The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #311

#311: "Safety Joe" (2005) - John Prine

When I attended the Meridian branch of Mississippi State University, I stayed with my cousin Terry and his family. Most of the time I lived there, Terry wasn't around at night because he was either away on business meetings or working the late shift; however, most nights when he was home, he played his guitar and sang, thereby introducing me to John Prine.

Prine released his first album in 1971, in the early midst of the singer-songwriter era in American popular music. James Taylor, Carole King, John Denver, Janis Ian, Don McLean, and B.J. Thomas all had hit records in '70/'71. Maybe his record company then (Atlantic) hoped that putting a serene, soft-focus picture of Prine with a rustic setting on the cover of his debut album

would help draw in the audience that were buying singer-songwriter records in droves. This album (like most of Prine's others) succeeded--with the critics. Not so much with the masses, where it only reached #154 on the Billboard Album chart. Maybe the album flopped with the singer-songwriter audience because the songs were too trenchant and witty and not self-centered and whiny enough, maybe the album flopped with the pop audience because the production was too country, maybe it flopped with the country audience because a song like "Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore" was never going play back in Muhlenberg county, maybe it flopped with the folk crowd because "Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore" was the only overtly political song on the record, and maybe it flopped with the hippies because they were too stoned to pick up on the telling details in the opening track "Illegal Smile." Maybe, though, it didn't flop completely; maybe a small segment of each of the aforementioned audience (okay, maybe not the pop audience) types bought it and got it, because Prine's next album rose up the charts, all the way to #148; the next to #135; and his fourth--with an all new funk/rock production (eww) and a more cynical viewpoint--took him to #66--and then Atlantic dropped him. Go figure.

He switched to Asylum, where his records all reached somewhere between #150 and #100 on the charts, the production changed album-to-album, and the song quality dipped (though each album sports a couple of gems). In '84, Prine started his own independent label (Oh Boy! records), and his records improved in quality (though not in sales, where they dropped immediately and deeply). In '91, Prine released The Missing Years (my favorite album of his) and won his first Grammy. With that recognition, his sales spiked, selling over 250,000 copies. He released another album in '95--Lost Dogs & Mixed Blessings--and received another Grammy nomination (though he didn't win). Three years later, just as he was beginning recording sessions for his album of duets with his favorite female singers, Prine was diagnosed with cancer-- squamous cell carcinoma. He underwent surgery on his neck and endured chemotherapy (and, as of right now, is nine years cancer-free). He went back to the studio in '99 to record the album of duets (In Spite of Ourselves, a fantastic album if you like old country songs, and still a pretty good one if you don't) to discover that his voice had changed: it was now much more ragged, and it had dropped an entire octave.

Prine's different vocals are noticeable on In Spite of Ourselves, but the difference appears more prominently in Fair and Square, which Prine released in 2005, his first release of new songs in ten years. The alteration in timbre make Prine sound much older, but Prine has used this grandfatherly quality to his advantage. He's slowed down the tempo in his songs, and he's slowed his cadence as well. These musical changes coupled with Prine's vocal changes give the songs a more reflective quality, allowing the songs to ruminate, resulting in Prine coming across--in the more contemplative songs--like a wise sage, like an old bluesman; but one who's kept his sense of humor intact.

Nowhere is this lackadaisical wit more evident than in "Safety Joe." Another one of his sad-sack narratives, Prine here warns the titular character who "wears a seat-belt around his heart" against the perils of moderation, and he does so with the utmost gregariousness, allowing everyone else in the studio to sing along on the refrain. Prine's never sounded more amiable, chuckling at his own puns, using self-depricating humor ("where's that mandolin?" "it's the chorus"), and this complete lack of pomposity is refreshing, life-imbuing. It's hard not to grin while listening, and impossible while singing along. It's the best Prine's sounded in years, lower octave or not.