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

Sweet songs never last too long

Exactly-odo, Quasimodo--only John Prine

It hasn't been the best week for my musical heroes and their families--sadly, John Prine joined Bill Withers at the Great Rock and Roll Concert in the Sky yesterday, due to complications from COVID-19.  As if I didn't have enough reasons to hate Donald Trump...

I discovered John Prine thanks to a great review in Rolling Stone in 1978 for his album Bruised Orange.  While he'll primarily be remembered for his songwriting skills (which were formidable), I'll remember him for his sense of humor and self-deprecating wit as well.  John Prine was one of those rare artists who never let his success go to his head, and always seemed more like a guy you'd like to have as your next door neighbor than a Songwriting Hall of Fame musician.

This one really hurts--the joy I got from listening to John Prine these now forty some odd years is immeasurable.  While Prine likely had several songs that could be called signature songs, this one was the first to showcase both his gift with words and his gigantic heart.  It also contains one of my favorite lines ever written in a song:  "Sam Stone was alone/ When he popped his last balloon/Climbing walls while sitting in a chair...."  Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump
emaycee

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:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee