“On Black Friday at the Walmart I met Jesus.”
So begins a new song by John John Brown, and I have no idea whether that is his real name or a stage name. But I do know he can write a song in the tradition of John Prine.
“I wrote this song … with JP in mind,” he explained. “I made sure to mention his name [in the song] as a way to give him credit.”
I’ll give him credit, all right. For writing a good song and for continuing the style popularized by the late, great John Prine.
What I mean by that is this: a common scene, a pensive mood, and a reference to Jesus, all these straight imitating the style and substance of JP.
In fact, it is not just a “reference” to Jesus, but an afternoon spent with Jesus, “up on this hill above Walmart … hatching a plan.” Such an image invokes the day when, according to the Prine song “Everybody,” John and Jesus spend “an hour or two just a eating that gospel pie” until Jesus is called away to attend, apparently, to some natural disaster.
Where all this Jesus language comes from in the lyrics of John Prine (and those who seek to write like him) is a mystery. Which is one of the reasons I called his first wife last week.
“He always called me Carole,” she said, halfway through our conversation. Her full name is Ann Carole Menaloscino Prine.
She and John met in high school in Maywood, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. They married on Monday December 26, 1966, at the Our Lady of Mt Carmel Catholic Church in Maywood. A week later, on January 2, the building was demolished to make way for a new sanctuary.
“John never went to church,” she said, referring to their two-year courtship. “I went sometimes, like a good Catholic.”
When they married, John was home on a four-week leave from his military service in Germany. After the ceremony, they stayed in an apartment, proffered by a friend. When he returned to the States in December of 1967, Ann Carole explained, they rented a small apartment with one bedroom.
“It had a bath, but no shower,” she told me. “We paid $80 a month.” And when she said that, my mind went to the song, “That’s the Way the World Goes ‘Round” with its “sittin’ in the bathtub countin’ my toes” scene.
But what she did not know is precisely what I wanted to know: where does all this Jesus stuff come from? John does not seem to have been a church-going person, not as a child, an adolescent, or an adult. But his songs are full of Jesus.
“Sam Stone” made him famous. He wrote it early and included the line, “Jesus died for nothing, I suppose.” Later, he wrote the wonderful “Spanish Pipedream.” It features a chorus in which a topless dancer urges a sailor on leave to “Throw away his TV … move to the country …and try and find Jesus on your own.”
“Was John baptized?” I asked, and she said, “I don’t know.”
“In the ten plus years you were together, did you attend church?” And she said, “No.”
“Did you have religious imagery in your apartment?” To which she replied, “Only a cross here and there.”
All of this adds to the mystery.
There are some clues. In his song, “Grandpa Was a Carpenter” John sings, “He went to church on Sunday, and took me with him, too. Stained glass in every window, hearing aids in every pew.”
Which means it could have been his grandparents, with whom he visited every summer. Plus this, according to Ann Carole: “His grandparents came to live with them in Maywood, after his dad died.” That, no doubt, would have been his maternal grandparents, also from Kentucky.
As a grandparent myself, seeking to influence my grandson Sam in the things of the Lord, I am prone to this explanation.
But mostly, I am impressed by this song by John John Brown. It has Jesus sitting by a camping tent up on a hill, perhaps overlooking the Walmart.
Then he sings the words spoken by Jesus:
“No one even looks up at the stars anymore.
A billion lights hiding above this town.
I feel like all them lost people would be alright
If they just soaked in a little starlight.”
I’ll say Amen to that, as John John Brown does in the song!
(Art work of John Prine and Ann Carole Prine by Ian Olito)
“On Black Friday at the Walmart I met Jesus.”
So begins a new song by John John Brown, and I have no idea whether that is his real name or a stage name. But I do know he can write a song in the tradition of John Prine.
“I wrote this song … with JP in mind,” he explained. “I made sure to mention his name [in the song] as a way to give him credit.”
I’ll give him credit, all right. For writing a good song and for continuing the style popularized by the late, great John Prine.
What I mean by that is this: a common scene, a pensive mood, and a reference to Jesus, all these straight imitating the style and substance of JP.
In fact, it is not just a “reference” to Jesus, but an afternoon spent with Jesus, “up on this hill above Walmart … hatching a plan.” Such an image invokes the day when, according to the Prine song “Everybody,” John and Jesus spend “an hour or two just a eating that gospel pie” until Jesus is called away to attend, apparently, to some natural disaster.
Where all this Jesus language comes from in the lyrics of John Prine (and those who seek to write like him) is a mystery. Which is one of the reasons I called his first wife last week.
“He always called me Carole,” she said, halfway through our conversation. Her full name is Ann Carole Menaloscino Prine.
She and John met in high school in Maywood, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. They married on Monday December 26, 1966, at the Our Lady of Mt Carmel Catholic Church in Maywood. A week later, on January 2, the building was demolished to make way for a new sanctuary.
“John never went to church,” she said, referring to their two-year courtship. “I went sometimes, like a good Catholic.”
When they married, John was home on a four-week leave from his military service in Germany. After the ceremony, they stayed in an apartment, proffered by a friend. When he returned to the States in December of 1967, Ann Carole explained, they rented a small apartment with one bedroom.
“It had a bath, but no shower,” she told me. “We paid $80 a month.” And when she said that, my mind went to the song, “That’s the Way the World Goes ‘Round” with its “sittin’ in the bathtub countin’ my toes” scene.
But what she did not know is precisely what I wanted to know: where does all this Jesus stuff come from? John does not seem to have been a church-going person, not as a child, an adolescent, or an adult. But his songs are full of Jesus.
“Sam Stone” made him famous. He wrote it early and included the line, “Jesus died for nothing, I suppose.” Later, he wrote the wonderful “Spanish Pipedream.” It features a chorus in which a topless dancer urges a sailor on leave to “Throw away his TV … move to the country …and try and find Jesus on your own.”
“Was John baptized?” I asked, and she said, “I don’t know.”
“In the ten plus years you were together, did you attend church?” And she said, “No.”
“Did you have religious imagery in your apartment?” To which she replied, “Only a cross here and there.”
All of this adds to the mystery.
There are some clues. In his song, “Grandpa Was a Carpenter” John sings, “He went to church on Sunday, and took me with him, too. Stained glass in every window, hearing aids in every pew.”
Which means it could have been his grandparents, with whom he visited every summer. Plus this, according to Ann Carole: “His grandparents came to live with them in Maywood, after his dad died.” That, no doubt, would have been his maternal grandparents, also from Kentucky.
As a grandparent myself, seeking to influence my grandson Sam in the things of the Lord, I am prone to this explanation.
But mostly, I am impressed by this song by John John Brown. It has Jesus sitting by a camping tent up on a hill, perhaps overlooking the Walmart.
Then he sings the words spoken by Jesus:
“No one even looks up at the stars anymore.
A billion lights hiding above this town.
I feel like all them lost people would be alright
If they just soaked in a little starlight.”
I’ll say Amen to that, as John John Brown does in the song!
(Art work of John Prine and Ann Carole Prine by Ian Olito)
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