COVID-19 was infecting people in ever-greater numbers. News reports confirmed it by March/April, and people acknowledged it wasn’t going away by burrowing into their homes or embracing willful disbelief. Social and economic interactions tapered off. Deaths mounted. People followed the trajectory of the epidemic online. Yet, for the privileged and fortunate, like my family, it all felt dangerous but distant. No one I knew was infected, quarantined, or in a hospital. The pattern of daily life had receded but not stopped for us. We were insulated from the reality.
That dull apathy changed for me in early April when I heard that revered folk singer-songwriter John Prine had died of complications from the coronavirus. He passed away at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, a hospital complex I had visited more than a few times. I’d always enjoyed his music and persona, but wouldn’t qualify myself as a rabid fan. Later in May, I listened to the local NPR station’s radio wake for John and thought about why this particular entertainer’s passing had affected me.
I’ve rarely paid much attention to “celebs we’ve lost” stories. I don’t think too deeply about the psychology of why we get emotional when celebrities die. People feel connected by them to society? It’s a form of collective mourning together with a larger community? It disguises the fear of something we can’t control? I’m not sure.
John Prine was a peripheral favorite of mine when I wanted to listen to heartwarming songs about common people and down home tales doled out through his masterful words, gravely voice and approachable demeanor. He focused on small-town life and human frailty wrapped in folk, country and a smidgen of gospel music. I’d first heard about him in high school, when a school chum got into a sullen phase listening to Bruce Springsteen’s acoustic “Nebraska” album and pulled me into Prine’s folk tunes almost by accident. John Prine was a polar opposite to 1980s pop music, and I next crossed paths with him in a duet with the Cowboy Junkies’ Margo Timmins, “If You Were the Woman, And I Was the Man” in 1992. I again drifted away to other artists and music, but was reacquainted thanks to his funny and believable song about couples staying together (and why they do) called “In Spite of Ourselves.” It’s best captured in this duet with country/folk singer Iris DeMent from the “Sessions on 54th St.” concert from 2002.
In this way, John Prine ducked in and out of my musical life, but I never lost an appreciation for his tunes regardless of what stage of young adulthood I was in. He made wonderful music. He seemed to be amused and content with his life. By all accounts he remained affable and approachable in Nashville and stayed true to his humble roots all his life.
I suppose that’s why his death finally made
the COVID-19 pandemic feel real and scary to me. It robbed us of one of the good
ones, a voice that had always been there but suddenly was gone.
Rest in peace, John Prine.
