“Prine’s stuff is pure Proustian existentialism. Midwestern mind trips to the nth degree. And he writes beautiful songs. I remember when Kris Kristofferson first brought him on the scene. All that stuff about Sam Stone the soldier junkie daddy and Donald and Lydia, where people make love from 10 miles away. Nobody but Prine could write like that. If I had to pick one song of his, it might be ‘Lake Marie.’ I don’t remember what album that’s on.”
– Bob Dylan
“Prine has always appealed to me,I can remember first hearing him, playing his records late at night and thinking that he was writing about everyday life, people like us.” – Mike Leonard (director)
“Jesus was a good guy, he didn’t need this shit.”
― John Prine
“And you may see me tonight with an illegal smile. It don’t cost very much, but it lasts a long while. Won’t you please tell the man I didn’t kill anyone. No, I’m just tryin’ to have me some fun.”
― John Prine
John Prine (born October 10, 1946, in Maywood, Illinois) is an American country/folk singer-songwriter. He has been active as a recording artist and live performer since the early 1970s.
I was born right here on Randolph Street in Freehold Here right behind that big red maple in Freehold Well I went to school right here Got laid and had my first beer In Freehold
Today we have found a great “story-song” from Bruce Springsteen that has never been officially released.
This is a sweet and funny song that appeared for the first time live on 8 Nov 1996 in Freehold, NJ. Freehold/ In Freehold is never officially released and I think it has only been played live (not recorded in studio). It is a song in the same vein as Growing Up, but set at an earlier age and in a less serious tone.
The debut of the song was at The Ghost Of Tom Joad Solo Acoustic Tour (Freehold 8 Nov) and it has been played around 20 times after that. It is speculated that the song was written specifically for this event. It was a sort of homecoming show in the sense that he grew up in Freehold, but hadn’t played there since 1967. Bruce Springsteen left Freehold in 1968.
The same year as Mule Variations was released, 1999, VH1 broadcast a Storyteller episode with Tom Waits. It aired in the middle of the night; I didn’t have any plans for the next day so I stayed up and watched.
What a songwriter! What a storyteller! He teases the audience, plays with them, he is the pied piper! All the stories are funny/weird and moving. Is he lying? He’s probably making the stuff up as he goes along, or have all of these things actually happen? I really don’t care, his delivery is amusing and so entertaining that he could probably read the A to G in the phonebook and I would find it funny. This might not work with newcomers to Waits’s concerts, they will probably find it a bit too weird and rambling. They should watch Big Time (the movie) first and then come back to this (or maybe it’s the other way ’round, he he).
VH1 Storytellers allows Tom Waits to showcase some his then new material — among them is House Where Nobody Lives, one of the finest ballads he has ever written, here in a heartbreakingly beautiful version. We also get some Tom Waits history with favorites like Downtown Train (also a hit for Rod Stewart); Old ’55, (a hit for The Eagles ); and Jersey Girl, which Bruce Springsteen turned into a live favorite.
Set list:
Downtown Train Ol’ 55 House Where Nobody Lives
Jersey Girl
What’s He Building In There? Strange Weather Get Behind The Mule
Tom Waits – VH1 Storytellers 1999:
The show was around 44 minutes but there were much more material recorded.
“Each person comes to have this musical experience, this moment with us, where they get to sink into our world for a little while. It’s this very unhurried world. It’s fairly quiet, it’s contemplative, but it can be quite panoramic. I think people think interesting thoughts at our shows, and they go rather deeply into some personal experience of their own. I’m really proud that our music seems to connect, because it’s not for everybody. But for the people that our music works for, it really gets down pretty deep in there.”
~Gillian Welch on her live shows (via Acoustic Guitar)
Gillian Welch (born October 2, 1967) is an American singer-songwriter. She performs with her musical partner, guitarist David Rawlings. Their sparse and dark musical style, which combines elements of Appalachian music, Bluegrass, and Americana, is described by The New Yorker as “at once innovative and obliquely reminiscent of past rural forms”.
Today we present one of the best of the still unreleased tracks from the Nebraska sessions, The Losin’ Kind. The song started out as The Answer an early home demo with slightly different lyrics.
The melody is reminiscent of Highway Patrolman (Nebraska) and the story is about the same as in the song Highway 29 (The Ghost of Tom Joad), and I’m guessing that these similarities will keep the song in Springsteen’s vault.
As I said the song started out as The Answer before it became The Losin’ Kind and both versions are in circulation:
The Answer (The Losin’ kind acoustic demo) was recorded in fall 1981 (sometime between September and December), at Thrill Hill Recording in Colts Neck.
The Losin’ Kind (the “finished” version) were probably taped on 03 Jan 1982 at Thrill Hill Recording. There are records of a third version, but I’ve not heard it and I don’t think it floats around the web.
Let us hear the song.
The Losin’ Kind:
Incredibly good ! …and will hopefully be included on Tracks part 2 (if that is ever released…)
The Nebraska sessions were never conceived to result in a commercially released album. Bruce’s intention was to create a batch of multi-channel, professional sounding, finished solo demos to demonstrate to The E Street Band at sessions for the follow-up to The River album due to start in New York City in February 1982. By creating professional demos Springsteen felt the band sessions would progress faster than they had for his previous three albums.
To achieve his goal in December 1981 Springsteen asked his guitar technician, Mike Batlan, to set up a no frills “porta-studio” in a spare room of Bruce’s Colts Neck, NJ home. Some modification work was done to the room to make it more receptive to achieving a decent sound. Batlan purchased a Teac Tascam (Series 144) 4-track cassette recorder, 2 x Shure SM57 mics and 2 x mic stands. The sound was mixed through an old Gibson Echoplex and an old Panasonic boom box acted as the mix-down deck.
Springsteen recorded during the first few days of January, with the bulk of the songs recorded in one all day/night session on January 3, 1982. There were 15 songs recorded and some of them were recorded 2 or 3 times in slightly different arrangements. However two or three months later, with a few of these 15 songs by-then earmarked for coverage by the E Street Band, Springsteen recorded 2 additional songs (“My Father’s House” and “The Big Payback”) at home on the same equipment – thus making a total of 17 different songs…
