John Mellencamp and Meg Ryan: Secretly Dating

Jeffrey Ufberg/WireImage (Mellencamp), Ray Tamarra/Getty (Ryan)

"A little ditty 'bout John and Ryan…"

Rocker John "Cougar" Mellencamp and actress Meg Ryan, 49, are collaborating…on a romance.

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"They are indeed dating," a source tells the new issue of Us Weekly (on stands Wednesday). According to the insider, Mellencamp and the Sleepless in Seattle star were first spotted together in NYC in October.

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Though Mellencamp, 59, recently called it quits with Elaine Irwin Mellencamp, his wife of 18 years, a source tells Us that "Meg came into the picture much later — well after they decided to split."

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

More Song Stories entries »

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