The Happiest Enchilada

He said he was kicked off of Noah's Ark because "there was two of everything but one of me".

He was a quiet man, a middle man, and a solider on his way to Montreal.

He had an illegal smile, sour grapes, a blue umbrella, and an eight-track ("Another Side of George Jones").

He told stories through his songs about people like Sam Stone, Donald, Lydia, Sabu, and Cathy who was cleaning the spoons. People like Barbara Lewis Hare Krishna Beauregard. People like the happy sailors dancing on a sinking ship.

He introduced us to old people. Old people like the woman named after her mother who was married to a child that's grown old. Old people like Grandpa, who was a carpenter. Old people like Grandma who went to school in Bowling Green. Old people who lost sons in the Korean War.

You could not pick out a less improbable singer-songwriter than John Prine

His older brother taught him how to play the guitar. "Three chords. I liked them so much I didn't learn any other".  After high school, he was drafted into the Army, where somehow, he was sent to West Germany to be a mechanic despite not being mechanically inclined.

When he got home, he became a mailman.

One evening, at an open mike, he got up and played some of the songs he was writing as a hobby. From there, he was the regular act at a small club. One evening, Roger Ebert came in a saw him play. Soon, Kris Kristofferson stopped by.

From there, John Prine went to New York and recorded his first album, "John Prine".  The album cover features Prine sitting on a bale of hay for no reason. It also featured the songs "Paradise", "Illegal Smile" "Spanish Pipe Dream", "Hello In There", "Donald And Lydia", and "Angel From Montgomery".  Prine was tagged "The New Dylan" when in reality he was simply the first John Prine.

Unlike Dylan, Prine never reinvented himself. He was always John Prine.

His first spate of albums was on the Atlantic label. Then he signed with David Giffen's Asylum records.  It was the record company of the Eagles.  He released three albums with that label: "Bruised Orange",  "Pink Cadillac", and "Storm Windows".  The record company had no idea what to do with Prine. He wasn't country. He wasn't rock.  He was a hybrid that years later would be called "Americana".

Prine, miffed at Asylum's indifference towards him, did what any good American would do:  he went out and started his own record company: Oh Boy Records.  At first, it was a mail-order record company.  You send John Prine seven bucks plus shipping and handling and he'd send you his album, "Aimless Love".

Prine toured a lot those days.  My wife and I saw him in 1986 and 1987.  He put on a great show and was very personable.  He also smoked, a lot.  Both of my parents were chain smokers and Prine would haven given them a run for their money.

Well, Oh Boy grew and Prine recorded "The Missing Years" produced by Tom Petty's bass player. It won a Grammy.  Prine also got married and quickly had three kids.  He won his second Grammy for his homage to the country music dueling duet  "In Spite Of Ourselves".

After that album was released, it was announced that Prine had a squamous cell carcinoma on his neck. The surgery he had removed a piece of his neck and severed some nerves in his tongue.  It gave him a new look and added a gravelly tone to his voice.

It was announced last week that Prine has COVID-19 and is on a ventilator.  At this time, Prine is listed as "stable", but he has pneumonia in both lungs. He is right in COVID-19's wheelhouse being a 73-year-old man with health issues.

I have been a Prine fan for almost 43 years.  When people would ask me who I listen to  I would say John Prine and they would say "Who?"  Now, thanks to the years of touring, great records and a lot of hard work, Prine has a lot of fans. His fans include Bob Dylan himself who said, "Prine's stuff is pure Proustian existentialism".  I'm not sure what that means, but it sounds good. Other fans: Bill Murray, Roger Waters, and Johnny Cash.

When I heard of his condition, I thought about his song "That's The Way The World Goes Round".   It is a jaunty happy sounding song that an alcoholic wife-beater and a guy that almost dies from hypothermia.

The refrain says, "That's the way the world goes round, you're up one day, the next you're down, it's a half an inch of water and you think you're gonna drown, that's the way the world goes around."

At the concert my wife and I went to 1986, he told this story about this song. He told it again at the 1987 concert.  He was telling it in concerts in 2016.

A lady came up to the stage and asked him to sing his song about the happy enchilada.  Prine was confused because he'd never written a song about any type of enchilada "much less a happy enchilada" and suggested that she had him confused with someone else.  She said no, it was him.  Well, Prine asked how does it go?  She said, "It's a happy enchilada and you think you're gonna drown".

I will be a happy enchilada when Prine beats COVID-19.