Thanks, John, for always being there.

Note: This is another of those lost posts when the database and the backups failed simultaneously and the wayback machine hadn’t crawled the page, though posts on both sides made it through. I found (stumbled across) where I had saved the bulk, (maybe all I have no idea anymore)of the text so I am restoring it on April 23, 2025. It was originally published on May 19, 2020 and I am backdating it for it to remain in the correct post order.

The original post starts out “When I was looking for old notes I had posted on John Prine while sharing music or lyrics, and wondering what to call this post I cam across this from June 2018, and it fit too well not to use it:” Then it said “continue reading.”

It may have been this. After an exhaustive activity log search on facebook this was the only John Prine post in June 2018.

Either way, I do have the text that outlines a little of the impact John Prine had on my life, so at least there’s that (and that is the important part here).

I heard an interview live on August 13, 2008 on the way from Baton Rouge back to Beaumont. I had no idea what the program was and it kept going in and out while I was driving. It was long time before I found it online (and now the link is dead). It was WWNO’s American Routes show #543 . I may have ripped the audio somewhere but I can’t find it now either. The parts of the interview that came through had a profound effect on the trajectory of my life. 

 I had just moved to Baton Rouge and started at LSU, and had started what would become my last serious relationship. I had went to LSU so I could do archaeology fieldwork because that was what I was going to do only to find out that I had to sign _­about that move felt right after that. Prine’s songs, his anecdotes, storytelling, and his true to himself persona reminded me a lot about where I came from and where I thought I was going. When they talked about hitting number one John said that was the worst thing that could have happened, that it would have “frozen me in time.” 

They talk about getting to the top of that mountain, falling off, and then having to be put back up their through artificial means. John said he was “going around the mountain in a circle.” Then they played “That’s the Way that the World Goes Round.” The trip is about three hours, and after the show was over I had a pretty good ride in silence after I turned the radio off. I don’t know what I was thinking, or if I was thinking anything, but it was a major turning point. It’s that point that created another universe where things were different. Later that week I left LSU and went back to Lamar. 

I ended up doing archaeology field work with UT and Tech in Belize, and began a hugely rewarded stint in vertebrate paleontology with an amazing mentor professor who taught me as much about myself as he did about Eocene mammals. I never had a plan to get to Oklahoma, or a PhD in the History of Science, or be the exhibits department in the library of an R1 research university, and I don’t know how things would have played out if I hadn’t heard this when I did, but I do know what I got out of this staticky two-hour long interview with songs my uncle introduced me to when I was probably 4 was John telling me:

“Son, you’re doing things this way because you think that is they way they have to be done, because they are telling you to do them that way. You know there is always another way. Just because your way ain’t their way, doesn’t mean it’s the wrong way. Don’t lose yourself.” 

So, yeah, losing John Prine has an outsized impact on me, more than losing an artist, singer, and songwriter. It’s that too, but so much more. He was a constant Virgil showing you the things that are just below the surface and giving you the tools to expose them in ways that allow you to rock the boat without drawing the attention of the ferryman. (I should probably put this in my dissertation acknowledgements).

To this day I keep going back to the part of it where it talks about John not being “pop” so it never got old and how his music was like a secret family thing. It really was/is. But then you get out into the world and find other people with that same secret and you know there is something about them you can trust, something about them that’s real. If they “get” John Prine, they’ve got a good chance of “getting” you. It’s like when you see someone reading a book you like that is a book recommending a person. John’s music has yet to recommend a bad person, and I don’t think it ever will.

***Author’s note: Now, here in 2025, my soon to be seven-year-old is a solid John Prine fan keeping both “That’s the Way the World Goes Round” and “Please Don’t Bury Me” in constant rotation.