Mr. Happy Go Lucky

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Mr. Happy Go Lucky
Studio album by John Mellencamp
Released	September 10, 1996 (1996-09-10)
Recorded	January 1995 – June 1996
Studio	Belmont Mall (Belmont, Indiana)
Genre	Rock
Length	47:34
Label	Mercury
Producer	John Mellencamp, Mike Wanchic, Junior Vasquez
John Mellencamp chronology
Dance Naked (1994) Mr. Happy Go Lucky (1996) The Best That I Could Do 1978–1988 (1997)

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[1]
Entertainment Weekly	B−[2]
Q	[3]
Rolling Stone	[4]

Mr. Happy Go Lucky is the 14th album by American singer-songwriter and musician John Mellencamp. It was released on September 10, 1996. It was his first album released after his heart attack in 1994. Mellencamp's music on the album is said to reflect his brush with death. The album was recorded in Belmont, Indiana, in Mellencamp's Belmont Mall recording studio. The first single from the album, "Key West Intermezzo (I Saw You First)," peaked at No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and is his last Top 40 single in the United States to date. "Just Another Day" was the album's second single and stalled at No. 46 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Mellencamp told the Associated Press of his concept for Mr. Happy Go Lucky: "When we started making this record, I thought I'd marry the rhythm of black music of the '90s, which is rap, and the sounds of black blues music of the '30s and '40s. We'd have Robert Johnson-type guitar licks playing with this rap rhythm underneath it. It didn't always work out that way, but that's the place we started from."

An outtake from Mr. Happy Go Lucky, "All Night Talk Radio," was included on Mellencamp's 2017 album Sad Clowns & Hillbillies.