Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CIII--John Prine: Sam Stone

Fans of Friday Night Jukebox (all three of you) may remember that Christmas fell on a Friday last year, and as such, our featured tune was "Christmas in Prison" by one John Prine.  And where I noted that song was one of the most hopeful songs I'd ever heard, this week's tune, "Sam Stone," is one of the saddest.  In fact, in 2008 it was voted #8 in a Rolling Stone poll of the ten saddest songs of all-time.

Merry Christmas!

Anyhoo, since we've already done the half-assed John Prine bio. we can do a condensed version for those not familiar.  Discovered in 1971 by Kris Kristofferson, Prine has been recording and touring now for forty-five years, has never had an album chart higher than #55, has no Billboard Hot 100 singles, and has remained one of music's truly great unknown talents and songwriters to most of the general public.  Still, he has won a Grammy Award for best folks album (The Missing Years), and counts Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Roger Waters, and the aforementioned Kristofferson (among many, many others) as fellow artists who consider him one of the best songwriters in American folk music history.

Released in 1971 on his aptly titled debut LP, John Prine (#452 on Rolling Stone's Five Hundred Greatest Albums of All-Time), "Sam Stone" is the tale of a war veteran (though it's never mentioned specifically, due to the date of release it's popularly assumed that Sam Stone fought in Vietnam) who comes home with a significant drug addiction (again, not noted but assumed to be heroin).  Prine chronicles his and his family's struggles with as much compassion as you'll ever hear in a pop song, and has as memorable of a chorus as you'll ever remember, especially the first two lines:  "There's a hole in Daddy's arm where all the money goes/Jesus Christ died for nothin' I suppose...."  Complimented by a funereal organ (either a church or a funeral home, you decide), a lightly picked acoustic guitar, and Prine's gift for turning a phrase, "Sam Stone" takes us though Stone's crumbling life, and unlike most songs, there is no happy ending or moral to the story:  Stone O.D.s alone and his family is left to trade his house for his burial.  It's a vivid portrait, sung with empathy but not pity, and a fine addition as song #103 on this musical journey.

Lyric sheet (this is one of my favorite lines ever written, not just musically, but in every form the written word has ever taken):  "Sam Stone was alone/When he popped his last balloon/Climbing walls while sitting in a chair...."

Enjoy:

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emaycee