I thought of John Prine without any prompting on what turned out to be the fourth anniversary of his death. I assume this means John Prine is haunting me, which I’m absolutely fine with. I don’t actually believe in ghosts, but if I’m wrong about their existence, I can think of worse things than being haunted by gentle folk singers for the rest of my days. Maybe he’s making sure his songs come up on my Spotify shuffle but he doesn’t seem like a selfish haunter, so he’s more likely admiring how neatly I fold tea towels, or whispering to me to take a rest and read a book on the sofa.
My first exposure to Prine’s music came when I was a teenager and band from Toronto called The Leslie Spit Tree-o covered his song “Angel from Montgomery” and alarmed all the folk purists. Never having heard Prine’s version of the song, or Bonnie Raitt’s popular cover, I got right into the LST’s very scrappy, yelly rendition. Like so many songs covered in the era, when I was an impressionable teen music fan, “Angel From Montgomery” led me backwards, first to Bonnie Raitt and then finally to Prine himself.
In my early twenties, new to Ottawa and very into the soothing, cost-effective public library, I checked out a CD copy of In Spite of Ourselves, Prine’s album of country duets. Iris Dement, Patty Loveless, Trisha Yearwood, Emmylou Harris, and Lucinda Williams all appear on the record and each song seems carefully chosen to let Prine’s partner shine. I listened to that CD endlessly and eventually bought my own when it had to go back to the library. My friend Adam loved it to, and we talked at length about which songs we liked best and why. He liked two of the Iris Dement songs, “We’re Not the Jetset” and “In Spite of Ourselves” and I loved “We Could” which also featured Dement and also “I Know One” with Emmylou Harris. Adam was the first person I texted when I saw on the news that Prine had died from COVID related complications early in the pandemic. It seemed unimaginably sad and unfair for so many reasons.
But now, as he generously haunts my life, Prine is still a constant presence. My older kid and I are, perhaps unreasonably, obsessed with American Idol and at least once a season someone sings “Angel from Montgomery” on an episode, meaning that my kid is getting introduced to Prine via the same song I did.
The unique quality of Prine’s songwriting rests in the specificity of his lyrics. I often find myself humming random songs of his when some detail of my life sparks a connection to something that Prine wrote about his own life. By far my favourite song of his is “I Remember Everything”, largely because it manages to be specific and personal while also invoking a universal feeling. What are the things that we will remember forever and how will those memories make us sad when the people in them are no longer around?
This is actually a genre of song that I’ve been taking notice of lately, because an old friend of mine passed away last week. She was a lovely person and her story is not mine to tell in a newsletter, but I can say that I will miss seeing her around. She was the kind of person who wrung a great deal of joy out of life, even in hard times. So when I hear Prine singing about how he remembers everything about someone who is now gone, or Kacey Musgraves* singing about all the things she’ll miss “from the other side” in her song “Dinner with Friends”, or Lucinda Williams singing about what someone will miss when they depart this “Sweet Old World”, I think of my friend and I think of my own time, sometimes feeling like I’m not spending enough of it appreciating the important things.
To that end, I have started a list of things I like with the aim of training myself to notice more of them. The list is in a notebook kept on a shelf above my desk and it reads very haphazardly (“Octopus Books, O’Brien beach at Meech Lake, autumn, Yorkshire Gold tea, going to concerts with Megan, overalls, bloopers and outtakes, Birkenstocks, people singing in harmony, the deep fried brussels sprouts from Mellos, going to the movies with David…”) but it’s a low-pressure enterprise and I keep thinking of things I want to add. Prine had his way of chronicling what he loved, but I don’t write songs, so I guess this is mine.
*Musgraves says that Prine was the friend that she mentions losing in her new song “Cardinal” a fact that- and this will surprise no one- made me immediately cry when I first learned it.
April 2024 Songs
I’m not religious and I don’t pray, but I think often about Jackson Browne’s version of Warren Zevon’s song “Don’t Let Us Get Sick” and that’s as close to a daily prayer as I get.
As noted above, Lucinda Williams’ “Sweet Old World” and Kacey Musgraves’ “Dinner With Friends” are both songs about the joys of being a human that will be missed.
And I never thought of “You’re Gonna Go Far” by Noah Kahan and Brandi Carlile as being about someone who had died, but I was listening this week with that in mind and it’s just as heart wrenching to think of it that way as it is to just think it’s about someone who has left town. This song just might be the “north star” song to guide my next book, but right now that’s just a tiny flicker of an idea and I need to put it away for a while while I deal with books that are already written.
April 2024 Feelings
My book recommendations this month are on opposite ends of the spectrum of adulthood. The Rachel Incident focuses mostly on the beginnings of adulthood, picking up its main storyline when the titular Rachel and her friend James are in their early twenties. I listened to this as an audiobook after my friend Alison said that it was a particularly good narrator, and quickly discovered that the narrator is Tara Flynn, who hosts the hilarious “Now You’re Asking” podcast with Marian Keyes. An explosion of Irish joy right there. The book itself does a great job of portraying the mortifying experiences that often go along with figuring out how to become an adult. Misguided crushes, underwhelming job prospects, questionable rental homes, and generally bad decision making are all in here. I really identified with Rachel, or rather my 20 year old self did.
The Night In Question shifts the focus to an older woman, the 87 year old Florrie Butterfield. Florrie is English and has led a rich and unique life, but we first meet her when she’s just settling into an idyllic senior’s home populated with some delightful and not-so-delightful characters. There is a murder and Florrie sets about trying to solve it, while her backstory unfolds in alternating chapters. I absolutely loved this book, I found the writing to be beautiful and the story immersive. The obvious comparison is The Thursday Murder Club and there are definitely similarities, but this stands on its own as an incredible work of fiction with a solid mystery plot driving it forward.
Thanks for reading! See you next month.
J.W.
Instagram : @JenniferWhitefordWrites