John Prine Album: “Common Sense”

It's weird the extent to which Amazon's reviewers don't seem to "get" this album. Full of hifalutin talk of cubism and such, they miss the obvious: This is brilliant nonsense, not some kind of formal stylist art. The full (not to say fulsome) arrangements combine with his rough, unpolished voice to enhance the absurdist effect. As a foray into the absurd, it's brilliantly executed. Pitch perfect? Prine never is. But his best songs all come at the listener kind of sideways, and this album does that raised raised a power or two. The bouncy arrangements make the result fun to listen to while Prine messes with your mind. It's a stoner kinda thing. He only made one like this so far as I know, and that's enough - but the one he made is worth hearing. Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Glenn Frey, Rick Vito, Steve Cropper and Steve Goodman must have thought so too - they're in there tripping with him.

It's just plain "Common Sense" to realize that a good songwriter like John Prine will sit down, write about what he feels at the moment or the place at the time of his life, remember Atlantic Records were determined to make John Prine a star, and Prine wrote ten excellent, some a little bizarre, for the most part intelligent songs for his fourth Atlantic album. Listen for the songs..."Forbidden Jimmy", "Way Down", "He Was In Heaven Before He Died", "Come Back Barbara Lewis...", "Saddle In The Rain", "Wedding Day In Funeralville", really not a bad track on this recording, Prine's early works are his best, especially his first four albums, there's something about "Common Sense" that stands as my favorite John Prine compilation, and that something is the writing. For those of you who do not know, John Prine is a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, one of the finest songwriters there is.

I am a huge Prine fan, but in my opinion this is one of the few poor albums he has made. Prine seems uninspired on all of the tracks here and there are few great songs on this album. I think that this is one of his few recordings where the material is actually overproduced and Prine one of the great songwriters of all time has his charm taken away.

I'm cheating, this is not a commentary on the album; just one song, but maybe you can generalize from it in some useful way.

In the 30 or so years since this song emerged, our language has changed. Qualudes, shut-ins, are terms and realities from some long gone time.

What replaced them? Efficient terminology.

Instead of "Qualudes" (or from another song, "Illegal Smile,") we hear, "controlled substances." Instead of "shut-in without a home," we have "homeless." Maybe even "dual-diagnosis homeless." Instead of "you talk about a paper route," we have "job training programs." Instead of "if heartaches were commercials, we'd all be on TV," we have discussions about compassion and social justice.

Makes me think of John Hiatt's "Icy Blue Heart" and his words, "These days we all play cool, calm and collected, our lips could turn blue just shooting the breeze."

Images in this song like, "god save her please/she's nailed her knees/to some drugstore parking lot," are like movies of a certain someone we maybe played with in our backyard when we were kids, or slept with that first time, or perhaps we crossed the street to avoid her at some point in the arc of her life and ours, someone who tried on wild identities (Hare Krisha; Beauregard) and got around ("Hotel Boulderado!")

One good thing about today's world: lots of folks who would have been "shut-ins" 30 years ago, are roaring down sidewalks in motorized wheelchairs these days. Banners flying.

Some things get better sometimes and songs like this can remind us.

An otherwise kind-hearted musician said to me a few years ago, "Uh huh, but what has Prine done lately?"

My response to that: "Yeah, him and Billy Yeats."

Great stuff to curl up by the fire with and remember. Prine is a master of touching the "gray areas" of our lives. Makes you laugh, cry and above all appreciative of good "sing along music"