Maybe it's just me, but I have a feeling that people over a certain age that I passed awhile ago don't like to go around dangling a string from a small object stuck in the ear, and therefore tend to stop listening to music when they stop living alone. I miss it and when out driving about tend to take routes that would never be recommended by Google Maps, in order to maximize listening time. Today it was "Prime Prine: The Best of John Prine."
Who's a better songwriter than Prine? Yet it seems he could have easily never "made it." After serving during the Vietnam era, he returned to his native Chicago, and began working as a mailman. He had been playing guitar since he was 14, and now he began writing songs and attending open mic nights at a local club. One of the oddities of his career: his first public notice came on account of a review by the famous movie critic, Roger Ebert, who frequented a club Prine played at nights after his mail delivery gig. He was soon "discovered" by Kris Kristofferson, landed a record contract, and released the eponymous "John Prine" in 1971. For a long time now, my favorite Prine song is the fourth one on Side 1 of that first record, "Sam Stone" (he's aptly named). The lyric goes like this:
To his wife and family
After serving in the conflict overseas.
And the time that he served,
Had shattered all his nerves,
And left a little shrapnel in his knee.
But the morphine eased the pain,
And the grass grew round his brain,
And gave him all the confidence he lacked,
With a Purple Heart and a monkey on his back.
[Chorus:]
There's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes,
Jesus Christ died for nothin' I suppose.
Little pitchers have big ears,
Don't stop to count the years,
Sweet songs never last too long on broken radios.
Mmm....
Sam Stone's welcome home
Didn't last too long.
He went to work when he'd spent his last dime
And Sammy took to stealing
When he got that empty feeling
For a hundred dollar habit without overtime.
And the gold rolled through his veins
Like a thousand railroad trains,
And eased his mind in the hours that he chose,
While the kids ran around wearin' other peoples' clothes...
[Chorus]
Sam Stone was alone
When he popped his last balloon
Climbing walls while sitting in a chair
Well, he played his last request
While the room smelled just like death
With an overdose hovering in the air
But life had lost its fun
And there was nothing to be done
But trade his house that he bought on the G. I. Bill
For a flag draped casket on a local heroes' hill.
[Chorus]
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