Human Wheels is the twelfth studio album by American singer-songwriter John Mellencamp. Released on Mercury Records on September 7, 1993, it peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard 200. The single "What If I Came Knocking" was Mellencamp's last No. 1 single on the Album Rock Tracks chart, staying atop for two weeks in the summer of 1993. The album has been certified Platinum by the RIAA for sales of 1,000,000 copies. Entertainment Weekly gave the record an "A" rating, stating: "John Mellencamp's last album was more or less straight-ahead rock, but there's something dark and unshaven about his new one, 'Human Wheels.' Oddball instruments — pennywhistles, mandolins — pop up like disordered wraiths over gritty drum tracks that sound like they were recorded in a cluttered cellar. Mellencamp himself mutters and snarls in a voice of tangled complexity, worrying his way through songs about trouble." Spin Magazine named Human Wheels the fifth best album of 1993. Background The title track was borne out of a poem Mellencamp's friend George Green wrote as a eulogy he delivered at the grave site upon the death of his grandfather. "He had no intention of using it as a song," Mellencamp said in a 2008 interview with the Bloomington Herald Times. "He had me read it and I said, 'These are the best lyrics you ever wrote.' He said, 'They're not lyrics' and I said, 'I can make them lyrics.' I took it and kind of cut it up and wrote the chorus." Mellencamp gave additional insight into the writing process of "Human Wheels" in a 2004 American Songwriter interview, saying: "I wrote that song without a guitar or anything. I just sang that melody. I figured out the cadence in my head, and then I went to my guitar to figure out the chords." "To me, this record is very urban," Mellencamp told Billboard Magazine's Craig Rosen in a July 3, 1993 story. "We had a lot of discussions about the rhythm and blues music of the day. We explored what a lot of these current bands are doing—these young black bands that are doing more than just sampling. "The rhythms in songs like 'Birmingham' or 'French Shoes' or 'Junior' are R&B, but to me R&B is the basic beat that propels the human body. Sly & the Family Stone also deserve a tip of hat here, because as a kid when