john prine:the return of an old favorite

ever since John Prine emerged on the Nashville scene in the 1970’s, songwrit-ing has never been the same. Know for his humor and good heartedness, Prine has al-ways managed to walk the fine line between saying something meaningful and express-ing something funny. That balance is really the essence of what country music is. You can sit in your living room and endlessly ponder the lyrics of Fish and Whistle. The tune can be interpreted as a progressive in-terpretation of a former soldier dealing with

the horrors and depression of returning home from Vietnam or laughing in some Music City honky tonk when he sings of his youth:

On my very first job I said thank you and please

They made me scrub a parking lot

down on my knees

Then I got fired for being scared of bees

And they only give me fifty cents an hour

One of the best love songs to come from Prine is also his funniest, In Spite of Ourselves, recorded with Iris DeMent in 1999. The song is about being in love, despite the fact that you can recognize all of the faults and imperfections of your partner. The authenticity to Prine’s music is endearing and refreshing, enough to in-spire countless covers and even a tribute album: Broken Hearts and Dirty Window: The Songs of John Prine, with contributions from Old Crow Medicine Show, Deer Tick, Justin Townes Earle, and Drive-By Truck-ers. At sixty-six, John Prine is still touring the United States for promotion of his lat-est album, The Singing Mailman Delivers, a hauntingly simple acoustic collection of some of Prine’s most political and touching work. This is songwriting at its best, quiet and heartfelt. Bob Dylan stated that Prine

was one of his favorite songwriters and rec-ognized that are many layers to his work. He acknowledged that they are much more than funny country songs, “Prine’s stuff is pure Proustian Existentialism. Midwestern mind trips to the nth degree.” While Prine will always have the voice of a simple Illi-nois boy, his songs are so much more.

Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen & John Prine