Aw, heck.
That’s probably what Prine would say.
Actually, that’s what he did say. It was the name of a song he did on his 1978 album, Bruised Orange.
Me, I’m afraid I’m not as even-tempered and accepting as John Prine was.
Right now, all I can think is: this sucks. So bad.
* * *
It wasn’t supposed to end this way.
Oh, we knew this day was coming, even if the guy seemed indestructible.
The cancer couldn’t kill him.
Not the squamous cell cancer on his neck in 1998.
Not the lung cancer in 2013.
He kept on getting back up, and writing more songs, and recording more albums, and playing more tours.
But we knew it was going to get him, eventually.
And when it did, we would gather together for a tearful, laugh-filled celebration of the man.
I could envision the tribute concert for him.
There could be a beautiful duet of “Souvenirs,” maybe Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires, reminding us how precious life is, and to hang onto memories.
Maybe Bonnie would come back for one more singing of “Angel From Montgomery,” leaving a bunch of tear-streaked faces.
And the last song could be “My Old Man” to crank all the remaining tears out of our eyes.
That wasn’t Prine’s song. It was Steve Goodman’s, his old Chicago folk buddy (who always called his old friend, “Prine”).
But Prine sang it, too, most heartbreakingly at the tribute show when Steve died.
Then everybody would emerge for one more singalong encore – a rowdy, celebratory “Please Don’t Bury Me,” to send us all off howling into the night, waving the middle finger at death.
But now it won’t happen.
We say it every single day – this is such a cruel disease.
Loved ones die alone, without their family by their side.
Children can’t visit their parents, or their grandparents, for fear of contaminating them.
Healthcare workers have to wonder if they should go home to their families, fear for infecting them.
High school kids put themselves at risk, bagging our groceries for us.
We all are ordered – wisely – to keep our distance from each other.
And one of the cruel realities of this virus is, Prine won’t get his proper send-off.
Because we can’t be together.
Like a lot of things about this virus – it’s just so wrong.
* * *
There hasn’t been much to make me smile since Covid-19 finally took John down, Tuesday night. All day Wednesday, friends checked in on me, offering condolences, and telling me to play his songs. But I couldn’t bring myself to do that.
I was just so angry.
But one of the few things that have made me feel good is thinking of all the young musicians – Americana, folk, or alt-country – who followed in Prine’s footsteps, who absolutely adored him.
I was at the Folk Fest in Newport, in 2017, when Prine made his last appearance there.
And it warmed my heart to see the parade of young ‘uns rush up to see him, to share the stage with him, to hug him after their song was over.
Over time, you’d see the same thing repeat itself, over again. These kids would all approach John as star-struck fans, but would quickly become fast friends, because of John’s quirky, unassuming, disarming personality.
You’d see it happen with Kacey Musgraves, Dan Auerbach, Todd Snider, Jason Isbell, Amanda Shires, Sturgill Simpson, Maggie Rogers, Margo Price, Brandi Carlile…
There are a lot of young musicians walking around with John Prine’s blood in their veins, and that makes me feel better about things.
Todd Snider, in his great memoir, recalls saying something (too funnily rude for me to repeat) that made Prine spit out his soda, laughing.
“And that made me happy,” Snider said. “I think about that when I’m down sometimes.”
In that same book, Todd answers the question everybody asks him: “What’s John Prine like?” Snider describes a tour he took with Prine in Europe, and being picked up in a van. The young van driver goes the wrong way, despite John saying, “If I remember right from the last time, we went the other way.” Two hours later, the kid realizes John was right. The band in the back of the van is steaming mad.
But John doesn’t even look up from the paper he’s reading. “No big deal. It’s fun to drive around in Europe.”
Then there’s this great Amazon Music round-table interview with Brandi Carlile, Jason Isbell, Amanda Shires, Dave Cobb, Margo Price, and Prine.
Look at how they look at him. Like he’s their favorite, goofy old uncle.
They all treat him with a mix of reverence, and good-natured ribbing, giving him a hard time about the Cadillacs he collected.
At one point, Brandi makes a fun analogy, saying, “Snoop Dogg and John are similar in that everything that John says sounds like a song. Everything he says here today, just stand behind him and pick a guitar.”
* * *
That song, “Aw, Heck”?
Other guys might’ve called the song, “My Woman.”
That’s what he was singing about – how everything is fine, as long as he’s got his woman. No matter how dire…
“The cannibals could catch me and fry me in a pan, as long as I got my woman/I could get the electric chair for a phony rap, as long as she’s sittin’ in my lap.”
I remember hearing that song in a biker bar in Maynard, Mass, shortly after that song came out.
One of the bikers saunters over to the jukebox, and drops a few quarters in the machine.
The first song comes up – it’s “Aw, Heck.”
Next thing you know, the whole gang of bikers is singing along, smiling knowingly as they sing.
It’s like Prine was singing it just for them.
He wrote songs that were adored by bikers. And high-tech workers. And college professors. And crunchy granola-eating old folkies, left over from the sixties. And lonely old ladies. And twenty-something-year-old aspiring country singers.
Actually, it’s hard to find any person, cut from any cloth, that didn’t like Prine’s songs.
There were those that didn’t know them. But once a person found him, they loved him.
He was all those people.
He was a hippie. He wrote songs about smoking weed. “You may see me tonight with an illegal smile/It don’t cost very much, but it lasts a long while/Won’t you please tell the man, I didn’t kill anyone?/I was just trying to have me some fun.”
He was a blue-collar worker, delivering the mail, speaking for the common man like nobody else, writing songs like “Grandpa Was a Carpenter.” As he described him, “He was level on the level, shaved even every door/Voted for Eisenhower ‘cause Lincoln won the war.”
He wrote about Dear Abby, giving her a voice she probably wished she could have. “Dear ‘Unhappy’, you have no complaint/You are who you are, and you ain’t who you ain’t/So listen up buster, and listen up good/Stop wishin’ for bad luck, and knockin’ on wood.”
He could be a protest singer, writing songs about coal companies strip-mining beautiful spots of land (“Paradise”).
He could be a straight-shooting, iconoclastic rebel. “Your flag decal won’t get you into heaven anymore/They’re already overcrowded from your dirty little wars.”
He wrote about a Vietnam vet who shot himself full of heroin, after returning from the war. “There’s a hole in daddy’s arm, where the money goes/Jesus Christ died for nothin’, I suppose.”
He wrote about old folks, not having anybody to talk to since the kids moved on, in “Hello in There.”
“John and Linda live in Omaha, and Joe is somewhere on the road/ We lost Davy in the Korean War, and I still don’t know what for/ Don’t matter anymore.”
He wrote about heartache, better than anybody else. His line in “Souvenirs” killed me when I first heard it, and it still gets me now. “Broken hearts and dirty windows make life difficult to see/That’s why last night and this morning, they both look the same to me.”
But mostly, I’ll remember him as a warrior against taking things too seriously.
There’s that famous line he told his doctor, when he told him that the cancer treatment might harm his singing voice: “Doc, have you heard me sing?”
Or the fan who told him, “I really like that song of yours with the happy enchilada! ‘It’s a happy enchilada, and you think you’re gonna drown.’ You know the one?”
When Prine realized she was talking about “That’s the Way That the World Goes Round” (“It’s a half an inch of water, and you think you’re gonna drown”) he smiled and said, “I’m glad you like the lyrics.”
And then he updated his song to include the happy enchilada lyric.
* * *
But this is not an appreciation. There will be time for that later, by people who can do it better than me (for example, Jason Isbell, in his tender New York TImes Op-Ed).
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/opinion/john-prine-jason-isbell.html
I come not to praise Caesar. I come to bury him.
I can’t play his songs. Not just yet.
Someday, I’ll be able to say, “Aw, heck.”
I’m too mad to feel that, right now.
I’m furious that he was taken from us.
I’m furious that this awful virus is taking people from us.
I’m furious that it is forcing us to keep apart from each other.
I’m furious that young kids working stores have to put themselves in harm’s way for us.
I’m furious that doctors and nurses have to be on the front lines, without the support they need.
I’m furious that we haven’t done more to fight this virus.
I’m furious that we have lost one of our warriors.
In the fight against sorrow. In the fight against seriousness.
We all have friends and family members who have been battling this virus. We all have lost people to it.
I knew that this awful disease would take some icons.
I just wasn’t prepared to lose this one.
Daddy Gibs 