Elvis Costello has written a lengthy tribute to the late John Prine. “My own introduction [to John Prine] was via an Atlantic Record single plucked out of a discount bin of 45rpm records on the counter of Rushworth and Dreaper in Liverpool,” Costello wrote in his essay, which exceeds 2,600 words. He continued:
It was a copy of “Sam Stone” backed by
“Illegal Smile,” which in two short
songs showed me everything that I would come to appreciate in John’s
writing; on the A-side, a song of incredible empathy, an unflinching
account of an addicted veteran and the impact of his torment on his
family, all written with the authority of a man who had served in the
army, while the b-side, was a good-humoured celebration of forbidden
pleasures.
Later in the essay, Costello recalled having John Prine as a guest on his TV series Spectacle in 2009. “I opened that taping with ‘Poison Moon’ and ‘Wave a White Flag,’ two of the songs that I told the audience were written when the height of my ambition was to be able to write with the economy and unusual subject matter of a John Prine song.”
Costello also wrote, “Prine songs sometimes seem like a frayed route map of the emotions and speaking of the distance between two hearts or two realities. They don’t point angry fingers, they let you make up your own mind.” Find the essay below and at Elvis Costello’s website.
Tributes to Prine have poured in since the singer-songwriter’s April 7 death. Justin Vernon, Stephen Colbert, and others shared words of remembrance; Jeff Tweedy, Natalie Maines, Brandi Carlile, Roger Waters, and others have covered Prine’s songs; and Jason Isbell wrote an op-ed for The New York Times called “John Prine Taught Me to Stay Vulnerable.”
Read Pitchfork’s Afterword “Remembering John Prine, the Ultimate Songwriter’s Songwriter.”