Mellencamp Slams Gulf Rename During Pink Houses Performance
On his Dancing Words Tour, John Mellencamp paused during “Pink Houses” to mock the proposed renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, telling the crowd, “It’s the Gulf of Mexico… (expletive) the Gulf of America,” before continuing the song. The moment underscores his long-standing view that the track is an anti-American critique of the American dream and social inequality, not a celebratory anthem, a nuance he has stressed in past interviews.