Do you sing or hum a lot? I can’t imagine a day without music, even if it’s just under my breath or buzzing around in my head. I actually break out in song several times a day! I figured everyone has a soundtrack constantly running through their brain, but I learned recently, when talking to a good friend who says this does not happen for her, that this may very well not be the case. I have to admit I'm really surprised!
Lately, I’ve been singing John Prine tunes. “Handsome Johnny” has been near or at the top of my playlist since 1971, when his first record came out. And that wasn’t just any record. It contained all four of these poignant and powerful classics: Hello in There, Sam Stone, Paradise and Angel From Montgomery. They're still among his most recognizable songs all these years later.
I was lucky to have seen him several times in concert. I made the above photo at a concert in Madison, WI in the mid or late 1970's.
John Prine started writing songs when he was 14 and learned some guitar chords from his older brother. After high school, he became a mailman. He wrote songs about everyday people doing everyday things, painting moving portraits of a colorful collection of folks. He was a poet of the common person, a truth seeker and a man who liked to have a good time. He loved humor and irony and injected healthy doses of both into his work. He was able to express the most tender of emotions and heartbreak, as well as hilarious descriptions of our human foibles. For my money, he was a literary genius and one of the greatest songwriters of his generation.
Prine was committed to a wide range of humanitarian causes and wasn’t shy about mentioning them in his songs - things like: freedom of speech, helping the homeless, getting rid of landmines, championing women’s rights to their bodies, helping save the planet and just basically being kind. He didn’t hesitate to make clear his feelings about war.
From Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore:
But your flag decal won’t get you into Heaven anymore
They’re already overcrowded from your dirty little war
Now, Jesus don’t like killin’ no matter what the reason for
And your flag decal won’t get you into Heaven anymore.
He made political statements, cracked jokes, told stories about happy people, lonely people, goofy people, a drug-addicted veteran, a carpenter, a topless dancer, prisoners, old people and people in and out of love. He wrote about his life. He wrote about the people he met along the way. Kris Kristofferson “discovered” him, Dylan championed him and a lot of people, including Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Bette Midler and Bonnie Raitt, covered him. He created his own record company to protect his songs. As a result, Prine never made it big on AM radio and was always considered kind of a trade secret. He did get a bunch of Grammy nominations and was inducted into various Halls of Fame, though, which is nothing to sneeze at. His fans are rabid.
John Prine loved photography, especially black and white images. He once said he thought of his songs as photographs. He talked about capturing the "in between times... moments no one talked about." Little wonder that I love him so.
From Sam Stone:
Sam Stone cam home to his wife and family
After serving in the conflict overseas
And the time that he served had shattered all his nerves
And left a little shrapnel in his knees
But the morphine eased the pain and the grass grew round his brain
And gave him all the confidence he lacked
With a purple heart and a monkey on his back
There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes
Jesus Christ died for nothin’ I suppose
Little pitchers have big ears, don’t stop to count the years
Sweet songs never last too long on broken radios.
From Angel from Montgomery:
If dreams were lightning
And thunder were desire
This old house would've burned down
A long time ago
There’s flies in the kitchen, I can hear ‘em there buzzin’
And I ‘aint done nothin’ since I woke up today
How the hell can a person go to work in the morning
And come home in the evening and have nothing to say?
From Hello In There:
Me and Loretta, we don’t talk much more
she sits and stares through the backdoor screen
And all the news just repeats itself
like some forgotten dream that we’ve both seen.
You know that old trees just grow stronger
And old rivers grow wilder every day
Old people just grow lonesome
Waiting for someone to say, 'Hello in there, hello.'
When John Prine died from complications of COVID near the beginning of the pandemic, I realized how scary things were. I remember feeling so shaken and so angry.
He won two posthumous Grammys for the last song he ever recorded, I Remember Everything, from the album Tree of Forgiveness:
I remember everything, things I can’t forget
The way you turned and smiled on me on the night that we first met
And I remember every night, your ocean eyes of blue
How I miss you in the morning light, like roses miss the dew.
Prine recorded around 25 albums. That’s a huge repertoire for me to chose from when I’m humming and singing my way through the day. There’s a certain melancholy and yearning mixed with sweetness and humor that permeates his music, and for me at this particular moment in my life, it’s the most suitable soundtrack. I can always find one song to hold my hand while I'm wallowing in sadness and another to lift me up out of it.
I’ve added to my enjoyment of Johnny’s songs by illustrating some of my favorite lines. I’d like to think he’d get a kick out of them.
Johnny wrote When I Get to Heaven for his last album. It makes me think he might be having a pretty good time up there:
'Cause I'm gonna get a cocktail
Vodka and ginger ale
Yeah I'm gonna smoke a cigarette that's nine miles long
I'm gonna kiss that pretty girl on the tilt-a-whirl
Yeah, this old man is goin' to town.
