesty he would later refine.

I Need a Lover, the album’s other standout, would also get a second life on John Cougar and later find commercial success. Oddly, it’s the exact same recording in both cases—ambitious, catchy, and weighed down slightly by its overextended arrangement and heavy production. It remains a minor triumph, but one that feels like it belonged on a different, more assured record. Elsewhere, the material ranges from mildly engaging to forgettable. The attitude is there, but the songwriting often lags behind. Mellencamp still sounds like a young man trying to prove something—mostly by volume and attitude. There’s a lot of posturing and little subtlety, but that’s often the case in the early chapters of any artist’s story.

A Biography wasn’t rediscovered in earnest until the mid-2000s, when it resurfaced alongside Mellencamp’s other early albums in reissue form. He’s never been especially fond of his early catalogue, and while that criticism is not entirely unwarranted, A Biography is the one exception where you can start to see the pieces coming together. There’s promise here—clumsy, brash, and occasionally overwrought, but promise all the same.

It’s not a great album, but it’s the first one that shows he might someday make one.

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