I think we are all a sucker for one-liners whether they be a joke, a quote from a movie or a song. With music they can be so powerful they stamp an image in one's mind that can never be changed. Some of my favorites:
-"Lying out there like a killer in the sun, and I know it's late but we can make it if we run"
-"All it takes one itchy trigger, one more widow, one less white nigger",
-"Waking in the morning, to the feeling of your fingers on my skin, wiping out the traces of the people and the places that I've been"
-"I'll miss those nights in the bar with the girls all loaded like freights, and the pain in the morning comes as easy as it goes"
There's a myriad of them I sing to myself throughout the day, probably the coolest I've heard in a long time is:
"Back before I was a movie star, straight off of the farm, I had a picture of another man's wife tattooed on my arm"
Today tattoos are accessories, like women with dogs, Louie bags and belt buckles. It's a shame because tattoos are nothing to be proud of, nothing to show off. I often think that if you have a tattoo you don't regret then it wasn't administered in the proper setting nor with the proper mindset. Let me make it clear, they are not body art, they are not something you show off like art. Art is for walls, canvases, sculpture, video and song. Tatts should be Sailor Jerry style or prison-esque, they should be a woman's name, a drunk night or something similar. It is the fact that they are not cool which makes them cool. The next time I see some hipster with a star tattoo or a sparrow (look up their meaning if you don't know) I'm gonna rip the fucking thing off their pale, hairless, skinny arm.
And with that tatt line I introduce John Prine just in case you never heard of him. You might know the song "Angel from Montgomery" which was covered by Bonnie Rait and my favorite, Elaine Petty down at the Florabama out on Perdido Key. John came to fame back in the early 70's with his first album entitled "John Prine" after which Kris Kristofferson said "He writes songs so good we'll have to break his thumbs". The music was a mix of country and folk and like so many before him he was declared the next Bob Dylan. Later Dylan was quoted (in pure Dylan mindfuck) as saying:
"Prine's stuff is pure Proustian existentialism. Midwestern mindtrips to the nth degree. And he writes beautiful songs. I remember when Kris Kristofferson first brought him on the scene. All that stuff about "Sam Stone," the soldier junkie daddy, and "Donald and Lydia," where people make love from ten miles away. Nobody but Prine could write like that."
"Crazy as a Loon" is somewhat of a departure from his usual writing, because it is some of his latest work there is much more experience and wisdom in his lyrics and melodies. It is a retrospective piece, not necessarily autobiographical, where the voice recalls his prior lives much like (albeit much cheesier) Buffett's "Last Mango in Paris" about Captain Tony and his saloon in Key West. The syllables don't match but the lyrics are almost haiku in their purity and simplicity.
"So I gathered up my savy, bought myself a business suit,
headed up to New York City where a man can make some loot,
I got hired Monday morning, downsized that afternoon,
Overcome with grief that evening, now I'm crazy as a loon."
After lives in LA, Nashville and Manhattan the narrator comes to the conclusion of moving up to Canada and living off the land with nature. It is every working stiffs dream, the ultimate middle finger to the straight world and a final goodbye to the bullshit, stress and craziness that we deal with everyday.
When I come home after a long day in the rat race, a bad night with the woman and nothing is flowing I might do an hour of yoga, maybe a glass of cab or a stiff scotch. In reality, nothing loosens up those knots in my neck more than settling up to the old wooden mistress for my own personal set list which always includes this gem from Illinois's finest. If you're ever in Gulfport, Florida, roam around the bars of St. Pete Beach where he does pop in sets at a local bar, you just might see the man in the flesh with ten of your new best friends.
