Jack & Diane Jack & Diane "Jack & Diane" is a 1982 hit rock song written and performed by American singer-songwriter John Mellencamp, then performing as "John Cougar." It appears on Mellencamp's album "American Fool". It was chosen by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) as one of the Songs of the Century. The single spent four weeks at number one on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in 1982, and is Mellencamp's most successful hit single. According to Mellencamp, "Jack & Diane" was based on the 1962 Tennessee Williams film "Sweet Bird of Youth". He said of recording the song: "'Jack & Diane'
The Man Who Had No Idea others." John Clute, however, found it to be "unaccountably genial and without formal bite", such that its "potentially formidable idea gradually declines into doodle". In a 1984 interview, Disch described it as "a story about what our social relationships are really like" and "a springboard to the subject of what do we talk about when we talk about anything. What are all these social interactions "about"? What is the "subject" of them?" The Man Who Had No Idea "The Man Who Had No Idea" is a 1978 science fiction story by Thomas M. Disch. It was first published in "The