When I heard that John Prine had died, I had the same impulse that his countless admirers around the world had.
I needed to hear the man sing.
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But I didn’t turn to his flawless 1971 debut album. I went in the other direction — to 2018, and the final track on the last album he released.
It’s called “When I Get to Heaven,” and on it, he lays out his plans for the afterlife.
When I get to heaven, I’m gonna shake God’s hand
Thank him for more blessings than one man can stand
Then I’m gonna get a guitar and start a rock and roll band
Check into a swell hotel, ain’t the afterlife grand?
What follows is one of those all-time great Prine choruses — a refrain you can sing along with after you’ve heard it once.
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He’s “gonna get a cocktail, vodka and ginger ale.” (That was his drink of choice. He called it a “Handsome Johnny.”)
He’s gonna “smoke a cigarette that’s nine miles long.” He’ll “kiss that pretty girl on the Tilt-A-Whirl, ’cause this old man is going to town.”
The essential songs:Play John Prine’s music. Play it as loud as possible.
But as much as I love the record, when I want to hear “Heaven,” I need to see Prine sing it live. I’ve probably watched every decent concert clip there is to find on YouTube.
For one thing, I love hearing a crowd immediately fall under the song’s spell — whether they’re fans anticipating every word, or an unsuspecting TV audience who’ve been reeled in by those first lines.
But mostly, it’s about Prine. He told a story on the record, but on stage, “Heaven” was a proclamation. He’d make sure every word was heard clear as day. The man, whose hands seemed to be glued to his guitar for the last 47 years, was suddenly free to get downright theatrical.
Even with his band at his side, “Heaven” became a one-man-show, about a songwriter who faced his approaching demise with peerless wit — no less sharp and original than it was in 1971.
“I’m gonna take this wristwatch off of my arm!” he would call out, pulling up his suit jacket sleeve. “What are you gonna do with time after you’ve bought the farm?”
Even if he hadn’t addressed it directly on “Heaven,” Prine’s mortality was hard for the world to ignore in recent years.
He’d survived two bouts of cancer, requiring parts of his neck and lungs to be removed. At times, he’d walk with a cane, and after having two knee replacements, a hip replacement and hardware in his elbow, joked that “All the TSA guys know me.”
At the same time, you’d be hard-pressed to find a seventy-something who was more young at heart. In the last decade, he’d been surrounded by kindred spirits several decades his junior: Kacey Musgraves, Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires, Brandi Carlile and Margo Price.
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The younger generation spared Prine from a lot of the gratuitous fawning that country stars his age are subject to — where you’re dubbed a “legend” after so many decades — because, without a doubt, he was their contemporary, too.
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But there were other people Prine was ready to see again.
“I’m gonna go find my mom and dad, and good old brother Doug,” he sang on Heaven’s final verse.
“Well I’ll bet him and cousin Jackie are still cuttin’ up a rug/ and I wanna see all my mama’s sisters/ ’cause that’s where all the love starts/ I miss ’em all like crazy, bless their little hearts.”
Prine’s father was a factory worker. He didn’t get to see his son become one of America’s most celebrated songwriters — he died of a heart attack just months before that 1971 debut album.
But in that final verse, on his final album, his son found a way to honor his Dad — and say farewell to us all in a fashion that’s unexpected, funny and perfectly Prine.
In concert, he’d smack his acoustic guitar for emphasis.
I always will remember these words my daddy said
He said, “Buddy, when you’re dead, you’re a dead pecker-head’
I hope to prove him wrong… that is, when I get to heaven.
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: WHEN
