John Mellencamp Songs - Peaceful World Lyrics

John Mellencamp - Peaceful World

John Mellencamp - Peaceful World Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: Cuttin' Heads
Released: 2001

Peaceful World Lyrics

Come on baby take a ride with me
I'm up from Indiana down to Tennessee
Everything is as cool as can be
In a Peaceful World

People know this world is a wreck
We're sick and tired of being politically correct
If I see through it now but I didn't at first
The hypocrites made it worse and worse
Lookin' down their noses at what people say
These are just words and words are okay
It's what you do and not what you say
If you're not part of the future then get out of the way

Come on baby take a ride with me
I'm up from Indiana down to Tennessee
Everything is cool as can be
In a peaceful world

Racism lives in the USA today
Better get hip to what Martin Luther King had to say
I don't want my kids being brought up this way
Hatred to each other is not okay
Well I'm not a preacher just a singer son
But I can see more work to be done
It's what you do and not what you say
If you're not part of the future then get out of the way

Come on baby take a ride with me
I'm up from Indiana down to Tennessee
Everything is cool as can be
In a peaceful world

The money's good and the work is okay
Looks like everything is rollin our way
"Til you gotta look the devil in the eye
You know that bastard's one big lie
So be careful with your heart and what you love
Make sure that it was sent from above
It's what you do and not what you say
If you're not part of the future then get out of the way

Come on baby take a ride with me
I'm up from Indiana down to Tennessee
Everything is cool as can be
In a peaceful world

Lay back the top and ride with me
I'm up from Indiana down to Tennessee
Everything is cool as can be
In a peaceful world

Hey yeah
Hey yeah
Hey yeah
Hey yeah

Writer/s: MELLENCAMP, JOHN
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Peaceful World Song Chart

This is a duet with the female Soul singer India.Arie, whose career was just getting started. She flew to Bloomington, Indiana to record this with Mellencamp after appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show in Chicago to promote her first album, Acoustic Soul.

The song deals with issues of race. Mellencamp has often brought up the subject, including in lyrics about a black man in "Pink Houses," and a white girl dancing with a black man in the video for "Cherry Bomb." In "Peaceful World," the message is much more overt, as India.Arie sings: "Racism lives in the US today."

The song was first played during the 2001 Indy 500 in a commercial for the Indy Racing League (IRL). India.Arie was not on the version in the commercial.

It became the official song of the Indy Racing League. Mellencamp's wife, model Elaine Irwin-Mellencamp, was a spokeswoman for the racing league.

This was released about a month before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in America. With members of his band singing some of the lines with him, Mellencamp performed the song at the 2001 "Concert For New York," a benefit for victims of the World Trade Center disaster. The song fit the mood of the country at the time, as it explores some of the problems America faces in the verses but resolves with a hopeful chorus: "Everything is cool as can be in a peaceful world."

Mellencamp contributed a live, acoustic version of this to the Columbia Records compilation CD God Bless America, which was released as a benefit for the Twin Towers Fund.

The song got decent airplay, but could only bubble under on the Hot 100, peaking at #104. Mellencamp attributed this poor chart showing to a lack of promotion by his label, Columbia Records, and to a bias against older artists in the industry. In the '80s, most of Mellencamp's singles became at least minor hits, but by the '00s he found himself out of favor in the industry, even though he felt he was doing some of his best work. For his 2006 single "Our Country," he allowed the song to be used in a car commercial as a way of getting it heard, since he knew radio stations would ignore it.