Most mornings, sincebeing asked to shelter-in-place due to a global pandemic, I’ve been getting inthe shower, turning on John Prine’s version of “Clay Pigeons,” and quietlysinging along. It’s been the perfect quarantine song. “Count the days and thenights that it takes to get back in the saddle again.”
A longtime fan of Prine’sgreatest hits — the surface stuff — I overlooked his cover of Blaze Foley’s “ClayPigeons” until my Spotify algorithm introduced it to me on a road trip from LosAngeles to San Francisco in the fall of 2017. I had to pull off at the nextexit, take out my iPhone, and look up everything I could find on it whileplaying the song a second, then a third time in a row.
It was at that momentthat I realized I knew nothing about John Prine. I knew his songs and hischaracters, his protagonists, his icons, the angel from Montgomery and thefather with a hole in his arm where the money goes. But I knew nothing aboutthe man behind these towers of song.
I became determined towrite a piece as I sought some kind of answer to my question “Who is JohnPrine?” At the time I expressed naively but out of a genuine enthusiasm: “Iwant to find some part of his story that has never been told and then tell it.”
In March of 2018, I wasable to have a fantastic 45-minute conversation with him about all the things Iwanted to know about him — about all the things he hadn’t been asked before andalso all the things that may have changed since he’s been asked them last. Sometopics are worth revisiting: Does he feel the need to take a stand,politically, now that Trump is President? What young songwriters are inspiringhim these days? And does he have any plans to retire?
But as with every pieceof art and conversation, everything changes when the artist dies. Things meansomething different, other things mean something more. After it was reportedthat John Prine was in critical condition a couple weeks ago, having contractedCOVID-19, I refreshed my news feed on him regularly, looking for hopefulupdates. He had just returned from a European tour; he talked about that verytour at the end of our interview two years ago, when it was still in the future— he planned on celebrating by taking the rest of this year off and travelingthe world with his wife.
I recalled our unusualinterview and looked up the transcript, only to find that so much of it isstill relevant for right here and now. Iwanted a portrait and I got a candid.
I still don’t know whoJohn Prine is. But I know we’ll all misshim.
Do you ever miss beinga mailman?
Never,no.
Do you have a plan B ifyour music career doesn’t work out?
No. When I left thepost office and I was told them I was leaving it to go into show business, thesuperintendent, the Postmaster said, “Don’ttake your retirement money.” And I said, “Why?” And he said, “You’ll be back.” Isaid, “You don’t understand, if it doesn’t work out I’m not coming back.”
You’ve had a long andimpressive career, during which - sadly - you’ve seen some of your peers comeand go. Who do you miss most?
Steve Goodman. We werelike blood brothers — we got thrown into the fire at the same time and we wereboth Chicago guys and we went to New York, and got record contracts within 48hours of each other, and so there was this bond. Goodman was the reason that Iwent to New York. When I got the record contract, I wasn’t gonna go and Steviealso was the one that made Kris Kristofferson come over to listen to me.
The last thing in theworld Kris Kristofferson wanted to hear was another singer-songwriter andGoodman made him get in a cab at 1 o’clock in the morning, after he’d done twoshows, and dragged him over. And nobody was in the club; I was waiting for mypaycheck and the chairs were on the tables. We pulled four chairs down and Isang 7 or 8 songs for Kris. He asked me to go back up there and sing everythingI’d ever wrote and he championed my stuff after that. And that was supposed tobe Goodman’s shining hour and Goodman wouldn’t hear about it — he wantedeverybody to see his buddy from Chicago.
There are entire essays written about some ofyour songs, including attempts to analyze certain lyrics. Do you have anyanecdotes about anyone wildly, if accidentally, totally misinterpreting yourlyrics and what you mean to say?
[Laughs] Actually,there have been quite a few over the years. But I kind of figured, better thancorrect them, I thought there’s kind of like there’s no such thing as bad pressas long as people are talking about your lyrics. Also, I’ve gotta say, unlessit was totally out of the ballpark, I like to leave a lot of interpretation tothe listener. And they may interpret it totally different than what you meant,but it still means something to them. So I wouldn’t want to bust their balloon.
Yeah, of course. Ithink that maybe that’s actually the secret of a good song — everyone findstheir own meaning in it and it works for all of them. I’m sure even for you,some of these songs must have changed their “true” meaning over time.
That’s true. I’msurprised, actually, at how many of the songs have worn as good as they have.That’s something you really don’t have any control over once you get it outthere.
I was surprised when Ilearned that “Clay Pigeons” was a cover because it sounds so much like one ofyours. What inspired you to cover that song in particular?
I love when MerleHaggard finally did his version of “If I Could Only Fly,” ‘cause I love thesong. And man, that killed me. Haggard did the song before, with Willie[Nelson] — and it was nice. But it didn’t pull the fullness of the song like itdid the second time.
Haggard actually wentback and did the song again and that tells me that he had been sitting aroundfor years with the song, probably singing it in hotel rooms. And I went backand listened to the rest of Blaze Foley's stuff and “Clay Pigeons” stuck out tome like I had written the song myself. And so it was natural for me to coverit. It felt relatable, you know.
In an interview withRolling Stone, you talk about a gift that Johnny Cash gave you, and it’sinteresting because it’s Johnny Cash. Butwhat’s the strangest gift that you’ve ever received from a fan?
There was a fan up inSt. Paul, Minneapolis and the guy was an amateur taxidermist and his name wasProfessor Beardsley. And his wife was with him and the wife told me that therewas no rodent or anything on their property that didn’t get stuffed. He saidthey even have little mice stuffed on the wall. And the guy brought me achicken hat with earmuffs built into it. It was a chicken that he stuffed withits legs hanging out from the back. And the chicken head up the front like adamn ornament. I wore that for years, only for special company.
Let me guess, you’rewearing it right now.
No, I evidently gave itto an ex-brother-in-law. I couldn’t figure out who on earth I would give thatchicken head to, but it was Eddie, my ex-brother-in-law.
Tree of Forgiveness [the title of Prine’s 2018 studio album] isa very evocative image, but before I heard the album or could read the lyrics,I was wondering what you meant by that exactly. Let’s start with: What does atree of forgiveness look like?
Sounds like a Christmastree, I would guess.
Of course you’re gonnasay that. The lyric comes from the song “When I Get to Heaven,” which is yourcomedic take on what you’re looking forward to in your vision of the afterlife.It strikes the match of humor to hold a light to all those unknowns about thedivine: “When I get to heaven/I’m gonna have a cocktail.”
I know. Originally, I just wrote the chorus and that’s all it was. It was kind of my own private happy hour song — like uh oh, it’s time for a cocktail, you know. I had the thing about smoking a cigarette nine miles long and I thought, ‘I can’t do that; I had cancer twice. I had to give up smoking twenty years ago and I still love it. I like to watch people smoke. I like to go stand next to them when they fire up, so that first whiff I could kind of get that secondhand smoke they warn you about, you know.
I’m an ex-smoker myselfand I still dream about smoking
So, when I wrote thesong “When I Get to Heaven,” I’m trying to figure out where can I go get acigarette, and it’s not gonna be anywhere “here.” If I could smoke, it’s not at thebar where you’d have to stand outside like an animal, like you’re pissing onthe fire hydrant or something. And I thought, ‘The only place I would be ableto smoke is heaven.’ They wouldn’t have cancer up there and probably theywouldn’t have “no smoking” signs.
Not in my heaven,anyway
And that was the lastsong I wrote for the record — “When I Get to Heaven” — and I still hadn’treferenced “the tree of forgiveness.” So I had to stick it in. That’s it — it’sa nightclub in heaven!
So the title of thealbum came before the lyric?
Years before. I knewfive years ago I was gonna make a record sometime called Tree ofForgiveness. I didn’t know why — I tried to write a song a couple of timescalled “The Tree of Forgiveness” and it just seemed too whatever. It didn’twork, not with the original what I had in mind. And I still wanted to get thetitle in the record, so I ended up calling the nightclub in heaven The Tree ofForgiveness — which is not a bad name for a bar.
The album opens withthe song “Knockin’ OnYour Screen Door.” Were you thinking of a specific and actual screen door, when you wrotethose lyrics, or was it just something you thought everyone could relate to?
No, I co-wrote thatwith a good buddy Pat McLaughlin and he came up with the title. I’m not surewhat he was thinking of. Pat is a happily married man but I knew him in hisbachelor days and he really got around, if you know what I mean. And I have afeeling whenever he comes up with an image like “Knockin’ On Your Screen Door,” it has something todo with an old flame. He’s gonna look up her number and knock on her screendoor, or whatever. So I just took it at face value that that’s where it was. Meand him are so familiar with each other, we could finish each other’s sentencesand we just go from one image to another until we have something we can tie abow around.
That’s a great idea — there’sa few screen doors I wouldn’t mind knocking on.
There you go, now you’recatching on.
“The Lonesome Friendsof Science” is another song that really stood out to me, and I was wondering,apart from the possibility now that you’re going to accidentally start a realmovement to have Pluto back as a planet — is it an actual pushback at modernscience or do you think it’s more of like a satiric, tongue-in-cheek look atthese doomsday pundits?
I don’t know why, butit really ticked me off when they did that. I thought, how dare them! When I wasa fifth grader, I had to sit in a boring science class and memorize thoseplanets — and then them tell me forty years later that Pluto’s not actually aplanet. I was kidding, you know. But I mean, it really ticked me off. So muchso that it stuck with me all these years and I decided to write something aboutit. I had this idea that “The Lonesome Friends of Science” was like a secretsociety of scientists that sit around and drink together and decide, ‘What canwe do to really throw everybody off? We’ll get rid of Pluto!’ Just ‘cause they’rebored, or something.
They need to stayrelevant with a new headline
[Laughs] Exactly.
In “No Ordinary Blue,” there’sthe lyric, “Leave the past behind…” Certain songs tell stories that are likepostcards from the past. Do those songs make you dwell in the past? When you’resinging them night after night, decade after decade, do they still take youback to that place in time?
On that song “NoOrdinary Blue,” I thought we were writing about two lovers that were having ahard time communicating with each other. And so I thought it was good advicefor the guy to give to himself at the time, to leave the past behind and notbring it up, whether it was an argument or something — one of them keptbringing it up. With a song, I think it would take a different connotation; Idon’t wanna leave the past behind if I’m still making royalties from it.
That’s the pull quote,right there. Talking of quotes, did your dad really say “When you’re dead, you’rea dead pecker head,” or did you make that up for the song (“When I Get toHeaven”)?
He said it once, hesaid it a thousand times. I had three brothers--no sisters, no girls. It wasfour boys. His only piece of advice about religion, that was his outlook, waswhen you’re dead, you’re a dead pecker head. He would say it Sunday morning, hewould say it late at night when you’re drinking beer. If the conversation evercame to religion, that was his entire outlook. His other piece of advice was, “Don’t bullshit the bullshitter,” and what Iremember at his funeral [was] me and my brother sitting there, in our ties andsuits looking at each other, going, “Don’tbullshit the bullshitter!” [laughs] When you’re dead, you a dead pecker head — he ain’t going nowhere, this guy; justthe funeral home.
At this stage in yourcareer, when working on an album, how involved do you like to be with theproduction and post-production aspects, from bringing in the players to thefinal mix?
I get a wave on themixing part, I’m no good at that. They let me have the board and I tried to mixan album and I think the head engineer quit and I haven’t seen him since. So Idon’t know anything about that. I was there for all the overdubs and stuff, butDave Cobb was so good at using just minimal stuff in the background. I cut itwith just my guitar, and we had bass and drums and he pretty much just would goout one time and tell the bass player and drummer what he wanted; never told meto change anything. I just sang what I sang, how I wrote the song, and Ithought what he gave me back for a record was a real fuel.
I’m sure by now you’veheard early feedback on this album from your friends, from your team and fromthe press. Since artists and fans often disagree about favorites, I’m wondering — are you surprised atthe songs that have become the most popular, the most loved?
Yeah, and the record’s not even out yet. I was real surprised about the one that me and Phil Spector wrote, “God Only Knows.” A lot of people really love it. I wouldn’t have recorded it unless I thought it was really good, but it surprised me how many people really like it. My favorites [on Tree of Forgiveness] were the one about Pluto — “The Lonesome Friends of Science” — and the song “Summer’s End.” I’m partial to those.
“Summer’s End” is my favorite. You’vebeen enjoying a cultural revival lately where you’ve been mentioned a lot inthe press, especially in interviews with a younger generation of establishedartists. Not all of them are on the same musical branch as you, but they stillpoint to you as an influence and a hero. Mike Gordon from Phish, for example.And also Sturgill Simpson. Do you hear these shout outs and did any of theminfluence you in return? Have you discovered or even befriended any of theseyounger-generation songwriters?
Yeah, I’ve become goodfriends with Sturgill and Jason Isbell, Amanda Shires; and Margo Price is agood buddy. Kacey Musgrave is a good buddy, too. The thing I like besides thembeing as talented as they are is they’re good people. Throughout the years,I don’t especially hang out with famous people — I’ve got good friends and they’realso songwriters. That’s, like, secondary. But to like somebody’s music andfind out that they’re real earthbound, their feet are on the ground — I thinkthat’s probably the most admirable trait that I see when I meet anotherperformer or songwriter. I like to see somebody that’s really grounded. I likenuts, too; I like people that are floating around like a balloon. But I alsolike it when they’re genuine.
Like a Todd Snider-typeis what comes to mind, for me.
I know what you mean. Toddis even starting to realize that he’s moral, you know.
Totally. So I guessthat brings me to, do you still listen to music for fun? What was the lastconcert you went to?
The last concert I wentto just for fun. I don’t like being around a lot of people. Believe it or not,I’m probably going hard of hearing. I got this thing where I’m sitting in theaudience and when people applaud really hard, it really hurts my ears. Andfunny enough, it doesn’t hurt them when I’m standing on stage. I prefer to goto a concert when I can walk around and not have to sit next to people whoapplaud too loud. I guess the last concert I was at was Jason Isbell at theRyman. My wife and I just sat in the audience and enjoyed the show.
You’ve never shied awayfrom the three things they tell you not to bring up at the party — religion,politics, and money. With the current state of American politics being such adivisive hot button, are you inspired to write about what’s been going on? Doyou ever feel any responsibility as an artist to address certain things?
First of all, anythingI ever wrote that came out, even sideways sort of protest songs, I never reallythought about it as such when I was writing the song. Even, “Your Flag DecalWon’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore” — I was a mailman, I was delivering Reader’sDigest, and all of a sudden everybody and their brother was sticking flagdecals on all their stuff and I was the guy delivering to their doorstep. Ithought it was a funny song and it turned out to really kind of stick it topeople that are really ultra-patriot.
When things are likethey are right now, you can hardly not write about it. I also gotta say withthat nut that we’ve got in the White House there was a couple of times when Iwent, ‘This guy’s fuckin’ nuts,’ and I go to myself, ‘I’ve gotta write a songabout this.’ I tried a couple of times but he is such a cartoon that it’sdifficult to write something.
I saw in an articlesomewhere where Randy Newman was answering that question and he had a difficulttime writing about Trump, ‘cause from day-to-day, the guy’s a joke himself. Youfeel like you’re just reporting the news to write about him.
Laughing is usuallybetter than crying, but there’s a lot to be angry about, either way. You’vealways been great at being able to tow that line, presenting a sentiment thatis poignant and meaningful — or that needs to be discussed — while framing itin a way that’s humorous. A spoonful of sugar. I think that’s one of yourtrademark elements.
Yeah, for me it stemmedfrom my childhood. You’d run into a bully, or something, and if you could makethem laugh before he clenched his fist to punch you, it was harder for him topunch you if he was laughing. You have to be quick on your feet and make ahumorous incident out of it.
You’ve been asongwriter for a long time now. Thecreative process is different for everyone, but surely there are times when newsongs just flow and then other times when writing a new song is like pullingyour own tooth. What makes you say, ‘Hey, I wanna write some songs and put outa new album?’ What starts up thesongwriting engines in your little steam engine?
Well the reason I didthe record at the time I did it, this new record, is my wife is my manager nowand our son is running the record company and they came to me last summer andsaid, ‘It’s time for a record.’ And I didn’t have any recourse except to finishwhat I was doing. I was writing songs, but I was writing at my own pace and Ithought when I got to ten good songs, I’d go looking for a producer. Well, theysaid I needed a record then. They didn’t say why, they just said, ‘It’s timefor a record.’ So I went to this hotel for a week with a bunch of boxes ofunfinished lyrics, and I took the songs that I’d already written and I piecedeverything together really fast, just ‘cause my family threatened me.
You have your ownrecord label. People are always talking about how the record industry haschanged, but it’s always been changing. And always in big ways. What have beenthe biggest changes and surprises for you since your first album?
This might be the firstrecord where social media is such a huge thing, right in your face. It’s thenorm right now, whereas 13 years ago I put out a couple of collections ofcountry stuff that weren’toriginal material — and I’m just saying that ‘cause weknew we’ve got the records out there — but each time there was a little bitmore social media than the last time. And now, it’s the biggest part. Sellingthe actual CD’s….is a thing of the past. The numbers aren’t there, so it’s allabout the social media now. And I don’t fight that. Especially with my sonrunning the record company — he’s experienced the end of that and he embracesit. And Oh Boy Records has lasted 45 years now.
It has, which is rareand awesome.
I know. I think a lotof majors have gone by the side of the road.
Enough about the past,let’s talk about the future. You have this new album coming out and then you’regoing on tour behind it. There’s thealbum cycle, then the tour cycle. Howfar in advance you plan and do you have a plan for 2018? 2019? And do you everplan to take a break or retire?
We’re touring till the end of the year and then we go to Australia in February of next year. We’re gonna do a big European tour in 2019 and we’ll be working this record up till 2020 — and then I think my wife and I are gonna take a year off and try and go see the world.
