John Prine: C or D? (plus RFI: new album)

Classic. From here to there up, down and sideways.

xpost

The first record is a masterpiece, and next two are very fine. In Spite Of Ourselves (the duet record) is also excellent.

I picked up the new one yesterday and its...about what you'd expect if you've heard the last few things he's done. It's pretty much just straightforward PrineRock. Lots of roots flourishes and pretty straightforward lyrics. I wouldn't really reccomend buying it unless you already have pretty much all his other stuff. This probably sounds like a slam, but it's not, I LIKE the record, but it's not sounding like an essential album to me right now.

I can't relate to whoever said they had a problem with his voice. His voice is what makes it for me, even when the songs are a little shaky, as they have been lately. Seeing him on the 21st here in Seattle, couldn't be more excited.

P.S. The "Anti-War" song on the new album, predictably, is awful awful awful.

"But your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more.
We're already overcrowded
From your dirty little war.
Now Jesus don't like killin'
No matter what the reason's for,
And your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more."

I may get the '90s album produced by the Heartbreaker next.

I have a weird affection for Common Sense, too. Esp. "Saddle in the Rain."
-- Huk-L (handsomishbo...), April 27th, 2005.

Lately is a word I seldom use (correctly).

"The waitress yelled at me. So did the food."

finally got The Missing Years. Not at the level of the s/t or Storm Windows, but the production glitz (John Mellencamp co-write) suits him.

He also co-wrote Mellencamp's "Jackie O" on the great great great Uh Huh.

So you went to a party with Jacqueline Onassis
If you're so smart, girl, why don't you wear glasses
So you can see what you're doin' to me

c

The one from a year or two back, Fair and Square? Outstanding. Has held up, gets deeper every time I've listened since the week it came out.

so are any of the eighties albums worth owning in their entirety? I heard "Maureen, Maureen," liked it a lot.

I think German Afternoons is worth owning. It's got one of his most fun songs - "Let's Talk Dirty in Hawaiian". I like Aimless Love too, it's got a great singalong about a family falling to the bottom of a bottomless lake. Oh and that's the album with "Maureen, Maureen" on it.

I've acquired more and more, Sweet Revenge the latest. "Blue Umbrella" and "A Good Time" are as funny and sharp as songwriting get.

he's also prime Sunday morning music.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5174X5AJ9PL.jpg

Perfect record.

...but really sad at times.

I find a certain comfort in that, but my wife simply has to reject Prine when she's not in the right mood.

Nobody's gonna say a bad word about the guy? Fine. Let me do it.

I can't do it.

He's too awesome. Nobody can do more with three chords and a two-note melody. The Missing Years and the Great Days comp plus the debut just about did it for me for a decade and a half, but lately I'm feeling the need to own 'em all in their entirety.

(Even "Let's Talk Dirty in Hawaiian" -- not my favorite of his songs, particularly as he misses an opportunity to use the best pun ever: "lack-o-nookie" as a Hawaiian word...)

love this guy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5axlwCBXC8

(did anyone ever see daddy and them? is it terrible?)

better than bob dylan

THERE I SAID IT

It may have been the Nanci Griffith duet version of "Speed of the Sound of Loneliness" that finally made me notice him, but after seeing him with his great small band, and hearing various live albums and reissues from his independent label, I would pay whatever to see him play anywhere.

When I did see him, it was a high ticket price benefit for M.D. Anderson (where he underwent cancer treatment). I was in tears several times throughout the evening. "Sam Stone" in particular.

here's a version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tafy0RVXNOo&feature=related

^

love John Prine so much. ..

actually had to *leave* his concert -- after TWO hours -- this last march because, if I didn't, I would miss the last train (John played a concert at the high school suburb where he grew up. Maywood. awesome show. John talked and talked and talked. but what great stories!! the GREATEST stories. basically, a history of the evolution of suburban Chicago. and i am not even talking about the songs, I am talking about his introductions and his stories and perspective on the whole weird history, and his rise to fame, and his relationship with Roger McGruinn ... geez, but yeah, at a certain point, after 2+ hours, I had to check out .. I needed to catch the last train back from Maywood into Chicago, else I'dve been stranded ... John Prine, I love you man

this guy is really good at song titles
"the oldest baby in the world"
"he was in heaven before he died"
"aw heck"
etc.

also "hello in there" has got to be one of the most depressing songs

i'm only listening to the s/t right now. i think maybe i should gradually make my way chronologically through his oeuvre, or at least the classic years.

so this local bar has had an annual John Prine singalong for years and years now, and I finally made it down for the first time in like a decade. this guy has so many hidden gems... "Talk Dirty In Hawaiian" and "Unwed Mothers" and "The Speed Of The Sound Of Loneliness" all blew me away. I guess I need more than the perfunctory Prime Prine LP.

I have a vivid memory of watching some film in elementary school in the 70's and it was about how old people are people too and we should be nice to them, and the theme music was "Hello In There".

He's one of those rare songwriters (like Richard Thompson?) hampered by being too good for too long. Where do you start? Where do you *stop*? I can see why Prine may be an imposing rabbit hole.

aren't those from his mid eighties albums? The only ones I don't own.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_82jpa5qq40

enjoying the hell out of this beat-up Sweet Revenge LP right now

gonna check out the duets album next... I have all the 70's LPs now.

Happy birthday, dude!

hello in there is killing me tonight

He's incredible

New album out April 13!

woah, gorgeous song!

"Egg & Daughter Nite, Lincoln Nebraska, 1967 (Crazy Bone)"

I don't know how indelible it will turn out to be, but parts of the new album sound really nice.

Summer's End is a new classic, either way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDpZCZPMRJ8

this is a... remarkable song https://open.spotify.com/track/1k9khuqqY0wHE5IYEyK791?si=DX6tG-sPTeCyNo_wYsVcLg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXbEFTv9zr0

I gotta say it's all about Egg & Daughter Nite
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3eMuBJL6C8

I really like this album. “Lonesome Friends of Science” is great.

Documentary on the way:

https://pitchfork.com/news/new-john-prine-documentary-announced/

classic. just so, so classic

just re-listening to him for the first time in a while cuz i'm seeing him this weekend and had forgotten how many amazing songs he has

Definitely a songwriter I think people erroneously take for granted simply for being so good for so long.

The Tree of Forgiveness was good, sometimes great, way better than average.

Whenever I pick up a guitar (which becomes more and more rare each day), I always end up finger-picking "In Spite Of Ourselves". Such a classic.

This new tune is indebted to him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d89fe_p4gX4

i hadnt read this jayson greene piece before - https://pitchfork.com/features/overtones/life-death-and-john-prine/

Sorry to hear you’re going through this Alex. As a two time cancer survivor I want you to know that I’m rootin’ for you. I watch Jeopardy twice a day & I look forward to seeing you on there for many years to come. Against all odds you’re the big door prize. Your friend John Prine https://t.co/0I6tAywSPL

— John Prine (@JohnPrineMusic) March 7, 2019

My covers version of Prime Prine.

In a bad way

An update on John pic.twitter.com/fPQbv0tLyB

— John Prine (@JohnPrineMusic) March 29, 2020

ugh

:(

Oh, God. This is one I've been really scared of. When I think of the musicians who mean the most to me personally, John Prine is right up at the top of the list.

oh no

We were listening to him today before we even knew.

Fucking hell. Gonna play Lake Marie and hope for the best.

fuck

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJPvc5vvKY4

(that's Joan Baez btw)

Really hopes he pulls through OK. He's got some seriously underlying health issues. Didn't his wife test positive, too?

Some better news:

I have recovered from Covid-19. We are humbled by the outpouring of love for me and John and our precious family. He is stabile. Please continue to send your amazing Love and prayers. Sing his songs. Stay home and wash hands. John loves you. I love you

— Fiona Whelan Prine (@FionaPrine) March 30, 2020

Yeah, but follow-up: Country music legend John Prine is not improving, his wife Fiona Prine said on Monday. In a previous update on the singer's health, Fiona said Prine is in "stable" condition, which she noted was not the same as improving. Fiona tested positive for the coronavirus last week and has since recovered, but Prine was hospitalized after he began showing symptoms of COVID-19.
from https://popculture.com/country-music/2020/03/30/john-prine-wife-fiona-clarifies-not-improving-stable-condition-update/

Well shit.

Super sad about this, though obviously it was telegraphed by the last week or so. I'm glad I got to see him at Bonnaroo last year, it was a lovely show. The whole mostly very young crowd just adored him.

R.I.P. to a for real American poet and all that.

fuck this shit

FUCK.

This is fucking brutal.

goddamn it all to fuck

When I woke up this mornin'
Things were lookin' bad

and now it's worse

Oh God, this is the worst.

RIP

I have all kinds of things I want to say about him and how much he means to me, but I'm too gutted by this to write anything right now.

i dont know if it was this or some other or no other thread but i thought id posted before, maybe not

the first guitar i ever picked up (found it under the stairs in a saturday morning foray through wondrously exciting boxes of radio and camera and other such mysteriously adult equipmentwas, according to herself, given to my mother by some fella called john prime after he'd played at a london venue she worked in before we were born.

john prime was nothing to me, and seeing as i was oh say seven or eight it never really occurred to me to ask then why a fella would give a pretty young barmaid a guitar in any circumstances.

some cousin or other got the guitar at some stage, years before i ever picked one up to learn to actually do anything with it.

the name always stuck with me tho. john prime. never heard of him but thats a good name.

she was gone before i ever really heard of him again, before that kristofferson live version of hello in there got under my skin, before bonnie raitt lamented her cowboy, before i ever had reason to look up some singer dude who played london once in the seventies who mum seemed very impressed by having met.

maybe id have asked her morr about how he came to give her that guitar. maybe not.

we'll never know now.

Prine & Withers in the same week is too fucking much.

My dad was always playing the hay bale album and Common Sense in his truck when I was little. I remember the music itself basically doing nothing for me, but the lyrics had me interested. When I was 13 I lifted the "leaning on a horsehead cane" line from "Come Back to Us Barbara Lewis Hare Krishna Beauregard" and put it into one of my own dumb band's songs.

And by the way, speaking of Hare Krishnas, I don't get why they chant "Hare Krishna" when "Come Back to Us Barbara Lewis Hare Krishna Beauregard" is so much better and probably so much more pleasing to Krishna, too.

Yeah, two of the all time greats lost within a week.

Passed up a chance to see Prine only a year ago due to time/money constraints, but still kicking myself hard now.

RIP.

jamming Sweet Revenge and getting drunk, what a talent

my favorite of his

He released no terrible albums

.

I have the s/t and SW on LP, will blast both tonight.

errr SR

Jesus fuck, Adam Schlesinger, Bill Withers, Hal Willner and now JOHN PRINE, and three of them because of that shitty virus. Goddammit.

i feel like between Charles Portis & John Prine we have lost some true magic

i came to him very late, within the last year or so & saw him live for the first time just last year... god what a gift he gave us

My dad used love to to sing & play “Please Don’t Bury Me” to us as little kids, only in hindsight did I realize it’s kind of a weird tune to sing to your kids, but we turned out fine I guess. Glad I finally got to take my pop to see Prine last year. That tour seemed like a victory lap, I’m glad he got to get out like that again, he was clearly having the time of his life playing those shows.

i’m so sad

I came to him via “angel from Montgomery” via Dave Matthews via a college friend
Rip

I never got to see him in person either, despite having chances.

A neat thing about said chances though was that when he got cancer, he was treated at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. After he recovered, every time he came through town, he donated the proceeds from those shows to back to them.

Michael Hurley better be staying the fuck home, that's all I gotta say rn

Sorry to hear you’re going through this Alex. As a two time cancer survivor I want you to know that I’m rootin’ for you. I watch Jeopardy twice a day & I look forward to seeing you on there for many years to come. Against all odds you’re the big door prize. Your friend John Prine

A Message from Alex Trebek: pic.twitter.com/LbxcIyeTCF

— Jeopardy! (@Jeopardy) March 6, 2019

"Lonesome Friend of Science" (what a title!) is as sharp as anything in the last thirty years.

"Knockin' on Your Screen Door" is so beautiful, such a perfect balance of funny and bittersweet. "I can see your back porch, if I close my eyes now/ I can hear the train tracks, through the laundry on the line."

And I've always thought "No Ordinary Blue" was oddly overlooked; it's one of the best songs about depression I know.

She said,
"What were you thinkin?"
"Just a-wonderin',
is it something that I did?"
I said, "It's nothing,
just something
I picked up as a kid."

The Tree of Forgiveness is as good as anything he’s ever done, and one of my favorite albums of the last decade.

aw

Egg & Daughter Night feels like a much older song

"Lonesome Friend of Science" (what a title!) is as sharp as anything in the last thirty years.

Yeah, love that one. "I don't live here anyway."

I sent that song to my dad the first time I heard it, I knew he'd like it. I was right.

much like with Withers it's uncanny how fully formed and simply impactful his songs were right out the gate, fuck.

RIP

much like with Withers it's uncanny how fully formed and simply impactful his songs were right out the gate, fuck.

― brechtian social distancing (Simon H.), Tuesday, April 7, 2020 11:29 PM

Like Withers, he'd already lived some life before the rest of us heard him.

I can't think of a better metaphorical job for Prine to have had than mailman.

Lots of tears at the house tonight. Tried to sing this a few times .& failed. https://youtu.be/F0t7bBwtwwI

RIP, you funny perfect little man.

I’m playing Lake Marie on repeat.

«Ah baby, we gotta go now».

fucking hell, and bolsonaro and johnson are alive. disgusting.

I've mostly known and loved his songs through famous versions by other singers, mostly female singers, as well as his duets with Iris Dement. To expand on what Simon H said, I think what always struck me about them is their empathy and their literary sense of story, scene, character. The imagery in Angel from Montgomery for instance: The subsiding clapboard house, the disarrayed kitchen. Somehow so detailed in how its depiction between the lines. The torn, faded, rodeo poster still flapping on a telegraph pole, long after it's left town. The voice of the woman in it, worn and hopeful: "just give me one thing, that I can hold on to."

I think what JF says is right, and its why so many songs by lifelong professional musicians leaves me cold. Songs that are only a reflection on the other side of fame. Or worse, about 'fame' or love and heartache shorn of contextual specificity into a platitudes. I think the wit and empathy in prine definitely emanates from living in the world. Its probably just a weakness of mine, a fetishism for the voice of 'experience,' for images of life seen elsewhere and shaped into something resonant. Its why so many of his songs are so funny ("I caught him once, and he was sniffin' my undies"), right? They have the ring of something torn from observation. Sad that voice is gone.

I put on "When I Get to Heaven" this morning, with the bit about vodka and ginger ale and forgiveness

My musical friends and I are participating in a Facebook "quarantine covers" group. When he first got sick, I posted a mandolin cover of "Speed of the Sound of Loneliness" - I'm glad I did it then, because it'll be a while before I feel up to doing a Prine song either online or live.

Also I admire ilx's stubborn perversity in having RIP threads for people who are alive, while confining discussion of a dead artist to a C or D thread

a wish is a fine thing in these hard times

don't know how well known this is but I was amazed to learn that part of his break into the biz was this review by Roger Ebert, who was supposedly compelled to write it after just happening to see him play out one night. On top of how remarkable that story is, it's amazing to read about that first album's worth of classic songs all so fully formed and affecting when he was still working his day job.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/2020/4/7/21199183/john-prine-dead-review-first-roger-ebert-sun-times-1970-fifth-peg

RIP.

saw kristoffersons liner notes from the first album too, a nice heartfelt run through of kris, post-gug himself, being dragged across town to see this guy after the bar hed played was closed and sitting there amidst upturned chairs for two dozen songs

xpost I was coming here to post just that Ebert piece.

After all the health problems this man battled and kept on singing and playing, and this shitty virus takes him out when he had so many great songs in him. Fuck this.

If I was to try the music of John Prine, knowing that smart lyrics are not something I care very much about, which album should I try? Which one has the most interesting music, in other words? Did he ever work with a producer who tried to get him out of “rootsy” country-folk-singer-songwriter land?

Sweet Revenge has some of the sympathetic musical settings, thanks to Arif Mardin.

I just compared that album elsewhere to Shotgun Willie.

unperson, the Howie Epstein-produced albums are far from staid too if uneven. I know you're a Petty and the Heartbreakers fan.

Agree that Sweet Revenge is your best bet, but really if you're not into lyrics or "rootsy"/songwriter sonics then JP just might not be your bag

I hate to say it but that's pretty much otm. Prine epitomizes "rootsy singer-songwriter known for his lyrics." Maybe "In Spite of Ourselves" for the novelty of the excellent duet partners?

I think Common Sense is a great album, though I get the impression that might be a minority opinion. But yeah, if you're not into lyrics, John Prine might not be for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZDuoH_g8Gw

Ebert remained a fan--I recall a little 'last album I bought' blurb in Blender of all places wherein Ebert mentioned he'd finally replaced his Prine vinyl with CDs, and that he was "America's Greatest Living Songwriter".

could also just listen to bonnie raitt sing angel from montgomery, kris and joan sing hello in there

Is there a song about going for some form of martial arts lessons and being left one armed by the huge japanese teacher so who's going to pick a fight with him?
Have been having this crop up on my walkman for ages and assuming its him . Cos it sounds like some of his other work musicall y and vocally I think.

Awesome poster my friend was commissioned to make for Prine a few years ago:

https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/92505802_3103574356376258_6935745160764456960_o.jpg?_nc_cat=107&_nc_sid=110474&_nc_ohc=QXmekrmJ9mIAX8bJ8hH&_nc_ht=scontent-ort2-1.xx&oh=5bbfd841c82e7ef578ac2c870922f204&oe=5EB2CBFB

That's the house Prine grew up in. It's about a mile west of where I live.

Straight up bawling while listening to "Hello in There" and "Boundless Love" today.

I have a vivid memory of seeing an educational film in elementary school when I was in 5th grade (1976-77), that used that song to teach us younguns about how old people are people too

(re: "Hello In There")

xp that’s townes van zandt’s “talkin karate blues”

Farewell to an idea.

Alfred, I don't always agree with your opinions, but your writing is very, very good and I always feel I learn something when I read it.

Looking at all the John Prine quotations that people have been posting online, it's amazing how many of them are from his last album. How rare is that? A late-career album so good that when people think John Prine, those songs come to mind just as readily as "Hello in There" or "Angel from Montgomery."

He was having one of those moments, kind of like Roy Orbison had at the (also unexpected) end of his career where everyone woke up and realized he was amazing.

Right thanks seems about as odd from TVZ compared to his other stuff. Got a lot of him turning up on there too.

I think the John Prine resurgence (as such) began with "In Spite of Ourselves," his first comeback record. His most recent, final record was his first album of original material in, what, 15 years? So that also gave it a certain "comeback" stature. Then again, I remember as a younger guy seeing ads for "The Missing Years" all over magazines in the early '90s, so maybe that was his first "comeback." Of course, the key is that (health battles aside) Prine never really went anywhere, and unlike, say, Dylan, there was no dramatic return to form, because there was never really a dip.

He'd become a real hip name to drop in Americana circles in the last 5-8 years. Kacey Musgraves, Margo Price, Tyler Childers, and Sturgill Simpson (among others) loudly citing Prine as an influence. IIRC, Simpson even took out office space next to Prine's so he can hang out with him more.

But yeah The Missing Years (and Rhino's Great Days anthology the next year) really reestablished him at the time, then In Spite Of Ourselves later kept his name out there for awhile.

The Heartbreakers were at their popular zenith in 1990-1991, so anytime Howie Epstein produced an artist the publicity guaranteed strong sales (see: Carlene Carter). Like I wrote, Prine was a presence at the big box stores of the nineties, with Lost Dogs and ISOO plainly visible.

Alfred, I don't always agree with your opinions, but your writing is very, very good and I always feel I learn something when I read it.

― Why, I would make a fantastic Nero! (PBKR),

This has...my day. Thank you.

Listening to Marc Maron's 2016 interview with John Prine (good reason to hear him, but I'm not liking the trend of the why these old interviews are out there again). Prine's story about taking his kids to see Snakes On A Plane and finding J.D. Souther to be the only other guy at the screening brought an unexpected, but much needed, smile to my face this morning.

DON: Well, yeah.

someone should assemble an album that's just john prine's between-song chatter at concerts. he was so funny.

Like when he yelled at those kids for eating ice cream? Ice cream eating motherfuckers.

Despite knowing this song for almost 25 years, and being a fan of both artists forever, I somehow never knew that it was Prine singing backup on this song from Dar Williams' 1996 album Mortal City:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0Cxh9Dkh-M

https://president.ie/en/media-library/news-releases/statement-on-the-death-of-john-prine

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-w4FoeF3yT/

Sturgill:

Im very sorry it took me so long..I had to go into the woods and let myself “just feel” this for a while.
You left on a gorgeous moon.

There are sometimes people in this life that you meet, seldom and few and far between it would seem, whose souls are so good and pure and beautiful that when they leave it seems if only for a brief while that everything else good and pure and beautiful in this world just left along with them. It blows you apart leaving everyone to see you broken. But then you come out of the woods and the funk to see the signs of Spring all around you and remember the joy and love they put into the world by always giving so much of themselves and you suddenly see them everywhere.

There is so much I never said only because I didn’t want to bother you with it. After all you never asked to be “John Prine”. There is so much I’ll never get to say now. You reminded me so much of my Grandfather it hurt sometimes. I never told you that.
I will miss the tours..I will miss our lunches..I will miss you listening to me bitch and complain about all the things you understood all too well and making me feel better sometimes by just sitting there saying nothing.
I will miss catching flies in mid-air with my hand just to make you laugh..I will miss showing up to the office and knowing Id just missed you there by finding my drums upside down..I will miss your corny ass jokes.
I will miss you. Every day.

So long old man.
You will always be loved.

(Sturgill Insta link is worth a click for the picture)

Then Isbell in the NYTimes:

A few years ago, my wife, Amanda Shires, was touring in Scandinavia with John Prine, and when they arrived in Sweden she saw him write “songwriter” on his customs form as his occupation. “When did you decide that it was OK to write ‘songwriter’ on these forms?” she asked him. “Today,” he told her. “I usually put dancer.”

John Prine was not a dancer. He was a songwriter and one of the best that ever lived, but he did love to dance. He danced around his house in Nashville with his wife, Fiona, danced in the driver’s seat of his beloved Cadillac and danced offstage every night, twirling an imaginary pocket watch. Once while performing onstage with John, I noticed him glance down past his Italian driving shoes to check the digital clock on the floor, and he saw me notice. He leaned in and whispered, “I wish we had more time.”

When John developed squamous cell cancer on his neck in 1998, his doctor told him he might never be able to sing again. John told him, “Doc, you’ve never heard me sing.” He didn’t consider himself to be much of a singer; his honest delivery had always been what mattered most. Cancer and the subsequent treatments left John with a low whisper of a singing voice, but one that, if anything, aligned even more perfectly with the hard-won wisdom of the characters he created.

John was in his early 20s when he wrote “Hello in There” from the perspective of an old man sharing an empty nest with his lonely wife. Hearing him sing the song after decades of hard living and surviving numerous illnesses brought new meaning to the lyrics, now delivered by a man who had caught up with the character he created. John always said when he grew up, he wanted to be an old person.

John was known for his ability to tell stories that related universal emotions through the lens of his gigantic imagination. He constructed what Bob Dylan called “Midwestern mind trips” from the tedium of the everyday, and he was a master at concealing the work involved. His songs sounded like they’d been easy to write, like they’d just fallen out of his mind like magic. He was praised for his dry humor and loved for his kindness and generosity. John had the courage to write plainly about the darkest aspects of the American experience in songs like “Sam Stone,” about a drug-addicted Vietnam veteran; “Paradise,” about the devastating effects of strip mining on a Kentucky town; and “The Great Compromise,” about his disillusionment with his country. Among his peers in the legendary Nashville songwriting community of the 1980s, his songs were the gold standard.

Of all the things I love about John’s songwriting, my favorite is the way he could step so completely into someone else’s life. John had the gift and the curse of great empathy. In songs like “Hello in There” and “Angel From Montgomery,” he wrote from a perspective clearly very different from his own — an old man and a middle-aged woman — but he kept the first-person point of view. He wrote those songs and the rest of his incredible debut album while a young man working as a letter carrier in Chicago. “Angel From Montgomery” opens with the line “I am an old woman/named after my mother.”

I remember hearing his 1971 recording of this song for the first time and thinking, “No, you’re not.” Then a light bulb went on, and I realized that songwriting allows you to be anybody you want to be, so long as you get the details right. John always got the details right. If the artist’s job is to hold a mirror up to society, John had the cleanest mirror of anyone I have ever known. Sometimes it seemed like he had a window, and he would climb right through.

After John faced a second bout with cancer in 2013, it seemed as though he was playing in extra innings — but he made the most of every bit of it. When Amanda — a fiddler and one of John’s favorite people — and I went into the studio to play and sing on his final album, 2018’s “The Tree of Forgiveness,” we were amazed by the beauty of the songs he’d written after more than 50 years of writing music. John was still razor sharp and he still had a story to tell. On the subsequent tour he played to the biggest audiences he’d ever drawn. He turned 72 that year.

But John’s work wasn’t just about his own music. In 1984, he and his longtime manager Al Bunetta and Dan Einstein started the independent record label Oh Boy Records. In the mid-’80s the major labels seemed like the only game in town, but Oh Boy succeeded against the odds. It released John’s albums along with records by Kris Kristofferson, Dan Reeder and Todd Snider, and it’s still finding new talent and operating with its artists’ best interests in mind.

He was a mentor to me and to my wife, who even helped him work on his songs sometimes, in between playing pranks on him while they were on tour. John saw her as a brilliant songwriter in her own right, and if John said you were a great songwriter, you knew it was true.

And there was more to John’s life than music. John and Fiona Prine had a beautiful relationship, loving and balanced and kind. Fiona understood John better than anyone else. After Amanda and I were married, Amanda started asking all the couples we knew, “What’s the secret to staying together?” John and Fiona gave the same answer, and it was the best one we’ve heard so far: Stay vulnerable. John remained vulnerable in love and in his work. He never played it safe.

When I was a baby, my 17-year-old mother would lay me on a quilt on the floor of our trailer in Alabama and play John Prine albums on the stereo. Forty years later, my daughter would call him Uncle John as he bounced her on his knee. My wife and I would sing his songs with him in old theaters or sometimes in his living room. In the summer, we’d all eat hot dogs with our feet dangling in his swimming pool. Now he’s gone and my heart is broken.

This week, John Prine danced off this stage and onto the next one, and I like to think he’s somewhere sharing a song and a cocktail with all the friends he outlived.

Iris DeMent wrote a lovely little piece about him for Rolling Stone.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/iris-dement-john-prine-in-spite-of-ourselves-981603/

They gave it a stupid title; it's not really about his songwriting at all.

Livestream tribute this afternoon

https://consequenceofsound.net/2020/04/john-prine-livestream-tribute-angel-from-maywood/

Just give me one extra season, so I can figure out the other four

Nice Rolling Stone article about his life and the last couple years of his career. It mentions in passing that he'd recorded six songs for a new album and was working on a memoir. Goddamn coronavirus.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/john-prine-last-days-beautiful-life-tribute-family-friends-bonnie-raitt-981646/

One horrifying thing the article mentions is that Prine actually developed symptoms before his wife did. Her test came back positive and his was inconclusive, so they were both quarantined at home but had to stay in separate parts of the house. She took him to the hospital (because he was exhausted and couldn't stay awake) on the first day she could leave quarantine. You have to wonder if things would have been different if he'd been admitted to the hospital early and monitored and treated before he got critical.

It's all so depressing and infuriating. If even a beloved, world-famous 73-year-old man with part of his lung missing is left to tough out COVID-19 at home alone until things get so bad he can't breathe, what hope does anyone else have of getting prompt treatment?

dang i would have loved a prine memoir

Extraordinary spoken word essay from Prine’s wife played on BBC Radio 4, ‘Today’ Programme just now.

John Prine tribute show streaming tomorrow on youtube at 7:30 eastern time.

His last song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L21Tc_DtL6M

ACL is rerunning his last proper appearance on the show from '18 this week, and it'll be up on their site for a few weeks presumably before hitting the vault.

Yeah, just now saw the end of that: he and band are very strong on "Lake Marie."

Sssizzlin’, even.

pic.twitter.com/hXsKwArDLF

— SNL Hosts Introducing the Musical Guest (@snlhostsintro) October 13, 2021

KAREN BLACK!

Also didn't know Prine did SNL.

I went out to eat with friends tonight. One friend just bought a lake house in Wisconsin. I asked him where it was, and he said, oh, Twin Lakes. John Prine once wrote a song about it, called "Lake Marie." That's cool, I said.

Later tonight I take him to go see a concert. We get there early enough to catch the end of the opening act, and what song should the opener close their set with but ... "Lake Marie"! I mean, what are the fucking odds? So many coincidences. My friend had to have bought that lake house, we had to have gone out to dinner, he had to have mentioned the Prine song, we had to have gone to that concert, we had to have gotten there early enough to see the opening act, and then the opening act had to have played the specific John Prine song we had been talking about earlier. Super weird.

It's a great song, easily the highlight of that Prine album, but I don't think it's well-known unless you're a real Prine fan - like I've NEVER heard it in any form unless I personally put it on - so yeah, crazy coincidence!

Wow, trippy! I just looked up the Twin Lakes and discovered that Lake Marie is actually Lake Mary.

Which just makes the song even more awesome imo. I love all the little things that don't hang together - the song starts with a story that's both aprocryphal and impossible, most of the song doesn't even take place at Lake Marie, and now it turns out Lake Marie doesn't even exist.

I tried to write an essay about Lake Marie once and failed, but here is a paragraph from somewhere toward the end:

This is not a linear narrative, or really a narrative at all. It’s more about the impossibility of making a single story out of the strange constellation of events and memories and song lyrics and half-forgotten stories that make up the defining moments of our lives. Things crash into each other that don’t really belong together; other people’s troubles intersect with our own, and once these things are in our lives, we can never disentangle them. Lake Marie and its apocryphal history, the shadowy, mutilated images on the TV screen, even the lyrics of “Louie Louie” are now inextricably linked, all part of that final irreversible moment when the narrator realizes his marriage can’t be saved. “All the love we shared, between her and me, was slammed, SLAMMED up against the banks of old Lake Marie. MARIE!” We have one last chorus, one last lament for those long-ago peaceful waters, and then – “Oh, baby. We gotta go now.”

It’s more about the impossibility of making a single story out of the strange constellation of events and memories and song lyrics and half-forgotten stories that make up the defining moments of our lives.

otm!

It's an amazing song. The Live On Tour version is far and away my favorite; sometimes I'll listen to it 3 or 4 times in a row. I heard it first and was blown away, never could appreciate the fussier album take.

wow this is an amazing song!

reminds me a bit of dylan's brownsville girl

You know what blood looks like in a black and white video?

Stadows

had never heard this song before (!). thank you. after it finished, spotify served up the neko case version of “buckets of rain”, unsettlingly.

Agree about Brownsville Girl; I've always sort of connected the two in my mind.

"Something about you, I can't quite, put my finger ON!" sung triumphantly, several years after being bummed out by fragmented remainz of "Visions of Johanna" (which sucked for him, was cool for us, but good to see him finally get it in that moment of Planet Waves.)

I mean, what are the fucking odds? So many coincidences.

Has anyone heard any of his son Tommy's debut album? Me neither, until last night.
He was playing at the venue attached to my workplace and I popped back there to check it out for a few minutes. As I walked in, he had just started a song and it was very clearly about his dad. He's touring with just one other guy, one electric and one acoustic guitar. I stayed and listened to the whole thing, cried silently throughout because tomorrow I go to my hometown for my own dad's funeral. It was like the song unlocked my feelings to the point where i could feel them. I identified with so many of the lyrics, but mostly the line "by the way people say I look just like you" because it's the thing I am most dreading hearing over and over and over again at the service.

As I left out the back, I saw him and told him about this unusual coincidence (I am leaving some stuff out about my own parentage but IYKYK) and thanked him for helping me find my feelings. He was super kind and I encourage anyone to listen to this song bc in addition to giving me an emotionally moving coincidence, it's a really great song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9E2HoploEk

Wow. Thanks so much for all of that, LL.

What Isbell wrote about xpost John and Amanda reminds me of that late duets album where most of the guests took off and left him, showboating like mad, though he sounded like dgaf/what he told the doctor who cautioned him that treatment might affect his singing ability, oh noes. Shires was the one who stuck around and drew him out, for witty musical conversation.

Also, I finally heard Broken Hearts and Dirty Windows: The Songs of John Prine (Vol.2), from 2021, hope Vol. 1 is as satisfying. A reviewer said having Raitt do Angel From Montgomery here was way too obvious a choice, but, you know--

http://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_l0DuAqH3h6tbJjEscckSojWUe5aZ-vvYo

A friend sent this from Proviso East HS in Maywood, IL

https://i.imgur.com/L0BctvG.jpg

awwwww <3

<3

This week's Austin City Limits episode:

The ninth annual Austin City Limits Hall of Fame honors late singer/songwriter John Prine. Actor Ethan Hawke inducts the beloved icon joined by performers Tyler Childers, Allison Russell, Nathaniel Rateliff, Valerie June, Kurt Vile and Tommy Prine.