Remembering John Prine – a great storyteller

On April 7, 2020 the country-folk singer-songwriter John Prine died. In Billboard there was an obituary article by Annie Reuter titled Americana legend John Prine dies at age 73 from coronavirus. In Rolling Stone there was a longer article by Stephen L. Betts and Patrick Doyle titled John Prine, one of America’s greatest songwriters, dead at 73. There also was an article on April 13, 2020 by Patrick Doyle titled John Prine: The last days and beautiful life of an American original. And in 2017 there was another article by Patrick Doyle titled Inside the life of John Prine, the Mark Twain of American songwriting.

John excelled at telling stories via songs. His very first album in 1971 included two of my many favorites - Sam Stone, a song about a veteran who died from opioid addiction and Hello In There, a song about the elderly. At Performing Songwriter on October 10, 2016 there was an article by Lydia Hutchinson titled Behind the songs of John Prine. She mentioned eight songs (for which I have links to live versions on YouTube): Dear Abby, Spanish Pipedream, Sam Stone, Hello in There, Souvenirs, Illegal Smile, Paradise, and Donald and Lydia.

Some of John’s lyrics are hilarious but strange, like those for Sabu Visits the Twin Cities Alone. There also are humorous stories about how some songs came to be, like Donnie Fritt’s dream house in Nashville leading up to The Oldest Baby in the World. Living in the Future describes how wrong predictions can be:

“We are living in the future, I’ll tell you how I know

I read it in the paper fifteen years ago

We’re all driving rocket ships and talking with our minds

And wearing turquoise jewelry and standing in soup lines

We are standing in soup lines”

One of his recent songs from the last album, The Tree of Forgiveness, on the topic of lust and farmer’s daughters, is Egg & Daughter Nite, Lincoln, Nebraska 1967 (Crazy Bone). John described how the setting became Lincoln rather than Norfolk –  the latter is poor for rhymes, so instead he said:

“If they knew what you were thinkin’, they’d have run you out of Lincoln

Just blame it on that old crazy bone”

and previously:

“When you got hell to pay, put the truth on layaway,

And blame it on that old crazy bone”

I previously blogged about another song on how It’s a Big Old Goofy World in a February 25, 2020 post titled Two songs stuffed with bagfuls of clichés. Finally, John even told us what he would do When I Get to Heaven.