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

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.