Great man, great song.
So long, John.
See you again,
A little further down the road.
WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
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Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice.
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress.
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountains start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
– – WH Auden
Sometimes it seems I had a dream, and, as a dreamer woke immersed in mineral baths closed within a cool, dark chamber fed by streams flowing in from the center of nowhere.
Hanging from the granite ceiling a kerosene lantern cast shards of light through the pale steam rising from the surface of the pools.
Ripples radiated outwards from the edges of my body and tapping faintly on the rock revealed the edges of the chamber.
Outside I could hear the wind slide across the spine of the mountains, speaking in a language that I remembered but could no longer understand.
Steam filled my nostrils and heat penetrated my bones until, after a time, I had no body, only a sense of silence and distance and calm.
As if I had just woken from all water into dream.
— Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, 1973
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The steel mill sky is alive.
The fire breaks white and zigzag
shot on a gun-metal gloaming.
Man is a long time coming.
Man will yet win.
Brother may yet line up with brother:
This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers.
There are men who can’t be bought.
The fireborn are at home in fire.
The stars make no noise,
You can’t hinder the wind from blowing.
Time is a great teacher.
Who can live without hope?
In the darkness with a great bundle of grief
the people march.
In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for keeps, the people
march:
“Where to? what next?”
— Carl Sandberg
Down valley a smoke haze
Three days heat, after five days rain
Pitch glows on the fir-cones
Across rocks and meadows
Swarms of new flies.
I cannot remember things I once read
A few friends, but they are in cities.
Drinking cold snow-water from a tin cup
Looking down for miles
Through high still air.
BY GARY SNYDER
Starry-eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
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That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
– – W. B. Yeats, 1865 – 1939
Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained
thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.
— Robinson Jeffers
Sometimes it seems I had a dream, and, as a dreamer woke immersed in mineral baths closed within a cool, dark chamber fed by streams flowing in from the center of nowhere.
Hanging from the granite ceiling a kerosene lantern cast shards of light through the pale steam rising from the surface of the pools.
Ripples radiated outwards from the edges of my body and tapping faintly on the rock revealed the edges of the chamber.
Outside I could hear the wind slide across the spine of the mountains, speaking in a language that I remembered but could no longer understand.
Steam filled my nostrils and heat penetrated my bones until, after a time, I had no body, only a sense of silence and distance and calm.
As if I had just woken from all water into dream.
— Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, 1973
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I will miss him very much. In times of trouble, or just plain old sadness his music was always there for me. I will forever hold in my heart memories of a wonderful evening aboard the riverboat President listening to John and Steve Goodman.
Spent many an hour learning and playing John Prine songs with my old college roommate who grew up in Chicago and was an early fan. Wonderful, evocative songs… Thanks very much, John. See you down the road…
https://youtu.be/nXbEFTv9zr0
First heard of John Prine in 1974 and marveled at the tenderness and winking good humor in his songwriting. To this day my favorite of his to pick and croak out remains “Angel From Montgomery.”
“The years just flow by like a broken-down dam”: Requiescat in pace, John Prine
The only time I’ve ever teared up at a concert was about 15 years ago hearing John Prine sing Sam Stone. I find Bob Dylan incomprehensible but Prine’s writing was spare, elegant, and meaningful. And damned funny at times. What a loss, what a blessing.
He lived long enough to *become* the old man narrating that song. But unlike that tragic figure, John Prine was well-loved and -respected, as we’re seeing now with the accolades for his work coming from across the cultural spectrum.
Rest in peace, John. Thanks for your brilliant, heartfelt music.
I discovered John when I was young Seaman Recruit in 1970 or ‘71 and he was like peas and carrots for me. I played and sang several of his tunes through the Navy and college and later I was fortunate to find a friend that loved him too and between us we prob knew and played 30 of his songs.
My work sucked up a lot of my time and I switched my focus for a number of years to seriously study classical guitar but memorizing classical pieces takes a lot of time and focus and it is not nearly as fun as grabbing a steel string and kicking off a Prine or a Lightfoot tune.
John has blessed us with some funny and thought provoking songs that people will remember for a long time and we are blessed for having lived in his time. Thanks for everything, Johnny!!
So much, for so long. “Fair and Square” is my favorite album (and “In Spite of Ourselves” shows how well he did with other folks’ stuff). “Lake Marie”, “I Hate It When That Happens To Me”, “Paradise” — the list is endless. A large soul; I’ve been saddened for years that he didn’t get a Kennedy Center honor: he was an American treasure.
What an ending!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Exr-DOWJ3A0
A bit prophetic, wot?
“Well, who’s gonna take your garbage out
When I’ve packed my bags and gone?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qFLzyuo6FA
“Where the air smelled like snakes and we’d shoot with our pistols but empty pop bottles was all we would kill”.So many lines from so many songs for so many years. Godspeed John.
“Far From Me” would be my favorite Prine song and it haunts me still. I was there once, long ago, when “A June bug flew from the warmth he once knew” …
I could not help but think that John would want this song sung at his funeral. I know I immediately started mouthing the words it when I read that he had died the other day.
Please Don’t Bury Me
Woke up this morning
Put on my slippers
Walked in the kitchen
And died
And oh, what a feeling!
When my soul
Went through the ceiling
And on up into heaven, I did ride
When I got there, they did say
“John, it happened this way
You slipped upon the floor
And hit your head”
And all the angels say
“Just before you passed away
That these were the very last words
That you said”
“Please don’t bury me
Down in that cold, cold ground
No, I?d rather have ’em cut me up
And pass me all around”
“Throw my brain in a hurricane
And the blind can have my eyes
And the deaf can take both of my ears
If they don’t mind the size”
“Give my stomach to Milwaukee
If they run out of beer
Put my socks in a cedar box
Just to get ’em out of here”
“Venus De Milo can have my arms
Look out! I’ve got your nose
Sell my heart to the junk man
And give my love to Rose”
“But please don’t bury me
Down in that cold, cold ground
I?d rather have ’em cut me up
And pass me all around”
“Throw my brain in a hurricane
The blind can have my eyes
And the deaf can take both of my ears
If they don’t mind the size, oh man!”
“Give my feet to the footloose
Careless, fancy free
And give my knees to the needy
Don’t pull that stuff on me”
“Hand me down my walking cane
It?s a sin to tell a lie
Send my mouth way down south
And kiss my ass goodbye”
“But, please don’t bury me
Down in that cold, cold ground
I?d rather have ’em cut me up
And pass me all around”
“Throw my brain in a hurricane
And the blind can have my eyes
And the deaf can take both of my ears
If they don’t mind the size, that’s right”
Rest in peace, John Prine.
And this…
https://youtu.be/yYHT-TF4KO4
When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam
I’ll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin’
Just five miles away from wherever I am
Good bye, dear friend that I never knew. Just the soul that you poured out into your songs.
Pretty good, not bad, I can’t complain…..
Thanks for asking.