John Prine, Terrence McNally, and Someone Else’s Mother or Husband or Child Are Dead: It Really Happened.
When you spread the ‘6%’ lie, you dishonor their memory and disrespect their loved ones.
In his live-stream concert series What It Is last week, a Sunday staple for me during this pandemic, singer-songwriter Todd Snider payed tribute to his mentor, the incomparable John Prine by playing the classic track “Bruised Orange (Chain of Sorrow)” from Prine’s 1978 album. The iconic songwriter died of complications from COVID-19 on April 7, and I’ve been trying to write some kind of tribute to the man, who is as much of a literary idol to me as a musical one, but it just never comes out the way I want it. I’ve written pages and deleted them. I can’t seem to get it right, but I’ll continue to try. This piece is not that tribute. This is something else.
Last Sunday when Mr. Snider sat with his old “gut-string” guitar on his lap in an empty East Nashville venue, he introduced “Bruised Orange” saying, “You know, I tell you what, let’s do some John Prine, because we’re doing hard songs anyway today.” Todd looks at the ground, adjusting his tuning nervously, and goes on a bit about how playing his full tribute show to Prine was when he first started to get a hang of doing concerts virtually…
