Are John Mellencamp and Meg Ryan still an item? Not that I care in the least, but I’m grasping for some tangential reason to feature a song of his that’s been sitting on my TiVo for several weeks.

In early December, Mellencamp appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman and performed “Save Some Time To Dream,” the lead track on the singer-songwriter’s 21st studio album, No Better Than This. Produced by T-Bone Burnett, the set is a back-to-basics affair recorded in mono on a portable tape deck, with just a single microphone capturing Mellencamp and his band at historic locations across the country.

“[Save Some Time To Dream] is about individual freedom and thought, and controlling our own lives,” says Mellencamp, who performed the song during his 2009 summer tour with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson on solo acoustic guitar. Over a year later, he brought that same intimate vibe to the stage of the Ed Sullivan Theater.

Letterman clearly holds Mellencamp in high regard (both Indiana sons, after all), and this December performance of “Save Some Time To Dream” clearly resonated with the talk-show host as you’ll see at the end of the clip. “Did I bring a tear to your eye?” Mellencamp asks.

Maybe you lost track of John Mellencamp after “Key West Intermezzo (I Saw You First)” or as far back as “Jack & Diane,” but “Save Some Time To Dream” is a wonderful addition to his discography — a great, simple song with a great, simple message. And that’s reason enough that it should be heard now:

Purchase John Mellencamp – “Save Some Time To Dream” via iTunes, Amazon MP3.