A Shrine to John Prine

That’s the way that the world goes ’round.
You’re up one day and the next you’re down.
It’s half an inch of water and you think you’re gonna drown.
That’s the way that the world goes ’round.

(from “That’s the Way that the World Goes ‘Round” by John Prine) 

         If they were to make a movie of my life (and sometimes in my grandiose states, I’m convinced they are), I would insist on John Prine doing the soundtrack.  Thus far, I’ve reflected on the lyrics of no less than 13 Prine songs (links below) in the 9 months I’ve had this little blog of mine going.   In many ways, John Prine has already written the soundtrack of my life.

 

 

         John Prine is a singer/songwriter who began his career during the folk revival of the 1960s.  Kris Kristopherson, essentially the first to “discover” Prine, wrote this on the liner notes of Prine’s first album –

          John Prine caught us by surprise in the late-night morning let-down after our last show in Chicago. Steve Goodman (who’d shared the bill with us that week) asked us to go to Old Town to listen to a friend he said we had to hear, and since Steve had knocked us out all week with his own songs, we obliged.

          It was too damned late, and we had an early wake-up ahead of us, and by the time we got there Old town was nothing but empty streets and dark windows. And the club was closing. But the owner let us come in, pulled some chairs off a couple of tables, and John unpacked his guitar and got back up to sing.

          There are few things as depressing to look at as a bunch of chairs upside down on the table of an empty old tavern, and there was that awkward moment, us sitting there like, “Okay, kid, show us what you got,” and him standing up there alone, looking down at his guitar like, “What the hell are we doing here, buddy?”

          Then he started singing, and by the end of the first line we knew we were hearing something else. It must’ve been like stumbling onto Dylan when he first busted onto the Village scene.   One of those rare, great times when it all seems worth it,, like when the Vision would rise upon Blake’s “weary eyes, Even in this Dungeon, & this Iron Mill.”

          You might say John Prine is our generation’s folk theologian, but to make that fit you’d have to come up with a good rhyme for “theologian” (“three old tokens”, “the seal is broken” and ”go steal a Trojan” might work).  I would not personally say John Prine is a genius.  That might make other genuiuses look bad by comparison. 

         It’s hard for me to distinguish how much Prine describes my life and how much my life follows what he describes in his songs.  Is his art imitating my life or is my life imitating his art?  Most likely, the latter, since he’s never met me and has no reason to know I actually exist.  Whatever the case, I find myself -

….. signing up to be an organ donor (Die Laughing),

….. trying to tell people what to do (Spiritual Advice),

….. wanting to be at peace with life and death (Heaven on Earth),

….. constructing a more loveable image of my Grandfather (King George is Dying),

….. expressing my peculiar love for my wife (My Woman)

….. explaining my counter-cultural lifestyle (Blow Up Your TV )

…. describing the problem of charity (Bleeding Hearts)

…. remembering the pain of rejection (Getting Dumped)

…. making sense of despair (Chain of Sorrow)

….  missing those who never find their way in the world (Losing Ourselves)

…. struggling with patriotism (Flags and Freedom)

…. thinking of the old and lonely  (Hello in There)

…. marveling at the ups and downs of life (The Way It Goes)

   

          My concert-going days are over, so I’ll have to be satisfied with having only seen John Prine 6 times.  But, he is bound to make regular appearances here at Necessary Therapy this coming year and beyond.

 

     For anything and everything you’d ever want to know about John Prine, visit his official fan website – The John Prine Shrine.  If you want to get a little taste of his recent music (as well as that of a few of his friends), go to “Oh Boy Radio”.  

     While you can purchase his music at such places as Amazon, etc…, I recommend you go through the “Company Store” at Oh Boy Records – Prine’s personal recording label.  In that way, you can better line the pockets of a man who regrettably may never win the Nobel Peace Prize money (though he would certainly make a better selection than Al Gore).