The White House has swiftly responded after singer John Mellencamp openly criticized President Donald Trump’s decision regarding the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico.
During a performance in Holmdel, New Jersey on Saturday night, Mellencamp paused his show to ridicule Trump’s executive order to rename the “Gulf of Mexico” as the “Gulf of America.”
In a statement released on Monday, Davis Ingle, a White House spokesman, expressed dismissive sentiments through Fox News Digital. “No rational person is interested in the opinions of disconnected, woke Hollywood figures,” Ingle remarked.
As Mellencamp embarked on his “Dancing Words” Tour, he engaged the audience by singing the opening lines of his popular song “Pink Houses” before speaking directly to the crowd.
He sang, “Well, there’s people and more people/ What do they know, know, know?/ Go to work in some high rise/ And vacation down at the Gulf of Mexico,” and then paused, saying “Wait a minute,” as reported by USA Today.
While Mellencamp’s band kept playing, the musician said sarcastically, “The Gulf of Mexico? Is that right? It’s not the Gulf of America? What a stupid f–—-g idea.”
Mellencamp then picked right back up and finished performing “Pink Houses.”
Released in 1983, Mellencamp’s “Pink Houses” became one of his signature hits, reaching No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100.
While many listeners initially embraced it as a patriotic anthem, Mellencamp has said the song is actually a sharp commentary on the American dream, exploring themes of class, inequality and the gap between ideals and reality.
The song was inspired by Mellencamp spotting a man sitting outside a small pink house along an Indiana highway, an image that sparked the iconic chorus, “Ain’t that America.”