I don't know exactly why Bob Dylan said that; I didn't really follow John Prine. If you think someone who loves Bob Dylan would love John Prine, you don't know enough about Bob Dylan. And I don't know much about John Prine. I had to scan the article to be reminded of song titles. The one I know is a song I particularly dislike, "Hello in There."
To widen my understanding I read the lyrics to" "Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore." The first thing I see the sneering at Reader's Digest that was common circa 1970s:
While digesting Reader's Digest in the back of a dirty book storeReader's Digest comes up in a Bob Dylan lyric. Compare:
A plastic flag, with gum on the back fell out on the floor
Well, I picked it up and I ran outside, slapped it on my window shield
And if I could see old Betsy Ross I'd tell her how good I feel
But your flag decal won't get you into Heaven anymore
They're already overcrowded from your dirty little war
Now Jesus don't like killin', no matter what the reason's for...
As his fist hit the iceboxAs I said, I don't know much about John Prine, and I'm sorry to see that he has died, of whatever cause. His work is more notable the random fact that his death has come from the disease that completely preoccupies us.
He said he’s going to kill me
If I don’t get out the door
In two seconds flat
“You unpatriotic
Rotten doctor Commie rat”
Well, he threw a Reader’s Digest
At my head and I did run
I did a somersault
As I seen him get his gun...
I see I have a tag for Reader's Digest. I'll have to publish this post so I can click on the tag and see why. I used to have a job where the work was reading magazines, and Reader's Digest was one of the magazines. Maybe I've blogged about that. You know, educated people in America used to look down on their fellow citizens who subscribed to Reader's Digest, but look what we read today. Edited down snippets and headlines.
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144 comments:
"You know, educated people in America used to look down on their fellow citizens who subscribed to Reader's Digest, but look what we read today. Edited down snippets and headlines."
Great observation.
I have known of John Prine, at least the name, for years. When younger, I used to know a lot about music of all genres. (back when I used to pay attention to it). But I never know more than Prine's name. Never followed his music. Knew nothing of his lyrics. One of those who was just not on my radar.
A class marker.
"Imagine, if you will, someone who read only the Reader's Digest between 1950 and 1970, and someone in the same period who read only The Nation or The New Statesman. Which reader would have been better informed about the realities of Communism? The answer, I think, should give us pause. Can it be that our enemies were right?"
I have never heard of John Prine until yesterday when news broke that he died.
We read the HELL out of that tiny format thick little magazine. Cover-to-cover. First the humor then the stories then the boring parts. All of it.
that was susan sontag's moment of self awareness, that soon passed.
Edited down snippets and headlines.
IIRC, RD used complete sentences and eschewed acronyms.
If you remove the third, fifth and sixth letters then its Red's Digest comrade...
- Colonel Flagg
I'd never heard of him either until about 3 months ago. I played a few long-play you tube videos of his concerts as background while working. I like his music, sound, rhythm and pace, and don't really care about the lyrics.
Haha. This is great. I feel like so many people are making a big deal about his death because of Dylan so they figure he must be a big deal. I saw all of that and thought, "I wonder what Althouse thinks?" Haha. Now I know.
I loved the magazine, but I always felt cheated when I read the "condensed books" because they were so quick and felt wrong. I still read them all because it was much cooler inside than out during pre-AC Gulf Coast summers.
-XC
Good grief. What a gap in cultural awareness. Try "Angel from Montgomery".
John Prine has written many great songs. I agree with Althouse that "Your flag decal..." is not one of them. "Angel from Montgomery", from the same debut album, however is.
The best Dylanesque song that Prine did, IMO, is "Quit Hollerin' at Me".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc9sQoxPxAg
As I recall, RD got skin-suited before the end, but when I was a kid, I always read the humor sections first thing: "Laughter, The Best Medicine", "Humor In Uniform", "Life In These United States" and lots of little jokes to fill the bottoms of pages.
As for Prine, I was aware that there was such a person, but that's it. Certainly didn't wish anything on him, of course!
If the Commies had subscriptions, which publication would have given them the most accurate snapshot of 1960s America each month? Reader’s Digest, The Nation, National Geographic, Ladies Home Journal, TV Guide... ?
If you can't appreciate "Dear Abby", you might as well move back to NYC.
I have several friends who loved Prine. They are all musicians, bluegrass/country stuff. I could not sustain enough interest to seek him out.
I assumed they respected and tried to emulate his guitar work. Not being musical, thats a wild guess on my part.
Angel from Montgomery
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T5NuI6Ai-o
I listened to his top five songs on Apple Music just now. I don't like it. Obviously he had fans, but there's a good reason his music never hit FM radio: it's boring as hell.
I've only heard of Prine because he performed at my college c. 1980. I had it in my head he was black. Guess I didn't go.
If you stoop to listen to someone as declasse as John Prine, try a youtube of "Killing the Blues." Or for a lower middle class ballad "Down by the Side of the Road."
Yeah, "Dear Abby"!
Proustian existentialism?
Sounds like something Woody Allen would have said. It would have sounded pretentious and wrongheaded to us now if Woody had said it, but in Bob's mouth it comes off as funky and poetic, and we might ponder whether there is some deeper truth in there. I'm sensing there's some kind of a link between Bob and Woody, both Jewish, both dropouts, both big '60s figures identified with the changes that decade brought.
If you grew up in the '70s and felt like an outsider, you may have taken a lot from Woody - an off-the-wall sense of humor, irony, irreverence, anxiety, depression, hypochondria, intellectual aspirations and pretensions, feelings of inferiority and self-hatred. Or maybe Woody provided you with a focus or a catalyst for what was already inside you. In a sense, we are his children. And given what went down in his actual family, that means we have ambivalent feelings towards the man and feel more than a little uneasy about him.
Hello in There”. “taking a Walk”. Prine classics. Joan Baez recently played the former. Youtube.Angel from Montgomery.
Never once thought of Bob Dylan when listening to Prine.
From the early seventies to about the mid-eighties, John Prine spent a lot of time on my turntable. Spiritually from Kentucky, physically from Maywood, he had a way of summing up how an old way of life was dying while a colder more insecure future lay ahead, yet still, life is a precious thing.
We have fought the same battle with the old bastard cancer, and now John's gone. RIP, JP. Thanks for all of it. Beats hell out of delivering mail even if the troubadour's pension is no good, eh?
My car broke down on a highway a long while ago. I walked to the nearest farmhouse and asked if I could call AAA. The lady of the house let me call. Then, she gave me two apples and an older copy of a large print Reader's Digest to pass the time.
The tow truck arrived about an hour later.
Kindness of strangers in a bygone era.
Readers Digest should have been mandated by law to be in the home. Reading is fundamental.
I grew up with 3 daily news papers, maybe 6 weekly magazines, 2 dozen monthly magazines. Because? Reading is fundamental.
I Subscribed again when the kids hit about 3rd grade. I could always find something they would be interested in, and point them to the article in RD. Reading is fundamental
Speed of the sound of loneliness
Charles Bukowski also worked as a mailman while trying to make it as an artist. So John Prine is in very good company there.
Lot of early morning crankiness around here.
I loved John Prine, saw him in concert several times way back when. Recalled his good natured humor that contrasted with the bitterness in many of his songs. Hello in There and Angel from Montgomery were the best. RIP.
Good grief. John Prine was great. Surrounded himself with good musicians, wrote nice tunes with clever lyrics. De mortuis and all that.
Hello in there is overly sentimental but Angel from Montgomery, Mexican Home, Lake Marie, That's the Way the World Goes Round, many others are just plain good stuff.
in Spanish, they call it selecciones. which is closer to the intent, now the print is bigger, but if they are including pieces from the Atlantic or Time, well they are using a smaller dose of idocane,
I only know who John Prine is because of his song Angel From Montgomery. I became aware of it and him as a result of a couple of covers of the song, one by Bonnie Raitt, the other by Susan Tedeschi. Have never heard his version.
As for Reader's Digest, read that cover to cover in my youth and into my late teens. As the eldest child I had first dibs when it arrived. Usually got through it in a few hours.
a corrective
To paraphrase a wise cartoon character, "Folk singers, is there anything they don't know?"
from the beginning
His funny songs are actually funny, and my favorite is "In Spite of Ourselves." Look for the version he did with Iris Dement. I suspect songs where you sneer at the hicks will not age well, no matter how much talent you have or who you think the hicks are.
Larry Norman, a Christian singer who was heavily influenced by Dylan, wrote a great song called Readers Digest and released it on his album Only Visiting This Planet back in 1972. Here's a good YouTube video of the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMqHMoyt3vY
I Loved the Reader’s Digest jokes. And always did the Improve Your Word Power section . So I had no idea the Condensed Books we had at home were taboo until I gave my book report from one and found out that the Eighth Grade English Teacher was going to execute me if I ever did that again. But I used the word power section to my advantage later when the old biddy asked the class what a pedagogue was and I murmured loud enough, “That’s what you are.” Boy did she hate me. But since it was an Advanced English Class, she could not give me an F like she wanted to. This was an early hint that I was cut out to be a Trial Lawyer.
Meh. John Prine, in my opinion, was from that Howard Zinn/Pete Seeger school of musical thought. Marginally more musically talented than Seeger and slightly less bitter
Blogger Josephbleau said...
If you stoop to listen to someone as declasse as John Prine, try a youtube of "Killing the Blues." Or for a lower middle class ballad "Down by the Side of the Road."
I hope I was not being snarky, I liked listening to Prime in my early years and he was a focus of my feeble efforts at playing guitar. I know he was not as famous as Bob Dylan.
Years ago a friend played me some Prine songs saying” if you love Dylan you’ll like this guy”. I think that was the last time I listened to one of his songs until he got sick. They never sunk in and I was surprised he was so beloved.
This post made me curious about how systematic you are (or aren't) about looking to see if you have a tag on a subject. You could be completely systematic so that every single time you type up a tag on a post, you run a search on it to see if that tag already exists (or maybe the blogging software alerts you without you having to do anything?). Or you could just check periodically.
I would think the hard part would be not remembering how exactly you specified a tag in the past ("Did I say "Dylan" or did I say "Bob Dylan"?) especially for tags you only use a few times a year and therefore don't have a working memory for.
"...Reader's Digest in a dirty book store" has a Dylanistic incongruity, I think. True I never thought of Prine and Dylan as particularly similar; just as both among the most incisive of songwriters, along with, say Neil Young, Leonard Cohen and Joni MiJoni Mitchell.
My belief is that Kindle-type (non-fiction) books should have various detail outline settings -- from Reader's Digest version, all the way to the full book.
You can first read the Reader's Digest version in one sitting.
Then, once you have that overview, go back and read with increasing detail the rest of the book.
I think it would increase comprehension for two reasons. First, a detail in Chapter 2, for instance, would be read with better sense of context after the Reader's Digest overview. Second, reading a book could become more of a process of absorption of detail over time. Taking a year to read a book likely would increase your memory and comprehension.
I suspect songs where you sneer at the hicks will not age well.
If you think "Your Flag Decal Won't Get You into Heaven Anymore" is a song that sneers at hicks, you missed the entire theme of the song. He is sneering at the people who overcrowded heaven with their dirty little war.
I was acquainted with John and his first wife. I can't count the number of times I saw him perform. He was a brilliant songwriter and singer, and a nice guy, very funny and no-bullshit genuine. I'll always associate him with the late 60s early 70s Old Town folk scene in Chicago, happy times and happy memories. RIP.
His premier album seemed in 1971 a wonderful alternative to the snottiness of Youth Culture--"Hello In There" (sorry it offended A.A.'s ears] rather than "in loyalty to their kind/they cannot tolerate our mind/in loyalty to our kind/we cannot tolerate their obstruction" [Airplane]
Hmm? I loved Reader’s Digest and I love Althouse Blog . Does this mean anything. But I will keep on commenting in hopes of winning the Althouse Blog Sweepstakes. Is it still $7,000 a week for life.
The Sixties did strange things to people. I suppose most of the people Prine delivered mail to and most of the other mail carriers he worked with did have flag decals and did read the Reader's Digest if they read at all, but here's John Prine the mailman putting them down.
The country was bitterly divided back in the '60s and '70s, but the divisions weren't as air-tight as they seem to be now. Merle Haggard, Okie from Muskogee, definitely did smoke pot. Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash were great friends and hung out together. Weren't they supposed to be on opposite sides?
Maybe that was just the entertainment world, but there were stories of people who lived next door to each other and who came out of similar backgrounds taking radically different stands on the war and the youth culture. Since then, we've made the walls and barriers between subcultures more solid and constraining and hermetically sealed (or we think we have).
John prine was the Bob Dylan for people who experienced hard knocks in real life. Dylan it's more for dilettantes. You could say the same thing about ramblin Jack Elliott. Bob Dylan's greatest contribution to music was the Jimi Hendrix version of All along the watchtower.
Loudon Wainwright III, "Talking New Bob Dylan":
Had a commission at yer motorcycle wreck
Holed up in Woodstock with a broken neck
And the labels were signin' up guys with guitars
Out to make millions, lookin' for stars
Well, I figured it was time to make my move
Songs from the West Chester County Delta country
Yeah, I got a deal and so did John Prine
Steve Forbert and Springsteen, all in a line
They were lookin' for you, signin' up others
We were new Bob Dylans, your dumb ass kid brothers
https://genius.com/Loudon-wainwright-iii-talking-new-bob-dylan-lyrics
I recommend Muellenberg County. Or Grandpa was a Carpenter. What a song writer. THe late 60s and early 70s were the golden age of song writers. 50 years later, young musicians are still doing covers of songs written then. Are there song writers today whose songs will be covered in 2070?
Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash were great friends and hung out together. Weren't they supposed to be on opposite sides?
You obviously don't know anything about Johnny Cash. Listen to "Man in Black".
I agree with you Althouse: all this outpouring of love for John Prine is lost on me. Maybe Dylan will pen a heartfelt tribute to him.
As I said, I don't know much about John Prine...
Prine was one of those guys that never really penetrated the public consciousness, but was loved by singers because he was a great resource of quality songs. Lowell George was another.
Good god. How can anyone with a heart dislike "Hello in There"?
A great song by John Prine is ‘Angel From Montgomery’ - it is covered by Tedeschi Trucks Band covers
https://youtu.be/2OIAURQLnMI
Howard said...John prine was the Bob Dylan for people who experienced hard knocks in real life. Dylan it's more for dilettantes. You could say the same thing about ramblin Jack Elliott. Bob Dylan's greatest contribution to music was the Jimi Hendrix version of All along the watchtower.
Pffft. Dylan's great contribution was impeccable timing: being young, talented, respectful of his elders, and being so full of song before anyone at his time.
Good god. How can anyone with a heart dislike "Hello in There"?
Assumes facts not in evidence.
Hello in There and Angel from Montgomery were the best.
I would also add Sam Stone.
I had a John Prine album in the 1970's. He seemed like a much gentler version of Phil Ochs.
Listen to Prine and Dylan in the seventies; they were two strong voices that moved my generation particularly those of us who participated in the Anti-War movement or wore an illegal smile.
Maybe so chickelit. But Dylan is mostly a phenomenon for the older baby boomers.
John prine was a working man's musician.
Uncredited co-writer of "You Never Even Call Me by My Name," which is magnificent.
What I like most about this blog is not when Ann agrees with something I think but when she says something that makes me wonder what I was thinking. Like others, above, I was not overly familiar with John Prine, though I remember the name from way back. I enjoyed his duet with Iris DeMent, "In spite of ourselves", but I had not heard "Hello in There" until yesterday. I liked it enough to post on Facebook. I cannot say I thought much about it, but I did like it.
I am interested in why Ann doesn't like it.
Does liking it me that I thought it perfectly expressed something about being old or the human condition? Did it arrive at some essential truth? Do I agree with its premise?
I don't know - I don't think so. But, I don't think art necessarily does this. There is just too much subjectivity - what moves one, will not move another. Does that mean the artist got something wrong?
What I like about artists is their desire to find truths, not necessarily their success at doing so. We consumers often latch on something that strikes us as true even if it was the opposite of what the artist intended. We connect with a song based on other factors - your mood at the time, who you were dating, your age. Our love of a song cannot necessarily be a reflection of its worth, but connecting to an artist's search for connecting can be very special.
What I liked about "Hello in There" was the fact that it was written by a 25 year old (or younger) about a certain type of old person (or persons) - real or imagined. I don't know whether he captured the truth about the those persons, but I don't think he made them up and sentimentalized them. I think he was a young artist trying to imagine another person's life that was different than their own. If he had gone for mawkish or sentimental, I would have dismissed it. I'm not saying he gets credit for sincerity, but I do think it was beautiful attempt to capture something he saw or was feeling
Another famous person dies "of" Kung Flu. According to news reports. OTOH, according to other reports, he had a lot of underlying conditions and was already at death's door.
No matter, let's scare the rubes. If KungFlu can kill someone as famous as John (who?) Prine, IT WILL KILL YOU TOO IF YOU DO NOT OBEY!!!
“If someone dies with COVID-19, we are counting that as a COVID-19 death,” Birx said.
John Henry
Uncredited co-writer of "You Never Even Call Me by My Name," which is magnificent.
I miss Steve Goodman too. Died way too young (36) of leukemia.
Prine suffered 2 bouts of lung cancer. He looked pretty bad for 73. Not surprised he didn't make it through this.
Aware of him, but not really a fan. "Souvenirs" is a good tune.
Saw his show in some vintage venue in Hollywood in the early 80's. Went with a close friend who was a big fan. Hollywood was very seedy back then. I remember us sneaking two bottles of vodka into the show, and enjoying it all quite a bit. Prine and my friend are both gone now. I miss you, Harry, and all the crazy times we just dove straight into head first. Harry got me to try rock climbing, scuba diving, and hang gliding. All his ideas, which I ended up loving, but he never pursued much himself. Harry never used chairs. He would always sit on the floor, and that's how I found him leaning against the couch in front of the TV with a full Budweiser next to him, like he just fell asleep. He had a very good heart, but a weak one.
In spite of ourselves . . .
Althouse>>"If you think someone who loves Bob Dylan would love John Prine, you don't know enough about Bob Dylan. And I don't know much about John Prine."<<
I know a *lot* about Bob Dylan. Followed and loved him from the beginning. Got the books; play the songs. I also followed and loved John Prine, from the beginning. I've seen them both live several times over the decades.
If you think someone who loves Bob Dylan would *not* love John Prine, well, actually, you don't know what you're talking about. Except the fact that you don't know much about John Prine, I guess.
Readers Digest was for people who didn't have the time or desire to read a lot. It condensed articles from other magazines and had humor and human interest stores. usually the people sneering at it weren't big readers themselves - but it was a cultural marker. Thinking back, it was kinda humorous that people who got all their news from Dan Rather or Newsweek would look down on Readers Digest.
I love "Angel From Montgomery," the Bonnie Raitt version, but that's literally the only Prine song I know.
There's flies in the kitchen
I can hear them buzzin'
I ain't done nothin'
Since I woke up today.
That part, at least, has some resonance in the current situation.
Joe Prine..never heard of him. Dylan won a Nobel Prize, Prine didn't even win a Pulitzer.
All the liberals became 100 percent Anti-war after Nixon won the election. Before that they were full of nuance. By 1971, most of the US Troops were out of combat, and most people were in favor of ending the whole thing. Being against the war in the early 70's was fashionable and an easy position to take.
Ha. I still remember one story from RD all these years later. It's about a guy who has a home project, goes to a hardware store where the clerk tells him that every home project requires at least 3 trips to the hardware store. Guy laughs it off, comes back the second time; clerk smiles at him knowingly. Come the third time, the guy. . . . .goes to a different hardware store.
They also had a series called "I Am Joe's. . . .[body part]" or "I am Jane's . . .[body part]". I tell ya, Jane's breast and vagina were. . . errr. . . eye opening for my young self.
Never heard of Prine.
I must live under a rock. Never heard of him or any of the 25 essential songs. I listened to a couple and it just looked like a dillon knock off.
Thank you for the Sontag quote, Derek Kite. I was trying to remember it but couldn't and didn't feel like hunting it up. Whenever I see any mention of Reader's Digest these days, I think of Sontag and the quote. I'm sure her "liberal" and "progressive" fans just passed over it, telling themselves, "Nothing to see here."
Adam Schlesinger could write rock 'n roll, pop AND show tunes. With all respect to John Prine, a greater musical talent we lost to coronavirus was Schlesinger of Ivy, Fountains of Wayne, and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/adam-schlesinger-remembering-979279/
I mean, c'mon, "Don't be a Lawyer!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs-UEqJ85KE
Prine's early 70's music, the stuff he got a lot of press for, is sort of annoying.
But then he got **so much better** as he got older. My favorite is "Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings," which really should be the headline of his obituary.
Yes John Prine had corona virus--or the Kung Flu. He also had heart problems; he'd had metastizing skin cancer which resulted in surgery and radiation that took a chunk out of his neck; he'd had one lung removed. Yup, he died from corona virus. Or did he die from just being worn out with missing body parts? I'd say a little bit of all those things finally did him in.
"Charles Bukowski also worked as a mailman while trying to make it as an artist. So John Prine is in very good company there."
Wm. Faulkner was postmaster (briefly) in Oxford, Miss. He was a pain in the ass. If he didn't like you, he wouldn't sell you a stamp.
"Uncredited co-writer of "You Never Even Call Me by My Name," which is magnificent."
Really? Indeed it is, the greatest country song ever written:
(Take a breath at the dashes, like reciting Emily Dickenson)
Well I was drunk -- the day my ma -- got out of prison.
And I went down -- to pick her up -- in the rain!
But before I could get to the station in a pickupppppppp truck!
She got run ovah by the Danville traaaaaaaaain!
Great times singing that at the Emerald Tavern, Baltimore.
I don’t see either song as sneering at Reader’s Digest, only treating it as a ubiquitous piece of popular media, which it was. I had a liberal teacher in HS who sneered at it, but my mom subscribed, and she was far better educated, and smarter, than he, even though she had no degree.
Prine wrote some wonderfully humorous and touching songs. “Dear Abby”, and “Grandpa Was a Carpenter” spring to mind.
John Prine and his family were part of the "Great Hillbilly Migration" to Chicago and its near environs in the late 50s to c. mid-60s. It was a significant population movement by impoverished whites mostly (but not entirely) of Scots-Irish descent from the mostly northern parts of Appalachia including Prine's town of Paradise in Muhlenberg County. In Chicago they moved en masse into run-down apartment buildings on the run-down Near North side long before that area was gentrified -- when it was very hard-scrabble and somewhat dangerous. The Appalachian migrants who were collectively among the most impoverished, downtrodden, and poorly educated group of Americans pretty much escaped the notice, and concern, and the support, of social reformers and Great Society functionaries who were of course fixated on the "plight of the Negros." While it was regarded as racist to speak in any way negatively about blacks in the inner city, the Appalachian migrants were routinely and cruelly mocked, disparaged, put down, and discriminated against. You see, they were just poor dumb rednecks undeserving of the Great Society's beneficence and welfare largess that was so lavishly bestowed on inner city blacks. No one organized marches on Washington to call attention to their condition nor did Elvis sing a song like "In the Ghetto" for them. Prine's family moved to Maywood Park, a near-west suburb of Chicago, which became a major destination for the Appalachian migrants. It was the archetypal blue collar industrial suburb, a very rough place, with way more than its share of racial conflict between the working class whites and blacks who lived there. I spent some time in Maywood Park, when Prine was a mailman in the area, and I know what he experienced. Prine's personality, character, and artistic sensibilities were molded by his childhood in Paradise, Kentucky and his growing-up in Maywood Park. He was very much a product of those two places. He possessed all the salient traits of Scots Irish Appalachians: he was sly, witty, funny, stoic, musically inclined, poetic, edgy, difficult, honorable, honest, down-to-earth, perceptive, and compassionate. Anyone who thinks he was sneering at his subjects in the "Flag Decal" song, or in any other song for that matter, doesn't understand him or his music.
Sam Stone, Paradise, Grandpa Was a Carpenter, Dear Abby
He was a very prominent sing-songwriter in the 1970s, one of the best ever. "There's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes" about a military vet hooked on heroin.
Billboard's top 10 Prine songs
The man had a body of work spanning 50 years, and if you spend a handful of hours listening to them you come to understand he wrote with humor and understanding of the human condition. He wasn’t Dylan and didn’t pretend to be; he was just plain old John Prine. If you ever saw him perform live — I did three times back in the day — you’d know he didn’t take himself seriously, he was self-deprecating, witty and kind. His lyrics were always insightful, often hilarious, sometimes heart-rending. Bitter? That’s crazy. Listen to “Chain of Sorrow.”Life is a comedy to those who think and a tragedy to those who feel” is a cliche, but nevertheless true. John Prine knew it. His songs reflected it. The dismissive comments here say a lot — about their writers, and what they don’t know.
Unfortunately much of his best stuff was not accessible. Dylan was cool
Roughcoat - that was beautiful. Now I am really sad.
The Appalachian migrants who were collectively among the most impoverished, downtrodden, and poorly educated group of Americans pretty much escaped the notice, and concern, and the support, of social reformers and Great Society functionaries who were of course fixated on the "plight of the Negros."
You know long before the Great Society, Appalachia was the focus of the New Deal. Ever hear of the TVA?
There were a lot of high culture put-downs of Reader's Digest in the Fifties. Also of Time magazine. The two were founded in the same year to deal with the same problem (which I guess we have to call "the attention economy" now). The attacks on Time stopped after Henry Luce died, even though the magazine only got worse. It had a lot to do with Luce's Republicanism. Also the fact that the magazine stopped being significant. And the fact that people no longer think that pop culture or mass culture is going to go away or that there is a high culture that needs to be protected from it. I always had to laugh, though, seeing one of the Time or Newsweek hacks - Meecham, Isaacson, etc. - on TV and remembering when those magazines were considered to be the enemy of all that is holy.
The Appalachian migrants who were collectively among the most impoverished, downtrodden, and poorly educated group of Americans pretty much escaped the notice, and concern, and the support, of social reformers and Great Society functionaries who were of course fixated on the "plight of the Negros."
Not really true. There was plenty of talk about Appalachia in the 60s. It was a focus of the "War on Poverty." Interest flagged as time passed and race became trendy, but don't mistake present attitudes for what people were saying and doing in the mid-60s, an era closer in time to the 1930s of Faulkner, Steinbeck, Agee, and Erskine Caldwell than our own is.
I've been going to John Prine shows and listening to his muscic since he was first starting out in Chicago. He and Steve Goodman, two of the best story tellers ever. Last saw Prine a couple years back playing to a sold-out house of 2,100 fans. He looked and sounded as if he was at the end of the line. The audience must have felt that way as well, because everywhere I looked his fans were crying (me included). How many artists elicit that kind of reaction?
The Reader's Digest was a staple of my childhood through the 70s and early 80s. National Geographic issues were also read, when I wanted serious science-y stuff to read. As a kid I was constantly on the hunt for engaging reading material. I used RD as a Cliffs Notes version in many cases, and it did help with context, particularly when reading those Michener-sized tomes.
My dad was a big John Prine fan, and in turn a fan of Iris Dement. I think he got there through his love of bluegrass and in particular Emmylou Harris. I was a kid at the time so it didn't do anything for me, but I've grown fond of bluegrass as I've gotten older.
Lurker21:
Yes, it really is true. It was NOT a focus of the War on Poverty. Certainly not in Chicago. I know what I'm talking about. I was there. The authors you cite were read and discussed by upper-class university-educated elites, a very negligible demographic who liked their books for their literary-artistic merit but who didn't really give a fig for Appalachian people or do anything substantive to help them. They found hillbillies and hillbilly culture, as portrayed in books and movies, colorful and entertaining, and that was pretty much the extent of their involvement with those icky dumb white poor people. In Chicago the vast sums that were distributed in the War on Poverty went primarily to blacks and were in some instances controlled by black gangster elements like the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam, with the connivance of federal government representatives. The hillbillies got nothing, or next to nothing, except for the aforementioned mockery, disparagement, and discrimination of their social betters.
Oh sure, the New Deal and the TVA. How well did all that turn out for the people on the pointy end of those programs? Or else why do you think there was a hillbilly migration to Chicago in the decades that followed? See the 1960 movie "Wild River" to get a sense of the true impact of New Deal/TVA programs on the people they were meant to help.
I was/am a big John Prine fan. My personal favorite is Blue Umbrella (the Steve Goodman version; I've never heard Prine's). And given the general tenor of the musical discussions on this blog, I'm surprised buy the harsh reception his music is getting here.
I like a lot of Dylan's music but he's something of a cultural dilatant, somewhat inauthentic. You know, a product of the "mean streets" of Hibbing, MN, and the East Village. Prine was anything but a dilatant. He was the real deal.
For example, Prine would have never described, or thought of, his "stuff" as "pure Proustian existentialism."
I don't even know what that means.
“ This post made me curious about how systematic you are (or aren't) about looking to see if you have a tag on a subject. You could be completely systematic so that every single time you type up a tag on a post, you run a search on it to see if that tag already exists (or maybe the blogging software alerts you without you having to do anything?). Or you could just check periodically.”
When I start to type a tag, Blogger suggests from my existing tags. So I don’t need to do a search.
“I would think the hard part would be not remembering how exactly you specified a tag in the past ("Did I say "Dylan" or did I say "Bob Dylan"?) especially for tags you only use a few times a year and therefore don't have a working memory for.”
Sometimes I accidentally make a duplicate tag because I’m guessing wrong about something like that. If I discover a duplication I go back and consolidate.
The hardest thing is tags that are not names, especially abstractions like “big and small.” These are the most interesting tags to me, but I need to remember them. Like: is there a tag for “abstraction”?
That may have had more to do with Chicago and other Northern cities than with Appalachia itself. I don't suppose there was much interest in White migrants to those cities. They certainly weren't organized to the degree that African-Americans were. They didn't present themselves as a key voting bloc and may not have made demands.
I see now that we are talking about different things. Appalachia was all over the news in the early Johnson years. Documentaries on CBS and public television. Visits by LBJ and RFK to talk about poverty. I don't think the War on Poverty did the Appalachian people much good, but Johnson's policies wouldn't have passed Congress if they'd been presented solely as a program for non-Whites. Appalachia was key to getting what Johnson wanted.
"You know, educated people in America used to look down on their fellow citizens who subscribed to Reader's Digest, but look what we read today. Edited down snippets and headlines."
Yep. The devolution of the American reading public/electorate.
“ If you think "Your Flag Decal Won't Get You into Heaven Anymore" is a song that sneers at hicks, you missed the entire theme of the song. He is sneering at the people who overcrowded heaven with their dirty little war.”
You’re putting too much stress on “entire” and not enough on “anymore.”
You’re such a sneerer you can’t see the sneer on your own face.
Gaze in your mirror long enough and it looks like a smile.
If I could rewrite this comment to make a couple words rhyme.
I would have the lyrics to a stupid folk song.
You’re putting too much stress on “entire” and not enough on “anymore.”
For someone who admits she doesn't "know much about John Prine", you certainly are quite ready to criticize him.
To interpret any John Prine song for "sneering" at the working class, is ridiculous in the extreme if you know anything about his life and career.
"For example, Prine would have never described, or thought of, his 'stuff' as 'pure Proustian existentialism.'"
Yeah, I don't even know "Proustian existentialism" means, but that's Dylan for you. Proust lived and wrote well before the literary/philosophical thought system called Existentialism appeared. I haven't read Proust, so I don't know if his opus/memoir is existentialist or not.
(Heh. According this definition I found online, Ayn Rand and her comic book heroes/heroines can be said to be existentialists:
"Existentialism: a philosophical theory or approach which emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will.")
If I could rewrite this comment to make a couple words rhyme.
I would have the lyrics to a stupid folk song.
Instead you have a stupid comment.
“ Good god. How can anyone with a heart dislike "Hello in There"?”
Anyone who admires their own heart when they see themselves moved by “Hello in There” really ought to think more deeply about the ageist bullshit they had to believe in to get to that self admiration. To attack others for not sharing in the egoistic smarm is no display of empathy.
By the way, the version I am familiar with is Bette Midler’s.
Anyone who admires their own heart when they see themselves moved by “Hello in There” really ought to think more deeply about the ageist bullshit they had to believe in to get to that self admiration.
"Ageist bullshit"?! Are you sure you are listening to the same song as the rest of us? Calling it maudlin is certainly a valid criticism, but ageist?
Please tell us which part of the song offends you so deeply.
Blogger rcocean said...
Dylan won a Nobel Prize,
So did Obama. The Nobel hasn't meant much other than virtue signalling for quite some time now.
John Henry
By the way, the version I am familiar with is Bette Midler’s.
There's your problem, right there. Good god. And it is not MY heart I am celebrating, but HIS. That song, as sung by him, is a window into the gentle caring soul of a born humanitarian. He was in his 20's when he wrote it. Remarkable.
Chew on this: Hello in There
And an apology would be in order, too.
I'm surprised Ann Althouse doesn't like John Prine, at least a little. But it's an interesting phenomena when someone has a strong opinion that seems inexplicable.
There's roosters laying chickens, and chickens laying eggs. Farm machinery eating people's arms and legs.
Thanks for the link, A Voice of Reason.
I get more choked up the older I get - never felt that way about Bette Midler's excellent cover. However, they are two totally different songs when you compare the two versions.
I suspect that Althouse is just trying to be provocative. She doesn't have a heart of stone. (I hope).
Ann - I accept that you don't get Prine. This is a nice stream of consciousness piece that was posted in American Songwriter. The writer does a good job of explaining why so many of us loved the guy.
https://americansongwriter.com/john-prine-remembered-at-age-73/
I suspect that Althouse is just trying to be provocative. She doesn't have a heart of stone. (I hope).
We'll see, I guess, after she watches the Prine video. If she does watch it.
I liked the John Prine I heard, and many of my musician friends thought highly of his talents.
The subscribers to RD that I knew were educated people; not Ivy maybe (I didn't know anyone in those circles), but mostly college educated, or with kids they wanted to go to college.
Later, in my career, I dealt with a lady who had been an editor at RD for many years. She was very smart, and quite liberal, and anything but ashamed of the connection.
Narr
(She was Thomas Heggen's first wife)
Ann-
Get a copy of Diamonds In The Rough, his best album.
Well curious antipathies, like Glenn Gould not liking Mozart, help spice up the human universe. But sometimes one *does* wonder if the notes RD article "I Am Ann's Heartlessness" *was* based on a totally mistaken premise.
meant "noteD RD article"
I suspect few of us are familiar enough with Marcel Proust, and perhaps existentialism, not to mention Dylan himself, to offer a qualified opinion on Mr. Dylan's 2 sentence comment on John Prine. I include myself in this category, since I've never read Proust, nor cared much for Prine's ouvre. I have recently read about Proust though, based on his being a subject of the late Rene Girard's interest, who has captured most of my interest these last days.
However, sentence 2 of the comment attributed to Dylan pretty much nails down the case made in the first from what I have gathered of Proust's writing and personality. Self conscious mind trips. Maybe someday, if I'm quarantined at home indefinitely, I'll read Proust and listen to John Prine.
I smiled at what i read in the comments here somewhere: "If you love Dylan, you'll like Prine." Faint praise, or thinly veiled slight. I do love Dylan. To the nth degree. I don't dislike Prine, and I wish him eternal rest, peace and happiness, and no more visits to the back of the dirty book store.
I saw him a number of times throughout the years, but my favorite memories were of him in the 70s at the Earl of Old Town.
I don't like 'Blowin' in the Wind'. But I've only listened to the Johnny Mann Singers version.
I love Bette Midler, but her cover of Hello In There is terrible. Listen to Prine sing it and you'll feel the hopelessness the song is meant to convey.
Prine wrote some great lyrics. From Blue Umbrella:
Blue Umbrella rests upon my shoulder
To hide the pain while the rain makes up my mind.
Well my feet are wet from thinking this thing over
But it's been so long since I felt the warm sunshine.
Captures perfectly the pain of having to end s relationship.
"...Now Jesus don't like killin', no matter what the reason's for..."
Well, it's a 'Liberal's' interpretation of what he believes "Jesus" said, stands for etc. Typically, wrong since Jesus also said, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's." "Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities."
But the big one [there are many] - Jeremiah 51:20 “You are my hammer and weapon of war: with you I break nations in pieces; with you I destroy kingdom..."
Oh, I did forget to post this one"
"...Exodus 15:3 The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name..."
BTW, did not Michael and his angels fight a war in heaven - how did this Liberal forget about that "..killin.."
OMG, I'm agreeing with Freder. Not that familiar with Prine (though we saw him on the waterfront in Boston a few years back with Lucinda Williams), but I loved his work with Steve Goodman, including "You Never Even Call Me by My Name" and "Souvenirs." Would take Steve over Dylan any day, even though he was a Cubs fan.
Roughcoat, I always thought Uptown was the Appalachian area. Further north, not near north. My brother was the pastor at St. Mary's for twenty or twenty-five years, though it was probably more Latino at that point.
--gpm
gpm: you're right. It was indeed Uptown not Near North that that was the Appalachian area. Sorry for the error and thanks for correcting me. I was writing in haste and got the two confused.
A friend of mine is from Maywood, but she's about ten years younger than Prine and has been in Cambridge/Boston since about 1980. Her parents stayed on long after the neighborhood "changed" (I think her mother just moved to assisted living a couple of years ago), although Maywood probably was/is a lot less rough (and still a bit more mixed) than my old digs in West Englewood.
Doc Rivers, about eight years younger than me, went to Proviso East in Maywood. About all Englewood's got to show these days is Jennifer Hudson (whose family was subject to a horrific fatal attack in their home about ten years ago). Chance the Rapper's from Chatham, a bit further south and also a bit better off than Englewood/West Englewood.
--gpm
It's easy to confuse the Uptown and Near North neighborhoods of the late 60s. Both were fairly seedy. Even Lincoln Park and Old Town (the latter was more or less part of the former) were seedy. Same goes for Wrigleyville. Which means young people could afford to live in those neighborhoods. It was a fun time to be young in Chicago and on the North Side in particular, and we much care that the neighborhoods were seedy. I knew an Irish girl from Beverly (South Side) who said that Southside Irish girls who weren't married by the time they turned 25 moved to Old Town to find a guy. The Saturday evening "Ass Mass" at St. Michael's in Old Town was famous as a place where girls and guys could meet. Chris Farley attended mass at St. Mike's on the morning he died of a cocaine overdose at his Old Town apartment. Getting back to the subject at hand, Prine and Goodman were frequent performers at the Earl of Old Town back in the day. Siegel-Schwall played every Tuesday night at the Quiet Night, blues legends played at Wise Fools on Fullerton, and bleacher tickets for Cubs games at Wrigley Field cost a couple of bucks. What a time.
oops too many typos. edited and reposted:
gpm:
I'm so old I remember when Englewood was an Irish neighborhood. Are you Irish, perchance?
Nowadays Maywood Park is all black and a free-fire zone, extremely dangerous. Until just five days ago (when I escaped/moved to northwest Indiana) I lived just south of Maywood, and I scrupulously avoided driving through it. Back in my day Maywood was ground zero for the Chicago-area chapter of the Black Panther Party, led by Fred Hampton. Fred attended Proviso East at the same as Prine. A a few years later he was assassinated by a Chicago PD special action team. There was a white section of Maywood and a Black section, and never did the twain meet except violently. Racial incidents at Proviso East HS escalated steadily in both frequency and violence in the 60s. I once found myself literally in the midst of a riot by Proviso East black students, and I was lucky to escape with my life.
John Prine is one of my favorite artists. His songs range from goofy and lighthearted to incredibly serious and meaningful - he communicates much in a few well chosen lines. I have heard many other singer/songwriters refer to him as an inspiration - I always find that type of comment telling. I was lucky to see him 5 or 6 times in concert, including last May when he played in Appleton with my wife and three of our kids. Always a good show - I new the lyrics to every song he played every time I saw him. He will be missed.
Two of my favorite songs (hard to pick only two) one from 40+ years ago, and one from his most recent album.
https://youtu.be/PnMNBTc1DQU
https://youtu.be/nXbEFTv9zr0
Do all of Prine's songs have the same tune?
It's hard for me to tell, but I don't feel like there's that much variety in the music.
John Prine is in that small group of musicians that are greatly admired by other musicians and some critics, but not the public at large, so you will rarely see their names on Top Ten records, and if the music industry after decades feels guilt for ignoring them, you see them win Grammies as elder statesmen. Members of this group included not only Prine, but John Hiatt, Tom Waits, Ry Cooder, the late Frank Zappa, the late Leon Redbone, most of the famous blues artists. Bonnie Raitt was a member of this group for a long time, working in obscurity until achieving sudden success with Nick of Time.
If you want a familiar tune that's more poetic than it is quirky or offbeat try one called 'Paradise', written and first recorded by Prine, but covered to great effect by a guy named Deutschendorf in 1972 on an album called Rocky Mountain High.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwinsoD-6droAhUNvJ4KHVNWAUsQtwIwAHoECAkQLg&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DtwQB29LNvCk&usg=AOvVaw2hEEpKUcyRM2AWBXlPBodL
But if you really like quirky and gravelly, there's always this one.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiTvdPE6troAhUQgp4KHWVrC8AQtwIwAXoECAcQNw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D4mqDsuhnnRk&usg=AOvVaw1u2P5hJfabz9UZM1j2akTZ
John Denver left out the last verse.
When I die let my ashes
Flow down the Green River,
Let my soul roll on up
To the Rochester dam,
I'll be halfway to heaven
With Paradise waiting,
Just five miles away
From wherever I am.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_kHwVqfJtU
Some of you really need to get out more: “Spanish Pipedream” https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ6INAayEJI
“Blow up your TV
Throw away your papers
Go to the country
Build you a home
Plant a little garden
Eat a lot of peaches
Try to find Jesus
On your own”
Prine had a sense of humor, you see, so naturally people who love Bob Dylan don’t get him.
The funniest thing about all these “never heard of him, and the songs the media mentions as part of his legacy kinda sucked” comments above is this: you were expecting the lazy mass media clowns to point you to the good stuff?
That’s hilarious. You must be joking.
Of course they pointed to dated anti-war stupidity like “Your Flag Decal”. Journalists LOVE that shit. But it was from 50 years ago, and like all the anti-war songs of that era, it didn’t age well. I personally don’t like it either, and I love Jhn Prine. Distegard it. Next!
“Hello in There” might be a little heavy-handed but to me it is a very mature and touching song about being fully human, even to old people you don’t know, because they used to be young just like you. Again, not a song I would choose to play often, he’s done much more listenable stuff in intervening years. Disregard. Next!
A little advice, try the best stuff from his best albums, or a Spotify “this is” playlist https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DWWYlokKRoQoC?si=ohuqAonGS0ihCfrLKUCpUg
Don’t let the one-note media instruct you what to like, especially when it comes to folk music, because they are lazy and have a giant blind spot.
A memorial from Dave Hoekstra, a veteran Chicago journalist and a knowledgeable and sympathetic observer of Chicago music and entertainment for decades: http://www.davehoekstra.com/2020/04/07/remembering-john-prine/
One of the greatest songwriters. A national treasure and up there with Dylan. He wrote Hello In There at 24 years old, give the guy a break.
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