The John Prine Album Poll

I do prefer SR over the debut.

― look at it, pwn3d, made u look at my peen/vadge (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, November 28, 2010 1:41 PM (9 months ago) Bookmark

I changed my mind.

"The Great Compromise" and "Clocks and Spoons" are good but the rest of the album....something's wrong: the songs and performances are hazy.

Common Sense (1975) 0

Madness.

i like "sour grapes" a lot off of diamonds in the rough. short, simple, depressing.

At a family reunion once the guitar was being passed around and somebody said to me "play some John Prine" so I started in with "Far From Me" and my dad gave a big sigh and said "Oh jesus" so I stopped playing it. I love that song but he was right.

I rank my favorites.

and Bruised Orange is such a morning alum.

album even

this guy would make for a fantastic listening thread

YES

I’m in.

Likewise.

^^

If I'd have been around for this poll, I'd have voted for The Missing Years.
John Prine OPO is "Lake Marie", though.

THIS.

there is something so frank, so bleakly honest, but not cruelly so, jut necessarily so, about that first album and what it says about vietnam-era america. this is still our country. rip.

Indeed. Common Sense is my favorite JP album, though. I don't understand why it gets so little love, not only on ILM but in general.

Common Sense is not only my favourite Prine LP, it's the only one I like more than a couple of songs from. From what I've heard of his subsequent records, he soon got really cutesy, but the near-cynicism of Common Sense gives me a strong Robert Altman Nashville feeling.

Yeah, it is a dark album. Underneath Prine's usual empathy and humor, there's such sweeping bleakness, and a deep sense of outrage at what the world asks of people. I don't think of his later stuff as cutesy, for the most part, but I do see what you mean. Common Sense just has such an edge to it, and the arc of the album is so strong that even the lighter songs don't fully lighten the mood.

I think he could have made "Wedding Day in Funeralville" the title track, because that's essentially what the album is - a celebration of life, of human connection, against a backdrop of darkness and loss. And all tied together at the end by that joyous cover of "You Never Can Tell," as if to say: this is what life is, things slam up against each other, it's never the right time for anything, and we never have enough time to process all the loss, but that's just life, and you've got to do it all at once, because you never can tell.

Looking back at that, I don't think I got it quite right. "Celebration" was putting it too strongly, for an album that's overall as bleak as this one. I love this album but have never quite found the right words to sum up what I love about it.

There's a real sense of Prine piling up all of these lyrics almost as a defence against the confusion and hostility he sees in the world around him. There's a desperation about it. On a more mundane level, the band and Steve Cropper just provide more kick to his sound than on the three earlier records.

I most recently heard Pink Cadillac. I'm not particularly a rockabilly fan, and the songs weren't all that notable, but he and the band were clearly having fun and that was infectious. By "cutesy" I'm thinking of something like Linda Goes to Mars, which was typical of the later period songs on Great Days.

Yes! Such a sense of the absurdity of the world, and then so much life and energy in the way the lyrics fit together, even if that energy comes from bitterness or agitation. And the anger at what other people have to go through is balanced by his willingness to gently poke fun at himself, call himself out for being irrational or self-pitying. "My car is stuck in Washington, and I cannot find out why/ come sit beside me on the swing and watch the angels cry." "Thought I saw a neon sign /flash my name with the time/ prob'ly didn't see a thing/ crazy dreams and a broken wing."

I don't know Pink Cadillac well, but "How Lucky" is on it, right? I like that one a lot.

i don't actually have the debut album on vinyl and i thought i'd get it.. but discogs lists them all for silly money! wtf! has it never been reissued??

It was re-released earlier this year. Available for $22 on *m*z*n. Discogs prices are DUUUUUUMB

That’d be Amazon. I tried to get cute with asterisks & got pwned by zing markup surprise.

thanks! i don’t have an amazongg account tho. hmph

Yeah, I really try to avoid buying anything from Amazon unless I literally can’t find it for a comparable price anywhere else. (e.g. I bought the Dylan mono box set there recently cuz it was hundreds! of dollars cheaper.)

What this does point to, tho, is that it’s still in print & should be available/orderable at local stores, I’d think.