by scootergirl 11 Replies latest social entertainment
I am a huge John Prine fan.......I know, it is strange and very outdated, but I just love the guy. (Quit laughing at me eyegirl!)
Just curious is anyone else out there enjoys his music.
My hubby took me to see him last year.......what a show! No fireworks, no stagestunts, just an old man w/a titanium hip propped up on a barstool singing his heart out. *sigh*....
Folk music = the best.
John Prine, Townes Van Zandt, Willie Nelson, Steve Earle, Guy Clark, Emmylou Harris, Nanci Griffith, Lucinda Williams, etc.
(If you haven't heard any Van Zandt - you are SO missing out it isn't even funny. I'd recommend 'Poet: A Tribute to Townes Van Zandt' for a sample of his writing style - a bunch of artists including John Prine sing a number of his songs. For his own work, any of the 'Best Of...' compilation albums are pretty good. Special songs of his to look for: "Our Mother the Mountain", "Waiting Around to Die", "Tower Song", "Pancho & Lefty", "For the Sake of the Song", etc. - I could keep going, he's *incredible*)
Yes to especially Leonard Cohen....
I really like John Prine, but I have seen him twice in concert and when he sings Souvenirs, i cry like a baby; i forget that song till he sings it and then it is too late to cover up.
Sam Stone...man what a song, that one hurts too
If you guys like John Prine, Steve Goodman, etc.------have you ever heard of Billy Joe Shaver? He has had songs recorded by lots of people, but like John Prine, when he sings them himself it is something else. He is one of the most talented songwriters I have ever heard, and incredible live.
BTW, I think my favorite John Prine song is The Great Compromise. How he turned a song about going to the drive-in into a statement on the Vietnam war, I will never know. Or maybe its Please Don't Bury Me:
Please don't bury me
Down in that cold, cold ground
No I'd rather have 'em cut me up
And pass me all around...
Throw my brain in a hurricane
The blind can have my eyes
And the deaf can take both of my ears
If they don't mind the size.
You gotta love a guy that writes a song like that.
YES! I drove 800 miles (at the speed of the sound of loneliness) to see a John Prine Concert in MO last year (my date was pretty nice too, though ).
Recently, I really paid attention to a Prine song I had been off handedly humming for over two years, Six O'clock News. "C'mon baby, spend the night with me.....", it goes, in a seemingly kind and insistent manner; it's kind of infectuous, you just find yourself humming it. It finally struck me that the bigger picture that song paints, is one of a young man committing suicide when he discovers he is the product of a rape.
I mention John Prine to one friend (seems most people don't know who the hell he is) whose college writing professor had used the music and lyrics of John Prine as the focus of one semester's worth of class.
I discovered him in the last 3 months of my marriage, I almost feel like I got divorced to his music. Odd that I love it so much.
Angel From Montgomery, I collect that song, by all the women who have covered it*. Listening to it, who would ever guess that a man wrote it? When he wrote it, he left it in a womans words and perspective, "I am an old woman, named after my mother, My old man is another child that's grown old".
*just did a search, and it looks like I don't have near the total of all artist who have covered Angel From Montgomery.
| Angel From Montgomery | covered by Dave Matthews Band | |
| Angel From Montgomery ? | covered by Bonnie Raitt | |
| Angel From Montgomery | covered by Carly Simon | . |
| Angel From Montgomery | covered by Susan Tedsci | |
| Angel From Montgomery | covered by Mary Lou Lord | |
| Angel From Montgomery | covered by Monte Montgomery | |
| Angel From Montgomery ? | covered by High Flyin' Bird |
I think for the purposes of a ex-JW db, this song of Prine's is the ultimate:
Fish And Whistle John Prine
I been thinking lately about the people I meet
The carwash on the corner and the hole in the street
The way my ankles hurt with shoes on my feet
And I'm wondering if I'm gonna see tomorrow.
Father forgive us for what we must do
You forgive us and we'll forgive you
We'll forgive each other till we both turn blue
Then we'll whistle and go fishing in heaven.I was in the army but I never dug a trench
I used to bust my knuckles on a monkey wrench
Then I'd go to town and drink and give the girls a pinch
But I don't think they ever even noticed me.Fish and whistle, whistle and fish
Eat everything that they put on your dish
And when we get through we'll make a big wish
That we never have to do this again again? again????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.
Edited by - SixofNine on 16 July 2002 23:3:7
oh scooter,
ya know i love you and i'll listen to your 'hippie' music anytime. especially when i'm snoozing in the back of your car on the long car ride back to your house from town heehee.
love ya sis!
beck
sixofnine: i'm a huge bonnie raitt fan, and from what i've read/been told, john prine wrote "angel of mongomery" FOR bonnie...
I just love it! MORE JOHN PRINE FANS! (see, eyegirl.......I am not the only one!)
I do love Angel from Montgomery but he has got some great songs. Ilegal Smile and Jesus-The Missing Years are great tunes.......and I have always loved Your Flag Decals Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore.
jaccilynn, I dont' know about that, but it was a priviledge to hear her sing it. This is from the John Prine Shrine website:
Angel From Montgomery notes
An "Angel from Montgomery" refers to a pardon for a prison sentence from the governor. It is also used to refer to a last minute pardon from the death sentence. The phrase originated in Alabama where the capital is Montgomery.
The way John puts it the woman is living in her own self made prison that she can't escape from, hence she needs a pardon (the angel from Montgomery).
from Great Days the John Prine Anthology: "I had a buddy named Eddie Holstein in Chicago who was a songwriter - he later became a club owner - and he wanted to co-write with me. I'd just written Hello In There.
I said, "Eddie, that's all I got to say about old people. How about one about a middle-aged woman that feels older than she is?"
He said "Okay."
"I wrote the first verse, and he lost interest in her. A week later, I finished the thing."
"Eddie always used to tell people that I was writing about the Montgomery Ward building in Chicago, which has an angel on top that sticks out on a flagpole. I didn't know that, but that's where Eddie thought I got the idea."
"The woman, she's gonna keep fixing dinner, living in this house, staying married. She probably won't get up the nerve to leave the guy. But it's just that - a portrait of a lot of people who are doing that."
