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I had one of those trains hit me last night... I pulled this out of my cabinet, looked at the cover for a long time, read the notes on the back... but I didn’t make it through the notes because I started to cry.
I guess I had forgotten how much of an impact this first album of John Prine, a masterpiece of songwriting and delivery, had on me. There’s probably only 5 or 6 albums in that category for me on a personal level.
I remember in the very early 1970s getting a call from my older brother who said, “I’m coming over tonight because there is a singer-songwriter who is going to perform on TV.”
I bought that first album that next week.
I bought that first album that next week.
I wore that album out. It was so *heavy*... there were heavy albums before this of course, but this one was curiously veiled in lighteness and humor.
There was nothing quite like it.
There was nothing quite like it.
The song that I have carried within me all these years as a ‘perfect song’ was Far From Me. It’s not complicated, but it harbors very complex feelings. It is perfectly done, perfectly written. It it perfection in a simple, complex way.
I have extremely vivid mental images of some of these songs, images that have remained pretty much the same as those early hearings of them on my old stereo in my bedroom.
As vivid as Dylan’s ‘Visions of Johanna’... which is about as vivid as such things get for me.
As vivid as Dylan’s ‘Visions of Johanna’... which is about as vivid as such things get for me.
It might be a while before I will be able to summon the courage to sit down by myself and listen to this album all the way through. I’m just not ready for the effect that I think will come with that listening.
Heavy.
#JohnPrine
Heavy.
#JohnPrine