Front Burner - In brief: Remembering John Prine

Episode Date: April 8, 2020

Legendary singer-songwriter John Prine has died at 73 due to complications caused by COVID-19. He was celebrated for the way he wrote about the human condition — from thoughtful reflections on heartbreak and loss, to funny quips about life’s absurdities. We remember him with Tom Power, host of CBC's q.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hey everybody, Jamie here and this this is our nighttime brief edition. A few coronavirus headlines from today to get you caught up. First, Ontario Premier Doug Ford expressed his anger at the lack of COVID-19 testing in the province. Again, no more excuses. It's unacceptable. I agree with you 100%. I could give you every excuse under the book why it wasn't happening,

be it the testing capabilities or the assessment centers or not having enough reagent. I'm done with that. I'm done. We have everything in place. No more excuses. Ontario is conducting fewer than 3,000 tests a day, even though it has a capacity for 13,000, raising concerns that it's failing to capture the true toll of the novel coronavirus in the province. And Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced new measures today to support more businesses and young Canadians. We're making changes to the Canada Summer Jobs Program this year. We will now give CSJ employers a subsidy of up to 100% to cover the costs of hiring students.

We will also extend the time frame for job placement until the winter because we know that some jobs will start later than usual. And because many businesses have had to scale back their operations, they will be able to hire students part-time. This follows criticism that benefits programs didn't reach enough people. For small businesses, he's proposing they will be able to compare their lost revenue to the months of January and February, as opposed to the same month of the previous year. Okay, so usually with these evening episodes, we try and answer a key question for you about COVID-19,

but tonight, we're going to do something a little bit different. We're going to remember legendary singer-songwriter, John Prine. When I get to heaven, I'm going to shake God's hand, thank him for more blessings than one man can stand. Then I'm going to get a guitar and start a rock and roll band. John Prine died of complications caused by COVID-19. He was 73. And then I'm going to get a cocktail, vodka and ginger ale.

Yeah, I'm gonna smoke a cigarette that's nine miles long. I'm gonna kiss that pretty girl. Prine was a songwriter's songwriter. He had many admirers, including musical icons like Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Chris Christofferson. Friend of the pod and host of Q, Tom Power is a big fan of John's, and he's here with me today to remember him. Hey, Tom. Hi, Jamie.

It's such a sad topic to talk about, but I do want to say that I've always wanted to be referred to as friend of the pod, so I do really appreciate that. Well, you are one of our best friends so thank you so much for being here today even though it's not under the best of circumstances no it's so sad last night i had just finished watching that hbo show mcmillions you know and it's such a bingeable show that like and we had just finished the second last episode and we were about to watch the last episode and i got the text that john had died and like I just broke like it's it's it's amazing to me and I think it speaks to the power of music that you know I think we can often sort of pretend that music has a power and art has a power but

we're never entirely sure and then when someone like this passes you know the way you feel it in your gut like your uncle passed or like a family friend passed is is um is is palpable you know, the way you feel it in your gut, like your uncle passed or like a family friend passed is palpable, you know. So it was a gut punch. And then I went online and you know, so many people around the world are remembering him right now. Look, I mentioned that he was like a songwriter, songwriter. And I know that he never had this big chart topping hit. But he was so beloved by other musicians, so beloved by all these people all over the world. Like you just mentioned, you know, it sort of feels like an uncle dying. And what was it about his work that made him so unique? Well, he was sort of everything you'd want in a songwriter. He could be the funniest songwriter you'd ever hear in your life. He could be the saddest

songwriter you'd ever hear in your life, kind of at the same time. He could speak in everyday language. He could talk to you like your buddy at the bar. And he could also be profound and write poetry that you'd spend weeks deciphering. So he was the total package with the simplicity of his music that made it accessible to anyone,

especially to working people. He felt like he could be a working class, working person songwriter that never talked down to him because he was a member of the working class. The story about John Prine is that he was a mailman who wrote songs on his route, and he gets up at an open mic at a place called the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago and decides to show off a couple of these songs that he had written while out delivering packages. And he gets up on stage and he sings his first song. And the first song he sings is pretty much the closest he ever had to a hit. It was Angel from Montgomery, which became a gigantic hit by Bonnie Raitt. Named after my mother My old man is another

Child has grown old It's the first song he ever sings, and there's no applause. The packed room has no applause, and he says he really thought that he had messed up, that all this time that he had told himself in the postal van that it wasn't going to work out. It turns out he was right, because no one was clapping. Turns out, this is true, everyone was shocked, like blown away by this kid, 24 years old, coming out of nowhere, this mailman,

and just singing some of the most articulate, powerful music they had ever heard. They didn't know what to think. They weren't ready to clap. When I was a young girl When I had me a cowboy They weren't ready to clap. So, you know, and then Steve Goodman, who's a great songwriter who was there, he wrote a great song called The City of New Orleans. He calls Chris Christopherson to come in and watch John Prine. Christopherson comes to town and hates it and says he hates him because he made it look so effortless. People had worked years and years to write songs like that.

And then this mailman shows up and writes these songs. He like hated him for his extraordinary talent. That's exactly. I can't help but think he had this incredible gift to, you know, of not just being relatable, but also of helping people work through their own heartache and loss. And why do you think that was the case? You know, he really processed loss and process heartache, like we actually do. And not like Hallmark cards or mindfulness apps ask us to. There's a great example of it.

He has a great song called All the Best, which is a song he wrote to his wife, ex-wife, I should say, after they had split up. And it starts off with, I wish you love and happiness. In fact, I wish you all the best. I wish you don't do like I do and never fall in love with someone like you. Like simultaneously, simultaneously feeling this profound love for someone when you divorce,

but also not being afraid to shy away from the hate and the true despair. So he didn't cloud those emotions. And when it came to songs about death, he wrote a great song called Please Don't Bury Me Down in the Cold, Cold Ground, which is a song about death, not about its finality or the way the New Yorker would write about death, but instead about like,

hey, please don't give away my organs because I want to be able to see when I go to heaven. So it's a pretty funny song. I feel like he processed grief, he processed loss in the way that people do when they sit down in bars and kind of chuckle and laugh a little bit about their sadness. Not in this sort of like fake profound way that sometimes art asks us to do so. Right. He feels like a real person. Like he has this authenticity about him. Well, yeah. I mean, he was a mailman from Chicago whose dad was from

Kentucky and he never lost that in any of his songwriting. He's also been through some stuff, hey? Like, I know he underwent cancer surgery in 1998 to remove a tumor in his neck. In 2013, he had part of one lung removed to treat lung cancer. I imagine that probably had something to do with some of his work. You know, I was talking to a couple of my friends about this. And these are these are folks who knew him pretty well. And they said that, you know, when John got COVID-19, he's diagnosed with COVID-19. And he was brought to the hospital,

the assumption was that he'd just be able to power through it, because look what he had gotten through. It was after that time when he is his he had the throat cancer that his voice completely changed. And he told me in an interview one time that he thought his career was over after that. And he thought he was a singer. Turns out, he was a songwriter. And even though he started to sing a little bit like this, and not as beautifully as in the early verses, that brought a gravitas, that brought a roughness that I think people really, really loved about him. But you know, I know, I think after that time was over, he started to reflect more on his mortality. But in his most recent record, The Tree of Forgiveness,

he talks a lot about the afterlife. So it's really interesting to listen to it today, given his passing. I know that's why you interviewed him a few years back. And tell me a little bit about that experience, this experience of interviewing him. It was a trip. Jamie, you know what it's like, you know, you and I have had coffees where we talked about interviewing people we think are cool, and how weird that weird that is, and how you and how you don't want to be a loser in front of them, you know,

try very, very hard. And usually you end up being a loser. But yes, yeah, you don't want to sound like Chris Farley when he interviews Paul McCartney and says, Do you remember the Beatles? So we kept it cool. It was me and one of the Q producers, Chris Trowbridge. He set up the interview. And yeah, we talked about his life. And we talked about his songwriting. We talked about sort of the Renaissance of younger songwriters discovering his music because, you know, I think

around the late 80s and early 90s, the Tree of Forg of forgiveness the record most recent one was his first one in 13 years he felt a bit forgotten about and frankly he was playing shows to about 100 and 150 people now out of nowhere a new generation had discovered his music and he was back to playing pretty much packed halls if not bigger halls than he had ever played before but i couldn't help at one point he has um he has one verse of one of his songs that has meant the world to me. And I repeat to myself an awful lot. And I actually got the opportunity to take down the artifice of being a cool journalist and just tell him how much this meant to me. And I was saying to someone last night that I feel very privileged.

Talk to me a little bit more about this, because I re-listened to this interview this morning. And there is this extraordinary moment where you go over this passage with him from Bruised Orange, Chain of Sorrow. So talk to me about this passage and what that was like for you. Can I read it for you? Yeah, please. You know, I think a lot about, you know, when you deal with tragedy, you know, as I have, as everybody has, you know, there's a hardening that can happen to you afterwards. And, you know, I have friends of mine who have never recovered from that hardening. And I often would worry that I would become sort

of hardened and I would become sort of cold. I remember I was in my kitchen one night and this song came on for the first time. And the words are, you can gaze out the window and get mad and get madder throw your hands in the air say what does it matter but it don't do no good to get angry so help me i know for a heart staining anger grows a weed and grows bitter you'll become your own prisoner as you watch yourself sit there wrapped up in a trap of your very own chain of sorrow and whenever I would feel nervous about being hardened

or felt like the reflections and the sadness I wanted to indulge in it a little too much. I would listen to that and have sort of a warning that life was beautiful and I could take advantage of it. And I could be a part of society and I could embrace everything that's great about life. But if I'm not careful, I can find myself in that chair with the chains wrapped around me. And I was happy to get a chance to tell him about it. You know, it struck me this morning to listening to it, that it feels poignant now, given how all of us are living right now. And also given how he was taken from this world, hey? Yeah. And I mean, I'm careful here, because, you know, there's there's room for

there's room for sadness, and there's room for grief. And I'm not an anger. Yeah, and I mean, I'm careful here because, you know, there's room for sadness and there's room for grief. And anger. Yeah, and I don't want to be the guy who comes on and tells someone who's going through a rough time to cheer up, you know what I mean? Or that it's not so bad because, Jamie, it is. But I think it is meaningful that in times like this, you try. You try to get up every day and put your shirt on. You try every day to not just wear pajama pants all day. You try to call your friends and you try to call your family,

even if you don't make it and even if you don't always want to answer that Zoom call. Just the sheer effort of trying to engage in the society, of fighting for the world that you want. We want our world to be social. We want our world to be full of beautiful interactions. And I think about that song every day in this pandemic. My heart's in the ice house Come a hill or come down Like a long ago Sunday When I walked through the alley

On a cold winter's morning To a church house just to shovel some snow. I heard sirens on the train track, how naked getting nudity. And all the boys been hit by a local commuter just from walking with his back turned to the train that was coming so slow. A friend of mine texted me this morning. He said the real tragedy of John Prine dying of COVID-19 is he'd have a great song about dying from COVID-19. Okay. Tom Power, friend of the pod, thank you. Listen to John Prine today. Listen to Far From Me.

Listen to Bruised Orange. Listen to That's The Way The World Goes Round. Listen to Illegal Smile. And let's remember him as the great songwriter that he is. It is definitely going to be coming through my speakers all night. When I woke up this morning, things were looking bad. Seemed like total silence was the only friend I had.

Bowl of oatmeal tried to stare me down and won. And it was 12 o'clock before I realized I was having no fun. clock before realized I was having no fun. But fortunately, I have the key to escape reality. 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 campaign today. Lots, lots, lots going on, clearing the way for Joe Biden to get the Democratic nomination and take on Donald Trump in the upcoming U.S. election this November. for the presidency because I believe that as a president, I could accelerate and institutionalize the progressive changes that we are all building together. And if we keep organizing and fighting, I have no doubt, but that that is exactly what will happen. While the path may be slower now, we will change this nation and with like-minded friends around the globe change the entire world. That's it for now. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening and talk to you in the morning. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.