There’s nothing like a celeb’s milestone birthday to serve as a giant reminder that we’re all getting older. Today, that honor is bestowed upon John Mellencamp, who turns 60.

With age comes wisdom, or so the saying goes, and in the case of my appreciation for Mellencamp’s music, that adage is definitely true. While I counted myself a fan in his John Cougar days (“Hurts So Good,” “Jack & Diane”), and for a time after he appended his real surname, Mellencamp, to his stage moniker, our paths diverged with the release of 1987’s The Lonesome Jubilee. His folkier, more homeground sound didn’t quite square with my mainstream pop tastes.

It wasn’t until I was in college several years later– in southern Indiana, fittingly — that I began to revisit what I’d previously skipped past, thanks to a friend who was a diehard Mellencamp fan. I really hadn’t given any of his music much time in those intervening years, so I was more than a little surprised to discover that I enjoyed The Lonesome Jubilee as much as I did. One of the album’s singles, “Check It Out,” is now an all-time favorite, earning a permanent spot on my list of perfect pop songs (a list that actually exists, albeit in imperfect form).

The fiddle, courtesy of Lisa Germano (who I grew to adore as an artist in her own right), and accordian parts really make the tune, though there’s no discounting the magic of Kenny Aronoff‘s drumming and Mike Wanchic’s ace guitar work. And Mellecamp’s lyrics — well, maybe it just took a few years for me to have a better understanding.

This live performance video of “Check It Out” hews pretty closely to the original album version, though we do get to see Mellencamp doing his best James Dean Brown at 2:40:

Purchase John Mellencamp – “Check It Out” via iTunes.