I was beginning to feel the well was running dry and I wouldn't find enough Christmas tunes I could stand or laugh at intelligently to see the project through, but I think I've hit a mother lode and worry I won't fit them all in now. Only seven more to go. I've been recently introduced to a rich vein of holiday blues beauties, and I had completely overlooked the likes of Mr. Prine. Creativity and life are a lot like that. You start to run dry, but as long as you're still running, you're bound to find fertile ground again. Sometimes you have to run a long time, though. There's no guarantee.
John Prine sits high on my list of songwriters I couldn't imagine the world without. He's simply genius. I could take this ballad in several directions. I could focus on the loneliness and longing, tie that into the universal experience of loss. We like that, singing about sadness. Takes the edge off, and next thing you know you're smiling again in your here and now. Things ain't so bad. We'll get by somehow. Then there's the angle of we're all in prison, stealing a line from Albert Einstein, limited by our narrow perspectives and limiting ourselves to our immediate pleasures or aversions. Plagiarizing Bob Marley, I could suggest we emancipate ourselves from mental slavery. That's a good direction, too. But I don't know, today, I'll let the song do the talking, let it take you where it (and you) will.
Bon voyage!
P.S. One more thing I gotta say about John Prine, as one YouTube commenter points out, you can't get too melodramatic with him. That is, no wallowing in your loneliness. There's always a crack of humor that lets in some light on the silliness of the human condition. Like I said, "Genius."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G28ApRNb-7U
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