DEF: John Cougar “Hand To Hold On To”

Anyone who has followed the career of Indiana-born musician John Mellencamp knows that he has morphed through a couple of name changes throughout that career. He started as John Cougar, then went by John Cougar Mellencamp, and then switched to just John Mellencamp, hitting the Top 40 multiple times with each name.

Mellencamp reached the Top 40 with six of the seven songs he placed on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart as John Cougar, and on this date in 1983, the last of those six songs before his first name change — “Hand To Hold On To” — climbed to a peak position of number 19, where it would spend two weeks. Today, “Hand To Hold On To” by John Cougar is the Daily Eighties Flashback.