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

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

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.