COVID-19 has claimed my icon, John Prine.
keets
Posts: 25,351 ✭✭✭✭✭
So I opened up my PM files this morning to a message from TomB that John Prine had died, what a sweetly sad way to start the day. 
When I first joined the forum and picked my icon I used the paper bag because I had no way to upload something else, but LordM stepped up to the plate and helped me with the current picture. A lot of members thought it was me but Cladking couldn't be fooled. He was familiar with Prine.
I never managed to see John Prine live. Me and a friend have had excuses, too far away or too expensive, so now I'm left with only his music that touched me and many others. The link is to a YouTube video of Prine and his good friend Steve Goodman, another guy from Chicago who wrote "City of New Orleans" that was popularized by Arlo Guthrie. Goodman died in 1984 of luekemia. In their 20's they wrote with the souls of old men.
Please everyone, stay safe.
Al H.
Comments
So sad to hear that. I heard he was in the hospital and hoped for the best. A great American poet/musician gone.
Obituary: https://nytimes.com/2020/04/07/arts/music/john-prine-dead.html
RIP...
Dear Abby, Dear Abby my feet are too long...........
Very sad news...Condolences to all fans....RickO
RIP
Nice short story @keets
................my hair's falling out and my rights are all wrong.
another classic!!! I can't tell you how many times I've been online searching or doing something at the desk Hobby-related and in the background was John Prine. I can still do that, it just won't be the same.
It never is.
Note this is coin related ... you don't have to look far to find a coin reference in his songs ...
_"Onomatopoeia", 1973
Forty-five minutes
Forty-five cents
Sixty-five agents sitting on a fence_
@keets it is sweet revenge that I know your avatar ... I saw him in concert in the Alabama Theater, a renovated 1920's theater, back in the late 90's (I think). There's just something 'right' about listening to JP. RIP.
If we were all the same, the world would be an incredibly boring place.
Tommy
I am a major fan of he and Goodman, and all of his stories. I had a feeling that with all of his past health issues, once he went on a vent, he wasn't coming off. One of the funnier stories was he was playing in bars in Chicago for $.25 per person, went to New York and had a record deal in 3 days. "What's so hard about this?" RIP.
Sam Stone came home to his wife and family
After serving in the conflict overseas.
And the time that he served had shattered all his nerves
And left a little shrapnel in his knee.
But the morphine eased the pain
And the grass grew 'round his brain
And gave him all the confidence he lacked,
With a purple heart and a monkey on his back.
I can hear my GF in the background, tapping at her keypad with her headset on and helping Vets that call in, most of them from the VietNam era. I know a lot of guys here who served then and I wonder if they ever heard "Sam Stone" which is an anthem to their service and the problems they faced when they came home. our Hobby is a good stress reliever.
The world has suffered a loss, my condolences to his family. @keets Sorry that you never got to see him live- for you I include the link to the last time I saw him in Springfield MO. The performance that night was truly magnificent!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJIzA4cY2KI
Sad. Terribly sad. This miserable virus has taken an icon. RIP John.
Dave
Always wondered who that was in your icon, keets.
Terrible loss for the music community
Dead Cat Waltz Exonumia
"Coin collecting for outcasts..."
Took some time this morning to listen to a few of his songs. What a gift to be able to tell a story with a song. RIP
RIP, John Prine.
I saw he passed and immediately thought of keets and then, perhaps oddly enough, I thought of Neil Peart and Rush. Peart died earlier this year as well, though not COVID-19 related, and my relationship with Rush appears similar to keets with John Prine. I guess the key difference is that I saw Rush perform live dozens of times over the course of decades.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
RIP John Prine. He was a welcomed anomaly
m
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
saw him once with iris dement.a fine show.rip
he wrote such introspective lyrics, talked about things we all seem to think about but he had the gift to put it into words. he talked about growing old, a woman's dissappointment with her life, dying, lonliness, love and managed to do a lot of it with a sense of humor for the human condition.
I woke up this mornin'
Put on my slippers
Walked in the kitchen and died.
But Oh, what a feelin' as my soul went through the ceiling
And on up into heaven I did ride!!
https://google.com/search?q=lyrics+please+don%27t+bury+me&rlz=1C1SQJL_enUS872US872&oq=lyrics+please+dont+bury+me&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l6.11713j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
RIP.
At least we still have his lyrics and his music...
U.S. Type Set
All this time I thought Keet's icon was a much younger Keets!
Great transactions with oih82w8, JasonGaming, Moose1913.
I rarely respond to OT threads or death notices but John Prine was like family to me. Most of the people close to me are fans and I saw him at six concerts which is more than half of all the concerts I've been to. My signature line (time don't fly, it bounds and leaps) came from one of his songs. Much of my writing style comes from him, Vonnegut (so it goes), and Mark Twain (old Sam hisself).
I worried about Prine due to his age and two previous bouts with cancer that left him with one lung.
There are few of the old singer/ son writers still working and with Prine's passing much less to look forward to from the group. But he has certainly left a massive legacy in terms of his work and influence for a mere "mailman".
RIP.
Really sad to hear this.