Jack & Diane Mellencamp and Don Gehman (with Gehman also engineering), and backing Mellencamp were guitarists/backing vocalists Mick Ronson, Mike Wanchic, Larry Crane, drummer Kenny Aronoff, bassist/backing vocalist Robert Frank, and keyboardist Eric Rosser. In 1982, producer and guitarist Mick Ronson worked with Mellencamp on his "American Fool" album, and in particular on "Jack & Diane." In a 2008 interview with "Classic Rock" magazine, Mellencamp recalled: Mick was very instrumental in helping me arrange that song, as I'd thrown it on the junk heap. Ronson came down and played on three or four tracks and worked on the "American Fool" record for four
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