Remembering John Prine
I'm playing an online show tonight (Thursday April 9 at 7pm CST) on facebook live. I'll do a couple Prine songs and I've been playing banjo again, so we'll get into that too. Hope to see you <3
When someone you love dies it’s hard to know what to do with that. Especially if the connection is one way. Like with famous people. That was my connection to John Prine. I’ve only seen him perform twice, both were in the last 16 months. Once was at this lunchtime thing at RCA Studio B where he was playing and trading stories with Bill Murray. The other time was when he came out to sing Illegal Smile with Todd Snider at the Ryman last April. Both experiences made a big impression on me.
I would see him around town in Nashville — one time I was standing in front of the ice cream freezer at the Kroger, making a careful decision, and I turned around and he was standing next to me, one freezer over, as focused on which flavor as I was. The last time I saw him in actual life was in December at the airport in Nashville. He was standing in line at what turned out to be the wrong gate. I saw him realize the problem and hasten alone through the crowd to the next line over. A little harried, still gentle. Huh, I thought. John Prine flies Southwest. Of course he does.
I have so enjoyed reading all these little stories of meetings and meanings. I don’t really have much color to add in the way of personal experience but, well when someone important to you passes, you want to say something...Over and over the stories I read are about how John made someone feel. Most of the time, it was about feeling *seen*.
In a world of doubt and division, he was someone everyone could believe in. Why was that? Because he believed in You. You saw yourself in his songs - in Donald and Lydia, in poor Sam Stone. And if you were lucky enough to speak with him, he got to know you quick, and he remembered you later.
I’ve been thinking about it and well John was a kind of Jesus for agnostics. The Christmas tree he kept year round. His last album title for God sakes. No water walking maybe, but here was a guy who always turned the light away from himself, not out of a secret pride of false modesty, but because that’s where life was happening. Is happening. Hello out there. Hello in there.
One of the things that happens when a personal hero passes is, you ask yourself - What could I be doing better? Where am I missing the mark? I know I turn the light back on myself way too often. Oh man I could laugh so much more than I do. At the very least, I could eat a few more hot dogs or hot fudge sundaes..
A couple years ago me and my friend Kristina Murray got together and sang a version of In Spite of Ourselves for John’s birthday. He or Fiona retweeted it or liked it... I felt ten feet tall. I’m sharing it here as an example of another tiny leaf in John Prine’s wild old tree. What a life. What a gift. I'm sad he’s gone but I’m grateful he Was.
