The Kid Inside is the sixth studio album by American singer-songwriter John Cougar.

It was recorded in 1977 for MCA Records and was intended to be the follow-up to his debut album Chestnut Street Incident, but MCA declined to release the album and dropped John Cougar Mellencamp from the label.

The recordings remained unreleased until 1983 when Tony Defries, Mellencamp's former manager, released the album on his own MainMan label.

[4] Defries' decision to release The Kid Inside in early 1983 confused many fans and even some journalists who thought it was the follow-up to American Fool, when it was really already six years old.

The true follow-up to American Fool was Uh-Huh, and it was released in October 1983.