John Mellencamp wants to clarify something, and this time it's not that he's dropping or reinstituting his middle name, Cougar, once again. Last week, Mellencamp released a new song, 'Jena,' that deals lyrically a hate crime case in which six African-American high school students were charged with attempted murder in the beating of a white student, that put the small town of Jena, LA, on the map and in the news recently. The song's chorus finds the veteran rocker repeatedly singing, "Oh oh oh Jena, take your nooses down." Mellencamp, who often writes proudly about his small town mentality, does not intend for the song to be an accusation of the specific people involved in the Jena incidents; it's a protest song about racism in this country at large.

This past weekend at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco, Mellencamp joined Neko Case during T. Bone Burnett's set for a trio of tunes, including the Jena tune. He introduced the song with a disclaimer. "A songwriter's job is to report what he sees," he said. "I'm not indicting anyone; I'm just saying this is what happened down there."

Jena Mayor Murphy R. McMillan slammed the tune, the video for which is on Mellencamp's web site. "The town of Jena has for months been mischaracterized in the media and portrayed as the epicenter of hatred, racism and a place where justice is denied," he said. "However, the Mellencamp video is so inflammatory, so defamatory, that a line has been crossed and enough is enough."

A statement from Mellencamp said, "The song is not written as an indictment of the people of Jena but, rather, as a condemnation of racism."