It’s this master of the American song’s 71st today. Meant to post earlier, but Prine’s good for a couple of lullabyes too.
I’ve seen him live only once, decades ago. A great time then. His music has only grown on me. His songs appear simple, and some of them actually are; they’re all reach deep.
Here are a couple of favorites; add your own below.
And, of course:
I could go on, but no need. Fill in the many gaps I’ve left…
I wish we lived in a better led, better spirited time and place. Listening to this helps me believe that might yet come to us all.
Open thread, all.
Omnes Omnibus
One of my favorites. HBD, John.
trollhattan
An American treasure, happy birthday Mr. Prine.
Virginia
One of our favorites. Been lucky enough to see him three times. Many happy wishes to Mr. Prine.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Saddle In the Rain.
kindness
I’m partial to John Prine’s Angel From Montgomery he did with Bonnie Raitt.
Adam L Silverman
Petorado
” Dear ______, you have no complaint, you are who you and you ain’t who you ain’t.”
Words to live by from Prine.
Tom Levenson
Realize I left out probably the saddest song I know: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jUU-LjlxnQI
Bobby Thomson
A crowd pleaser.
I really like this cover of Paradise.
Mike E
Saw him with Tom Rush and LWIII… didn’t know we shared a b’day! (Thelonious Monk, David Lee Roth too)
rikyrah
Happy Birthday ??????
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike E: Happy birthday.
No One of Consequence
My favorite, although “fish and a whistle, whistle and a fish” is a thing of beauty that probably was never said before he penned it…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmvPve3pXpE
Mexican Home
for what actually *is* my favorite John Prine line:
… the air was still as the throttle on a funeral train…
Happy Birthday Mr. Prine, and thanks for all the fish (and whistles).
– NOoC
Major Major Major Major
Lake Marie
(Here’s a writeup of the story behind the song.)
Although the verse that always sticks in my mind, because of the way he says is, is
Major Major Major Major
Well now what the hell put me in moderation?
I saw Prine at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass one year. Post-cancer, so his voice was suboptimal, but the heart was still there.
ETA: And of course there’s his anti-war classic, always appropriate, Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore.
Davebo
I’ve always loved Prine and if it hasn’t been mentioned “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get you into Heaven Anymore”.
Steve Goodman is the bomb too! Such a sad loss.
Honus
The water tastes funny when you’re far from your home
But it’s only the thirsty that hunger to roam.
-Rocky Mountain Time
Randall Bott
Saw John Prine at The Kent State Folk Festival a number of years back, wonderful show.
Davebo
@Mike E: Mentioning DL Roth in the same sentence with John Prine and Thelonious Monk is a felony in 21 states.
Uncle Omar
Now somebody hauled Mr. Peabody’s Coal Train away. Finally.
Davebo
Just a note to folks. You can embed links to YouTube and include a song title so we aren’t blindly following links to see what they are.
Fucking users… What are you gonna do?
Davebo
Speaking of Steve Goodman..
Steve Goodman: A Dying Cubs Fan’s Last Request
See? It’s not really that hard.
Omnes Omnibus
@Davebo: You are a better person than we are. Exult in that.
Major Major Major Major
@Davebo: When I’m queen of the universe, YouTube links will have URL’s that mean something to humans, instead of using those damn hashes. Classic Google.
satby
I was a lucky kid, because I was twenty-one years old and an Old Town folkie fan who saw Steve Goodman and John Prine almost every week end at Earl’s, either as the headliners or just sitting in when someone else was playing. The first video brought me right back, though it’s from years later when they both got more famous.
Happiest of Birthdays To You, John! You gave us all such great poetry.
Davebo
Another great of the genre.
Guy Clark, Randall Knife
Lost Guy recently, sucked.
Davebo
@Omnes Omnibus: Well honestly it’s not that challenging.
I also have far better taste in music. Hopefully that won’t bum you out too much! :0|
Davebo
@Major Major Major Major:
MAJORX4 for Queen of Universe! May I contribute to the cause?
J R in WV
Paradise…
Pretty sad itself. And after learning all the words and singing it with friends around campfires at parties for years, I was driving west into far western Kentucky some years back, and we crossed into Muhlenberg County. It was flat. Really flat. I didn’t really know it was a real Kentucky place til then, duh.
The hills were removed to get to the coal, which was carried away on Peabody’s coal trains, leaving flat ground covered in sparse brush. Peabody coal was one of the biggest coal companies in the country, now bankrupted in order to escape from all the liabilities, reclamation, pensions, all gone after corporate bankruptcy.
Funny how that works out, huh? PROFIT!!! And fuck all the people owed a living, and the land raped away. Bankrupt! Hurray!! We’re rich!!!!
Mr Prine writes reality, no matter how harsh. A great creative person. I’ve never seen him, though we have lots of his albums. I agree about “Angel from Montgomery” too, a great song no matter who does it.
Felonius Monk
John Prine & Iris DeMent — a great duet.
yet another jeff
I’d love to see some Democratic candidates base their platform on Paradise lyrics.
joel hanes
Saw him, straight acoustic, in a tiny student union lounge at Grinnell College in 1972.
I was sporting an illegal smile, and I still like that one.
Glad Tom remembered “Hello In There”.
I still sing Flag Decal, with gusto, when sufficiently irked by jingoist “patriots”.
Davebo
Since I’m reminiscing and sharing, Guy Clark, The Guitar live
The Dangerman
It’s A Big Ol’ Goofy World
We want the unmentionables, Mr. Prine!
dm
While out sailing on the ocean
While out sailing on the sea
I bumped into the savior
He said, “Pardon me”.
I said, “Jesus, you look tired”
He said, “Jesus, so do you”
joel hanes
Major Major Major Major
I’m still in moderation for linking to Lake Marie. :(
@Davebo: Sure, I accept Bitcoin and cashier’s checks.
Major Major Major Major
OK, apparently I can’t link to one of my favorite songs by him, which is named after a lake.
@Davebo: Sure. I accept bitcoin and cashier’s checks.
kdaug
In spite of ourselves, w/ Iris Demint
kdaug
https://youtu.be/F5axlwCBXC8
Omnes Omnibus
@Davebo: Do you know how condescending it is to mock people for not being experts on the communication means, when the substance they were trying to express may have mattered? “Heh, Lincoln knew fuck all about Morse code. Fuck that talk at Gettysburg.”
Davebo
@Major Major Major Major:
The Bottomless Lake?
Davebo
@Omnes Omnibus: It was snark. We almost never see that here on BJ! Get over yourself a bit. And truly, if you’ve posted a thousand times here or lots more as most have it’s not that difficult to learn to take advantage of the great tools Alain has provided.
Click the link button, paste in the link address, type a short description and click the link button again.
Not saying everyone must but it would be nice, especially from front pagers.
Omnes Omnibus
@Davebo: Fine, I will leave it there. Go blow a goat.
jl
@Davebo:
Parliament – Flash Light
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0ZGNGBNIL8
Edit: I like John Prine and enjoy listening to him, but that kind of music all sounds the same to me, so thought I would post some funk. Happy birthday, Prine.
way2blue
I saw John Prine live once. Just serendipity. My daughter had just taken the MCATs, and we wanted to celebrate by seeing a ballet in the city. But it wasn’t ballet season, so I found a show at the Mtn Winery featuring Merle Haggard & Kris Kristofferson. Might have been 2010. We had a picnic dinner on the ridge overlooking the south bay before the show. Then John Prine & Joan Baez joined Merle & Kris on stage. Serendipity…
Major Major Major Major
@Davebo: No, it’s got a name that sounds a lot like Lake Mary.
ETA: let’s try this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzCjQwt2rgI
Steeplejack
@Major Major Major Major:
“Lake Marie.”
Steeplejack
@Major Major Major Major:
“Lake Marie.”
ETA: Weird. Sometimes FYWP doesn’t like certain YouTube links.
Petorado
No disrespect to Mr. Prine, but if you haven’t seen this bit of rhyming by Eminem you’ll miss out on all the water cooler conversations in the morning.
Omnes Omnibus
@Davebo: Fuck off. Golly. It works well.
jl
@Petorado: Eminem was really spitting. That was good.
Amir Khalid
@Davebo:
That’s news to me.
oldgold
25 years ago I saw a show featuring John Prine and the Cowboy Junkies.
Both were great, but what an emotional roller coaster. Prine lifted us to the light and the Junkies sent us into dark places.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zufpr8BwY9U
jl
After Eminem we need to cooler. Josh Marshall and I seem to have had a mind meld. He tweetered an excerpt from Grant’s memoirs a few days ago. I hadn’t read it in a very long time so I went to Project Gutenberg and dived in, also Sherman’s. Looks like Marshall is decided to do the same unbeknownst to me, but now he is tweeting out excerpts from Grant. So, this is a different passage than Marshall has tweeted. It’s Grant’s prognosis for the slave South, had they won the Civil War. I think there is a lot of truth to it.
I think a some of the analysis would hold for a United States that was run by the Trumpsters for any length of time (i optimistically assume it would take more than 4 years).
” There was no time during the rebellion when I did not think, and often say, that the South was more to be benefited by its defeat than the North. The latter had the people, the institutions, and the territory to make a great and prosperous nation. The former was burdened with an institution abhorrent to all civilized people not brought up under it, and one which degraded labor, kept it in ignorance, and enervated the governing class. With the outside world at war with this institution, they could not have extended their territory. The labor of the country was not skilled, nor allowed to become so. The whites could not toil without becoming degraded, and those who did were denominated “poor white trash.” The system of labor would have soon exhausted the soil and left the people poor. The non-slaveholders would have left the country, and the small slaveholder must have sold out to his more fortunate neighbor. Soon the slaves would have outnumbered the masters, and, not being in sympathy with them, would have risen in their might and exterminated them. The war was expensive to the South as well as to the North, both in blood and treasure, but it was worth all it cost.
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4367/pg4367.txt
Petorado
@jl: Guess what Trump will be tweeting about in another four hours.
jl
Towards the end of his memoirs, Grant also has a very astute analysis of the damage an unfit president inhis case Andrew Johnson, did to the ability of the nation to solve its problems through effective policy. I think Grant was too optimistic about prospects of social and race progress in the South had Lincoln not died when he did. But still, unsettling to read the destructive political dynamic that an unfit president like Johnson started. And Trump seems worse.
jl
@Petorado: Really? Does he notice that kind of thing? Trump hasn’t noticed Prophets of Rage yet.
I suppose GOP Congresscritters will be asked to give their opinions on Trump’s ideas for a Rapper Tax next.
Edit: OTOH, what Eminem did was so angry and in your face, even Trump will get it. A lot of Prophets of Rage stuff on Trump probably goes way over his head.
Anotherlurker
@Petorado: Dear Abby is one of the first songs I learned on Guitar.
I first heard it performed by Tom Rush, in Binghanton, NY. , sometime before the last Ice Age.
Good times!
burnspbesq
@Davebo:
And ought to be in the other 29.
burnspbesq
@Anotherlurker:
Tom Rush had, and still has, an amazing knack for finding great songs by great songwriters. And making them his own.
Davebo
@Omnes Omnibus: Not snarky but effective.
Hope it helped.
Petorado
There have been a large number of times when “you are what you are and you ain’t what you ain’t” has been my philosophy of the moment for reasons good and bad.
But I’ve also seen that great line from “Please don’t bury me” come home to roost in modern politics when he sang, “Give my knees to the needy – don’t pull that stuff on me.”
Davebo
@Omnes Omnibus:
If it helps. This world is full of creeps like me.
Davebo
More Steve Goodman. My Old Man
Fits my mood tonight.
Davebo
What the hell John Prine doing the same song.
Bess
@burnspbesq:
Just saw Tom Rush last week. What an excellent performer.
HuCat
Paradise
…Mr. Peabody’s coal train just hauled it away.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
Can you successfully carry off wearing the tiara?
Skeptical (but inquiring) minds need to know!
;)
Origuy
I used to see John Prine and Steve Goodman when they played together in Champaign every year. One year, Earl Scruggs (or was it Lester Flatt) joined them. The last time I saw Prine was opening for kd lang in Lake Tahoe.
Steve Goodman singing a capella The Ballad of Penny Evans. Try not to cry.
Origuy
I just learned this: Steve Goodman and Hillary Rodham were high school classmates.
SFAW
First: A belated Happy Birthday, Mr. Prine, and many more I hope. (Not the belated part, of course.)
Second: Thanks, Tom, for this post. I generally shun country or quasi-country music, but I love Prine.
Third: while showing off how fucking smart and capable one is by embedding the link into the actual title of the song (or vice versa) is wicked impressive and all that, who really gives enough of a rat’s ass to amp up the sanctimony on that shit? Oh, wait, we have that answer.
SFAW
@Origuy:
:
Maybe Trey “Yet Another Evil Fuck Trying to Hurt Hillary” Gowdy will launch an investigation, to see whether she killed him herself, or had Bill do it for her.
mellowjohn
“In Spite of Ourselves” with Iris Dement
https://youtu.be/F5axlwCBXC8
Laura
@Felonius Monk: That’s “our song” for me and the spouse. John Prine is a treasure.
mtraven
@Major Major Major Major: I saw him at HSB this year (a few days ago) and his voice was not bad. And he dedicated Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven to “our new Fuhrer, Adolph Benito Trumpitini”. You can watch the set here.