John Mellencamp's Son Starts Facebook Group to Convince Dad to Stop Smoking

John Mellencamp's son Speck has taken to Facebook in an effort to convince his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame father to quit smoking. "I made a deal with my dad that if I get a 1,000,000 to join this group he will quit smoking," Speck writes on the Facebook group page. That means it'll only take a platinum plaque's worth of fellow Facebookers to get Mellencamp to ditch the nicotine and live a healthier lifestyle. It's been written that Mellencamp used to smoke four packs a day, and while he's since cut down that number significantly, he remains a smoker to this day.

So far, Speck has only recruited around 13,000 friends and Mellencamp fans to convince Johnny Cougar to stop smoking, but the number continues to leap as this grassroots movement spreads. People are using the group's Wall to post advice on how to quit smoking and lend support for this good cause. So we implore the Rolling Stone readers and all our friends over on our RS Facebook page to join this group today and help Speck get his pops to quit smoking.

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Song Stories

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell | 1974

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.

More Song Stories entries »

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