by A great way to get the measure of someone is to ask them what four people they would invite to a hypothetical dinner party.
A dream scenario where all of your favourite historical culture icons could come together and get to know one another over a few bottles of wine and some food. While I may not be involved, I have a sneaking suspicion that John Prine, Bob Dylan, Robert Plant and Bill Murray would be quite happy to hang as a four-piece.
Why? Well, the three latter names in that group all share one thing: a love for John Prine. The truly gifted songwriter who could encapsulate the peaks and troughs in a way few others could. His observations were so astute that he garnered a dedicated fan base of high-brow artists who stood alongside him in the creative breaches, in complete awe of his ability.
Perhaps what is most astonishing is that if you had read that paragraph, without Prine’s name being included, you may have thought that comment was in reference to Bob Dylan. Dylan famously had an alumni of star-studded fans, whose respect was rarely reciprocated. But Prine broke the mould, writing lyrics that struck to the very core of the songwriting legend.
“Prine’s stuff is pure Proustian existentialism,” he said. “And he writes beautiful songs. I remember when Kris Kristofferson first brought him on the scene. All that stuff about ‘Sam Stone’ the soldier junky daddy and ‘Donald and Lydia,’ where people make love from ten miles away. Nobody but Prine could write like that.”
Naturally, wherever Dylan goes, musicians follow closely behind, and he isn’t the only one to commend Prine’s work as truly groundbreaking. While Robert Plant’s sensibilities are completely different to Dylan’s and Prine’s, celebrating a more performative sense of musicianship, he still feels connected to Prine. Largely because Prine’s work extends more than just the everyman fan, it taps into the psyche of stars whose experience is more acute and unique.
“It’s a vast, enduring treasury, a beacon of light in these ever-weirder times,” Plant said when discussing Prine’s intricate work, “You know, sometimes it seems like you’re writing for all of us, which in fact you probably are.”
But what does it mean to write for everyone? Is it rousing sentiments of upheaval or delicate moments of personal conversation that touch the listener? For Prine, it was mostly the latter, writing music that acts as a warm friend, dancing between empathy and humour to cut through the static noise of modern life, which is why, when the laughter around Bill Murray stopped and he was staring into the depths of solitude, it was Prine’s work that helped him through.
“So, once upon a time, it was the first time in my life I was, not what people call ‘clinically depressed,’ but a real bummer to be around, like, a real downer to be around,” Murray explained. “And I just couldn’t get myself to having any fun and I thought to myself, I remembered something my friend Hunter S. Thompson said during kind of an addled state he said, ‘We’re going to have to rely on John Prine for a sense of humour.’ Which I thought was one of those addled things that you say.”
But Murray followed Thompson’s instructions and spun Prine’s record, Great Days. A move that would forever change his life. “I’m thinking to myself, ‘Who the hell put him in charge of a sense of humor,’ as I’m going way into this record,” Murray said. “But, there it was, this song ‘Linda Goes To Mars.’ And I heard the song and I went, ‘Huh.’ And that was the beginning of the return.”
Listen to Prine’s classic track below and see if it taps into you the same way it does Murray. If it does, you might just be one step closer to gaining an invite to the greatest dinner party to ever happen.
