John Prine died two years ago, this week.
It was two more months before I heard about this COVID-related death. One of my first introductions to the famous songwriter and singer was through a simple song written and performed by Carsie Blanton. It’s called “Fishin’ with You” and incorporates, I know now, many phrases culled from Prine’s catalogue of songs.
“Hey John Prine, thanks for the tunes,” she sings,
“They were sweet as peaches, crazy as loons.”
The “peaches” comes from Prine’s famous song “Spanish Pipedream” wherein a bar room dancer implores a soldier to
“Blow up your TV, throw away your paper.
Go to the country, built you a home.
Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches.
Try and find Jesus on your own.”
The “loons” is a reference to the song “Crazy as a Loon.” It describes an aspiring performer going, first, to Hollywood, then to Nashville, and finally to New York City in a futile search for fame and fortune. All he discovers is “that town’ll make you crazy, crazy as a loon.”
The chorus to the Blanton tribute is just as much fun:
“Tonight in heaven it must be nice
They’re all eating peaches in Paradise.
All of them angels line up in a queue
Just to go fishin’ with you, just to go fishin’ with you.”
John sang a hilarious song called “When I Get to Heaven” but one of his most famous songs is “Paradise.” The latter is about the place in Kentucky where his parent were born and grew up, and where John went every summer. “Take me back to Muhlenburg County” he begged his father who had to explain that the Peabody Coal Company bought up the whole town and “hauled it away” in order to mine the coal.
More famous singers covered Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery” but nobody else tried to duplicate his “Fish and Whistle” until Blanton borrowed the tune for her tribute song. His chorus goes like this:
“Father forgive us for what we must do.
You forgive us and we’ll forgive you.
We’ll forgive each other ‘till we both turn blue
Then we’ll whistle and go fishing in heaven.”
The mashup of traditional religion and playful humor is one thing that attracted me to this song and many others. And it was the prospect of hearing Carsie Blanton sing her John Prine tribute that pulled me from my temporary abode in Greenville, South Carolina, and pushed me to the Olivette Farm on the banks of the French Broad River as it flows through the hills northwest of Asheville.
She was there, with her Handsome Band, with her back to the setting sun and her voice facing one hundred people scattered on blankets and chairs in and around the pavilion. I took the bench nearest to the band and facing square into the bracing breeze that gathered its chill from the noisy river.
Their music lasted an hour but began with the words “Jesus Christ was a handsome man” and rolled into a chorus that urged us to “Be good to the people you love and love everybody alive.”
That song could have been sung in our worship service that morning at Providence Baptist Church, I thought to myself. I had even told her so when I posted on the Facebook announcement that she was coming for a Sunday afternoon concert. “Come early and sing in my church” I wrote, but evidently nobody ever read it.
But I was right, mostly. Yes, some of her lyrics would have turned a few eyes in the pews, I’m sure. But then she got to the end to her signature piece which I had never heard. It features a foot-stomping chorus of encouragement in response to a litany of social woes:
“Buck up, baby, come on, sick ‘em.
Make ‘em laugh if you can’t lick ‘em.
Keep on shinin’ like you know you should.
Keep on shinin’ that’s the way you get ‘em good.”
That would have sounded just spectacular at the close of our worship. I had taken a text from Paul the Apostle, “Live as children of God, shining like the sun …” and we closed the service with a rousing rendition of “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine.”
But Carsie’s song would have gone just as good, I think. “Keep on shinin’ like you know you should.”
The show was over. I took a picture and bought an album and invited her to visit The Meetinghouse.
We both miss John Prine.
(April 2022)
