Songfacts®:

• In this sweetly nostalgic song, John Mellencamp recalls his time as a rambunctious teenager full of ambition and libido. It was a time when holding hands was a big deal, and dancing was everything. There's a life lesson in there: Laughing with friends and looking for love was what life was all about back then, and even after becoming rich and famous, Mellencamp learned that these teenage passions were still what mattered most.
• In the song, Mellencamp sings about dancing at a club called "Cherry Bomb." He made up the name but based it on the teen clubs in Indiana he frequented as a young man in the '60s, places like The Last Exit, The Scene, The Whiteland Barn, and The Sugar Shack. These were often located in the basements of churches, where, ironically, teenagers could do a bit of sinning.
  
  "You had young men and women rubbing up against each other, passionately," he said. "It was totally acceptable in the basement of that church because they were dancing, but try that behavior in 1966 on the streets, and they'd probably put you in jail."
• A cherry bomb is a small firecracker. Mellencamp chose the name because it sounds like an explosion of hormones, which was what was going on in the teen clubs.
• Much of the song is true-to-life, with a few details changes. Mellencamp grew up on the outskirts of town (Seymour, Indiana), but not in an eight-room farmhouse. The house had three rooms, and he lived in the basement with his two brothers. He and his friends made their own fun, so there was always something going on, even though they were out in the sticks. And he did get in a lot of fights, which he would do for the rush. He broke this habit when he lost one so bad he was unrecognizable the next day.
• In addition to Mellencamp, four other vocalists deliver lines in this song. In the second verse, his backup singer Crystal Taliefero sings "The winter days they last forever," followed by "And the weekends went by so quick" and "Went ridin' around this little country town," delivered by his bass player, Toby Myers, and guitarist, Mike Wanchic.
  
  In the next verse, "I hope that we're forgiven," sung by another female backing vocalist, Pat Peterson.
  
  Allowing guest vocalists to take lead lines is something Stevie Wonder did on "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life," but Mellencamp did it because he loved the way the male and female vocals wended their way through Sly And The Family Stone songs.
• To our ears, the first line of the chorus is "that's when a smoke was a smoke," which would make sense because Mellencamp is a lifelong smoker, and he could be waxing nostalgic about the unfiltered cigarettes he smoked in his youth. But in the printed lyric, the line is "that's when a sport was a sport."
  
  "My interpretation of the line, 'that's when a sport was a sport,' was the friendly term of endearment 'sport,' like, 'Hey, Sport,'" David Masciotra, author of Mellencamp: American Troubadour, said on the Songfacts Podcast. "So somebody that you could trust, somebody with whom you could have a feeling of camaraderie, kind of a small-town feeling of relatability and reliability."
• Mellencamp is a huge Bob Seger fan, so it's no surprise that he adapted a Seger lyric in "Cherry Bomb." In his 1976 song "Rock And Roll Never Forgets," Seger sings:
  
  So now sweet 16's turned 31
  You get to feelin' weary when the work days done
  
  Mellencamp sings:
  
  Seventeen has turned 35
  I'm surprised that we're still livin'
  
  Both ages were accurate: Seger really was 31 when his song was released, and Mellencamp really was 35.
• "Cherry Bomb" was the second single from Mellencamp's ninth album, The Lonesome Jubilee, following "Paper In Fire." The album marked a musical change in direction, with instruments like dobro, autoharp, and banjo high in the mix. "Cherry Bomb" is heavy on accordion and violin.
• The music video takes place in a few different settings, starting with Mellencamp hanging out by a jukebox as a young couple dance like they're about to fall in love. We also see John and his band performing on a beach, and lots of home video footage. The beach scenes are notable because Mellencamp seems to be having som much fun, countervailing his image as a sourpuss. The kids dancing in front of the jukebox are an interracial couple; Mellencamp played in an integrated band when he was young and felt it was important to portray a world where blacks and whites mingled without judgment. In his video for "Human Wheels," he shares a kiss with his backup singer Pat Peterson, a black woman.
• In the '00s, Mellencamp had a fan club called Club Cherry Bomb, and his official site was ClubCherryBomb.net. There were forums there where the Mellenheads (his fans) would gather.
• This isn't the first song with this title. In 1976, the pioneering all-girl rock group The Runaways released their "Cherry Bomb".