photo by Dean Budnick

Most mornings, since being asked to shelter-in-place due to a global pandemic, I’ve been getting in the shower, turning on John Prine’s version of “Clay Pigeons,” and quietly singing along. It’s been the perfect quarantine song. “Count the days and the nights that it takes to get back in the saddle again.”

A longtime fan of Prine’s greatest hits — the surface stuff — I overlooked his cover of Blaze Foley’s “Clay Pigeons” until my Spotify algorithm introduced it to me on a road trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco in the fall of 2017. I had to pull off at the next exit, take out my iPhone, and look up everything I could find on it while playing the song a second, then a third time in a row. 

It was at that moment that I realized I knew nothing about John Prine. I knew his songs and his characters, his protagonists, his icons, the angel from Montgomery and the father with a hole in his arm where the money goes. But I knew nothing about the man behind these towers of song.

I became determined to write a piece as I sought some kind of answer to my question “Who is John Prine?” At the time I expressed naively but out of a genuine enthusiasm: “I want to find some part of his story that has never been told and then tell it.”

In March of 2018, I was able to have a fantastic 45-minute conversation with him about all the things I wanted to know about him — about all the things he hadn’t been asked before and also all the things that may have changed since he’s been asked them last. Some topics are worth revisiting: Does he feel the need to take a stand, politically, now that Trump is President? What young songwriters are inspiring him these days? And does he have any plans to retire?

But as with every piece of art and conversation, everything changes when the artist dies. Things mean something different, other things mean something more. After it was reported that John Prine was in critical condition a couple weeks ago, having contracted COVID-19, I refreshed my news feed on him regularly, looking for hopeful updates. He had just returned from a European tour; he talked about that very tour 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 traveling the world with his wife. 

I recalled our unusual interview and looked up the transcript, only to find that so much of it is still relevant for right here and now.  I wanted a portrait and I got a candid.

I still don’t know who John Prine is.  But I know we’ll all miss him.

Do you ever miss being a mailman?

Never, no.

Do you have a plan B if your music career doesn’t work out?

No. When I left the post office and I was told them I was leaving it to go into show business, the superintendent, the Postmaster said, “Don’t take your retirement money.” And I said, “Why?” And he said, “You’ll be back.” I said, “You don’t understand, if it doesn’t work out I’m not coming back.”

You’ve had a long and impressive career, during which – sadly – you’ve seen some of your peers come and go.  Who do you miss most?

Steve Goodman. We were like blood brothers — we got thrown into the fire at the same time and we were both Chicago guys and we went to New York, and got record contracts within 48 hours of each other, and so there was this bond. Goodman was the reason that I went to New York. When I got the record contract, I wasn’t gonna go and Stevie also was the one that made Kris Kristofferson come over to listen to me.

The last thing in the world Kris Kristofferson wanted to hear was another singer-songwriter and Goodman made him get in a cab at 1 o’clock in the morning, after he’d done two shows, and dragged him over. And nobody was in the club; I was waiting for my paycheck and the chairs were on the tables. We pulled four chairs down and I sang 7 or 8 songs for Kris. He asked me to go back up there and sing everything I’d ever wrote and he championed my stuff after that. And that was supposed to be Goodman’s shining hour and Goodman wouldn’t hear about it — he wanted everybody to see his buddy from Chicago.

There are entire essays written about some of your songs, including attempts to analyze certain lyrics. Do you have any anecdotes about anyone wildly, if accidentally, totally misinterpreting your lyrics and what you mean to say?

[Laughs] Actually, there have been quite a few over the years. But I kind of figured, better than correct them, I thought there’s kind of like there’s no such thing as bad press as long as people are talking about your lyrics. Also, I’ve gotta say, unless it was totally out of the ballpark, I like to leave a lot of interpretation to the 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. I think that maybe that’s actually the secret of a good song — everyone finds their 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’m surprised, 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 out there.

I was surprised when I learned that “Clay Pigeons” was a cover because it sounds so much like one of yours. What inspired you to cover that song in particular?

I love when Merle Haggard finally did his version of “If I Could Only Fly,” ‘cause I love the song. 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 it did the second time.

Haggard actually went back and did the song again and that tells me that he had been sitting around for years with the song, probably singing it in hotel rooms. And I went back and listened to the rest of Blaze Foley’s stuff and “Clay Pigeons” stuck out to me like I had written the song myself. And so it was natural for me to cover it. It felt relatable, you know.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, you talk about a gift that Johnny Cash gave you, and it’s interesting because it’s Johnny Cash.  But what’s the strangest gift that you’ve ever received from a fan?

There was a fan up in St. Paul, Minneapolis and the guy was an amateur taxidermist and his name was Professor Beardsley. And his wife was with him and the wife told me that there was no rodent or anything on their property that didn’t get stuffed. He said they even have little mice stuffed on the wall. And the guy brought me a chicken hat with earmuffs built into it. It was a chicken that he stuffed with its legs hanging out from the back. And the chicken head up the front like a damn ornament. I wore that for years, only for special company.

Let me guess, you’re wearing it right now.

No, I evidently gave it to an ex-brother-in-law. I couldn’t figure out who on earth I would give that chicken head to, but it was Eddie, my ex-brother-in-law.

Tree of Forgiveness [the title of Prine’s 2018 studio album] is a 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 a tree of forgiveness look like?

Sounds like a Christmas tree, I would guess.

Of course you’re gonna say that. The lyric comes from the song “When I Get to Heaven,” which is your comedic 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 the divine: “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 myself and I still dream about smoking

So, when I wrote the song “When I Get to Heaven,” I’m trying to figure out where can I go get a cigarette, and it’s not gonna be anywhere “here.” If I could smoke, it’s not at the bar where you’d have to stand outside like an animal, like you’re pissing on the fire hydrant or something. And I thought, ‘The only place I would be able to smoke is heaven.’ They wouldn’t have cancer up there and probably they wouldn’t have “no smoking” signs.

Not in my heaven, anyway

And that was the last song I wrote for the record — “When I Get to Heaven” — and I still hadn’t referenced “the tree of forgiveness.” So I had to stick it in. That’s it — it’s a nightclub in heaven!

So the title of the album came before the lyric?

Years before. I knew five years ago I was gonna make a record sometime called Tree of Forgiveness. I didn’t know why — I tried to write a song a couple of times called “The Tree of Forgiveness” and it just seemed too whatever. It didn’t work, not with the original what I had in mind. And I still wanted to get the title in the record, so I ended up calling the nightclub in heaven The Tree of Forgiveness — which is not a bad name for a bar.

The album opens with the song “Knockin’ On Your Screen Door.”  Were you thinking of a specific and actual screen door, when you wrote those lyrics, or was it just something you thought everyone could relate to?

No, I co-wrote that with a good buddy Pat McLaughlin and he came up with the title. I’m not sure what he was thinking of. Pat is a happily married man but I knew him in his bachelor days and he really got around, if you know what I mean. And I have a feeling whenever he comes up with an image like “Knockin’ On Your Screen Door,” it has something to do with an old flame. He’s gonna look up her number and knock on her screen door, or whatever. So I just took it at face value that that’s where it was. Me and him are so familiar with each other, we could finish each other’s sentences and we just go from one image to another until we have something we can tie a bow around.

That’s a great idea — there’s a few screen doors I wouldn’t mind knocking on.

There you go, now you’re catching on.

“The Lonesome Friends of 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 real movement to have Pluto back as a planet — is it an actual pushback at modern science or do you think it’s more of like a satiric, tongue-in-cheek look at these doomsday pundits?

I don’t know why, but it really ticked me off when they did that. I thought, how dare them! When I was a fifth grader, I had to sit in a boring science class and memorize those planets — and then them tell me forty years later that Pluto’s not actually a planet. I was kidding, you know. But I mean, it really ticked me off. So much so that it stuck with me all these years and I decided to write something about it. I had this idea that “The Lonesome Friends of Science” was like a secret society of scientists that sit around and drink together and decide, ‘What can we do to really throw everybody off? We’ll get rid of Pluto!’ Just ‘cause they’re bored, or something.

They need to stay relevant with a new headline

[Laughs] Exactly.

In “No Ordinary Blue,” there’s the lyric, “Leave the past behind…” Certain songs tell stories that are like postcards from the past. Do those songs make you dwell in the past? When you’re singing them night after night, decade after decade, do they still take you back to that place in time?

On that song “No Ordinary Blue,” I thought we were writing about two lovers that were having a hard time communicating with each other. And so I thought it was good advice for the guy to give to himself at the time, to leave the past behind and not bring it up, whether it was an argument or something — one of them kept bringing it up. With a song, I think it would take a different connotation; I don’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’re a dead pecker head,” or did you make that up for the song (“When I Get to Heaven”)?

He said it once, he said it a thousand times. I had three brothers–no sisters, no girls. It was four boys. His only piece of advice about religion, that was his outlook, was when you’re dead, you’re a dead pecker head. He would say it Sunday morning, he would say it late at night when you’re drinking beer. If the conversation ever came to religion, that was his entire outlook. His other piece of advice was, “Don’t bullshit the bullshitter,” and what I remember at his funeral [was] me and my brother sitting there, in our ties and suits looking at each other, going, “Don’t bullshit the bullshitter!” [laughs] When you’re dead, you a dead pecker head — he ain’t going nowhere, this guy; just the funeral home.

At this stage in your career, when working on an album, how involved do you like to be with the production and post-production aspects, from bringing in the players to the final mix?

I get a wave on the mixing part, I’m no good at that. They let me have the board and I tried to mix an album and I think the head engineer quit and I haven’t seen him since. So I don’t know anything about that. I was there for all the overdubs and stuff, but Dave Cobb was so good at using just minimal stuff in the background. I cut it with just my guitar, and we had bass and drums and he pretty much just would go out one time and tell the bass player and drummer what he wanted; never told me to change anything. I just sang what I sang, how I wrote the song, and I thought what he gave me back for a record was a real fuel.

I’m sure by now you’ve heard early feedback on this album from your friends, from your team and from the press. Since artists and fans often disagree about favorites, I’m wondering — are you surprised at the 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’ve been enjoying a cultural revival lately where you’ve been mentioned a lot in the press, especially in interviews with a younger generation of established artists. Not all of them are on the same musical branch as you, but they still point 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 them influence you in return? Have you discovered or even befriended any of these younger-generation songwriters? 

Yeah, I’ve become good friends with Sturgill and Jason Isbell, Amanda Shires; and Margo Price is a good buddy. Kacey Musgrave is a good buddy, too. The thing I like besides them being 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’re also songwriters. That’s, like, secondary. But to like somebody’s music and find out that they’re real earthbound, their feet are on the ground — I think that’s probably the most admirable trait that I see when I meet another performer or songwriter. I like to see somebody that’s really grounded. I like nuts, too; I like people that are floating around like a balloon. But I also like it when they’re genuine.

Like a Todd Snider-type is what comes to mind, for me.

I know what you mean. Todd is even starting to realize that he’s moral, you know.

Totally. So I guess that brings me to, do you still listen to music for fun? What was the last concert you went to?

The last concert I went to 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 the audience and when people applaud really hard, it really hurts my ears. And funny enough, it doesn’t hurt them when I’m standing on stage. I prefer to go to a concert when I can walk around and not have to sit next to people who applaud too loud. I guess the last concert I was at was Jason Isbell at the Ryman. My wife and I just sat in the audience and enjoyed the show.

You’ve never shied away from 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 a divisive hot button, are you inspired to write about what’s been going on? Do you ever feel any responsibility as an artist to address certain things?

First of all, anything I ever wrote that came out, even sideways sort of protest songs, I never really thought about it as such when I was writing the song. Even, “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore” — I was a mailman, I was delivering Reader’s Digest, and all of a sudden everybody and their brother was sticking flag decals on all their stuff and I was the guy delivering to their doorstep. I thought it was a funny song and it turned out to really kind of stick it to people that are really ultra-patriot.

When things are like they are right now, you can hardly not write about it. I also gotta say with that nut that we’ve got in the White House there was a couple of times when I went, ‘This guy’s fuckin’ nuts,’ and I go to myself, ‘I’ve gotta write a song about this.’ I tried a couple of times but he is such a cartoon that it’s difficult to write something.

I saw in an article somewhere where Randy Newman was answering that question and he had a difficult time writing about Trump, ‘cause from day-to-day, the guy’s a joke himself. You feel like you’re just reporting the news to write about him.

Laughing is usually better than crying, but there’s a lot to be angry about, either way. You’ve always been great at being able to tow that line, presenting a sentiment that is poignant and meaningful — or that needs to be discussed — while framing it in a way that’s humorous. A spoonful of sugar. I think that’s one of your trademark elements.

Yeah, for me it stemmed from my childhood. You’d run into a bully, or something, and if you could make them laugh before he clenched his fist to punch you, it was harder for him to punch you if he was laughing. You have to be quick on your feet and make a humorous incident out of it.

You’ve been a songwriter for a long time now.  The creative process is different for everyone, but surely there are times when new songs just flow and then other times when writing a new song is like pulling your own tooth. What makes you say, ‘Hey, I wanna write some songs and put out a new album?’  What starts up the songwriting engines in your little steam engine?

Well the reason I did the record at the time I did it, this new record, is my wife is my manager now and our son is running the record company and they came to me last summer and said, ‘It’s time for a record.’ And I didn’t have any recourse except to finish what I was doing. I was writing songs, but I was writing at my own pace and I thought when I got to ten good songs, I’d go looking for a producer. Well, they said I needed a record then. They didn’t say why, they just said, ‘It’s time for a record.’ So I went to this hotel for a week with a bunch of boxes of unfinished lyrics, and I took the songs that I’d already written and I pieced everything together really fast, just ‘cause my family threatened me.

You have your own record label. People are always talking about how the record industry has changed, but it’s always been changing. And always in big ways. What have been the biggest changes and surprises for you since your first album?

This might be the first record where social media is such a huge thing, right in your face. It’s the norm right now, whereas 13 years ago I put out a couple of collections of country stuff that weren’t original material — and I’m just saying that ‘cause we knew we’ve got the records out there — but each time there was a little bit more social media than the last time. And now, it’s the biggest part. Selling the actual CD’s….is a thing of the past. The numbers aren’t there, so it’s all about the social media now. And I don’t fight that. Especially with my son running the record company — he’s experienced the end of that and he embraces it. And Oh Boy Records has lasted 45 years now.

It has, which is rare and awesome.

I know. I think a lot of 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’re going on tour behind it.  There’s the album cycle, then the tour cycle.  How far in advance you plan and do you have a plan for 2018? 2019? And do you ever plan 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.