‘Hurts So Good’ is a song by American singer-songwriter John Mellencamp, then performing under the stage name "John Cougar". The song was a number two hit on the Billboard Hot 100 for the singer/songwriter. It was the first of three major hit singles from his 1982 album American Fool. The others were ‘Jack & Diane’ and ‘Hand to Hold On To,’ which were all released in 1982. The song was also a critical success with Mellencamp, winning the Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male at the 25th Grammy Awards on February 23, 1983.
‘Hurts So Good’ was written by Mellencamp and George Green, Mellencamp's childhood friend and occasional writing partner. The song was first conceived, Mellencamp claims, when he had uttered the phrase "hurt so good.” Mellencamp repeated the lines to Green, and they finished the song very quickly. In 2004, Mellencamp discussed the writing of ‘Hurts So Good’ in an interview with American Songwriter magazine: "George Green and I wrote that together. We exchanged lines back and forth between each other and laughed about it at the time. Then I went and picked up the guitar, and within seconds, I had those chords."
On his 2018 Plain Spoken DVD, Mellencamp talked about what inspired this song: "When I first started playing in rock bands, I didn't realize how crude and mean other fellas could be. How crude they were with women and how crude women were. That led me to write a song called 'Hurts So Good' because I was playing in these bars and I just could not believe the lows people would go to with each other. The thing that surprised me is that it fit my personality perfectly. I fit right in with all that."
The song hit number one on Billboard's Hot Tracks mainstream rock chart. It peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 on August 7, 1982, and, although it failed to make number one, it spent 16 weeks in the top 10, the longest time for any song in the 1980s. It was kept off the top spot by ‘Eye of the Tiger’ by Survivor. The song was listed at #83 on Billboard's Greatest Songs of All Time.
The single was also a hit in Canada reaching #3 on RPM magazine's Top 50 Singles chart. It reached number five in Australia and South Africa. Much of the video was filmed in Medora, Indiana, a small town located approximately 20 mi (30 km) southwest of Seymour, Indiana, where Mellencamp was born and raised.
Label – Riva
Songwriters – John Mellencamp, George Green
Producers – John Mellencamp, Don Gehman
SONG LYRICS
[Intro][Verse 1]
When I was a young boy
Said put away those young boy ways
Now that I'm getting older, so much older
I long for those young boy days
With a girl like you
With a girl like you
Lord knows there are things we can do, baby
Just me and you
Come on and make it a
[Chorus]
Hurt so good
Come on, baby, make it hurt so good
Sometimes love don't feel like it should
You make it hurt so good
[Verse 2]
You don't have to be so exciting
Just trying to give myself a little bit of fun, yeah
You always look so inviting
You ain't as green as you are young
Hey, baby, it's you
Come on, girl, now it's you
Sink your teeth right through my bones, baby
Let's see what we can do
Come on and make it a
[Chorus]
Hurt so good
Come on, baby, make it hurt so good
Sometimes love don't feel like it should
You make it
A-hurt so good
[Bridge]
I ain't talking no big deals
I ain't made no plans myself
I ain't talking no high heels
Maybe we could walk around all day long
Walk around all day long
Uh
[Chorus]
Hurt so good
Come on, baby, make it hurt so good
Sometimes love don't feel like it should
You make it hurt so good
Hurt so good (Come on baby, now)
Come on, baby, make it hurt so good
Sometimes love don't feel like it should
You make it hurt so good
[Outro]
Hey, hey