Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CDVIII--John Prine: Souvenirs

 Like so many things in life, the beauty of this week's featured tune came to me much later in life than it should have.  I first heard it in the early nineties, but it wasn't until the middle of the last decade while on one of my periodic John Prine listening fests, on a cold winter's night driving home from my job at the thrift shop, that I listened to the lyrics in its first stanza with my much older ears while sitting in another of too many traffic jams, and thought, "Holy shit--there's a lot more to this song than I've noticed before...."  I played it several more times while I sat stuck in a sea of cars, and the song has become a favorite of mine, and, even better, a never-ending source of wonder ever since that fateful night.....

I wrote about Prine's song "Christmas in Prison" in a December 2015 post, and I wrote about his song "Sam Stone" in a December of 2016 Friday Night Jukebox.  Unlike last week's post about the Faces, John Prine's bio has had some significant (and not all good) changes since then.  On the good end, Prine had his two highest charting LPs, 2016's For Better or Worse which hit #30, and The Tree of Forgiveness, released in 2018, which gave Prine his lone top ten hit, landing at #5.  He was also inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2019.  On the sad end, after years of poor health (including beating cancer) Prine contracted the COVID-19 virus and never recovered, passing away in April of 2020.  

"Souvenirs" was featured on Prine's second album, the 1972 release Diamonds in the Rough.  It was never released as a single (though it should have been) and the album would peak at #148 on the Billboard 200.

Fun Fact:  Prine first began performing regularly at a club in Chicago called Fifth Peg.  He didn't want people hearing the same songs every Thursday when he performed so he tried to add a new song each week.  Prine said he wrote "Souvenirs" in a '65 Malibu while en route to one of his Thursday night performances--which for me makes the song just that much more amazing.

From the acoustic guitar interplay between Prine and frequent collaborator Steve Goodman at the beginning, "Souvenirs" sets forth a folk and bluegrass-tinged tale of the fleeting nature of loss.  Prine's lyrics (maybe the best of his career and that's saying something) subtly paint a picture that effortlessly moves from the lost joys of childhood to the heartbreak of lost love.  Prine's vocals are heartfelt without being maudlin, and the harmonies he and Goodman share in the chorus are superb.  I'm not one to ascribe literary qualities to a song, but "Souvenirs" is much like a well written short story--it's three and a half minutes of us watching a man look into the mirror that reflects his life...and his sorrow for how quickly so much of it has disappeared without his even knowing.  

Lyric Sheet:  "All the snow has turned to water/Christmas days have come and gone/Broken toys and faded colors/Are all that's left to linger on..."

Enjoy:

Republican = Traitor

Peace,

emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. LII--John Prine: Christmas in Prison

Those who are unfamiliar with this week's tune and are perhaps thinking, based on the title alone, it was chosen for satirical reasons or as an indictment of the crass commercialization of Christmas, will be sorely disappointed.  No, it is my favorite Christmas song of all-time because it is one the most goddamned hopeful songs I've ever heard.

And isn't that what Christmas is all about?  Hope?

John Prine has been making music since 1971 (when he was discovered by one Kris Kristofferson), and yet I've met exactly one person in my life who was a John Prine fan.  While Prine isn't a household name, his songwriting has drawn praise from the likes of Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, and Roger Waters (and much critical acclaim) for its compassion, ability to turn a phrase, and sense of humor.  And although he's never had an album chart higher than #55 on the Billboard 200, he did win a Grammy for Best Folk Album for The Missing Years.  All of which is to say that Prine is one of those artists, like The Kinks or The Band, who should have had a lot more popular success but nonetheless added immensely to the pop music archives.  And any way you slice it, a 45 year career in the music business isn't too darn bad.

A song that starts, "It was Christmas in prison/And the food was real good/We had turkey and pistols/Carved out of wood..." has all the earmarks of a classic, and "Christmas in Prison" lives up to its intro.  Released in 1973 on Prine's Sweet Revenge album, the song is, despite its seasonal nature, a fan favorite at all of his shows.  Like many recent Jukebox featured tunes, "Christmas in Prison" is spare in setting--while there is some background instrumentation, it's primarily Prine's guitar playing and vocals, and really, the song doesn't need much more.  Prine tells the story, as he sings, of a Christmas in prison (surprisingly enough) wherein the inmate narrator expresses his longing and love for the woman whose "...Heart is as big as this whole goddamn jail."  The song never tells us whether the inmate is just serving a long stretch, or is there for the rest of his life, but it doesn't really matter because he can "...Wait awhile eternity/Old Mother Nature's got nothin' on me..."  Throughout, Prine never gets sappy or maudlin--he just sings a bittersweet tale of love and loss, filling it with as much hope as one supposes one can find when spending Christmas in prison.

No special words this week, just these lines, among my all-time favorite in song:  "The search light in the big yard/Swings round with the gun/And spotlights the snowflakes/Like the dust in the sun...."

There isn't much of a video for this, but it was the only non-live version I could find.  Nonetheless, enjoy:

Merry Christmas,
emaycee