John Prine

“…When I die let my ashes float down the Green River

Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam
I'll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin'
Just five miles away from wherever I am.

And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away.”

© Warner Chappell Music, Inc

When I first heard those words, the Tennessean photographer Jack Corn and I were up in the coalfields of East Tennessee, learning about the strip mines. John wrote his words about Muhlenberg County, in Kentucky, not in the Tennessee mountains, but his lines were for me about the broader damage of the exploitation of the land anywhere - the resources removed, both physical and economic, and the devastation and the degradation and human poverty left behind on the scarred land.

At that early point, John Prine had written his “Paradise” ballad not long before this. It lines and laments were for me both current and also timeless, and I saw coal strip mining with new eyes.

The last time I saw John Prine, in person, was a couple of years ago in a long security line at the Nashville airport. He was chatting casually with a woman in front of him who had turned and recognized the recognizable face of the celebrity behind her in the line. In Nashville, we don’t intrude on the privacy of our celebrities, but when he turned back to me I couldn’t help myself. All I said was something lame, like “I’m a big fan, and have been for a long time.” Whereupon he engaged with me for a few moments, ever smiling.

Then he resumed wrangling his guitar case and bag, I offered to help, but he waved me off. He was the complete, self-sufficient traveling man and musician. Headed for another concert somewhere else. Then he was gone.

I was struck how this kind man, this composer and artist who had entertained thousands at a time, was traveling alone. But his music - and those lyrics that were praised over time by Cash and Kristofferson and Dylan and Raitt - spoke to our souls. Spoke to the many millions of us, and to each of us one at a time.