American Songwriter • Folk & Country • The Mailman Poet
How a mail carrier from the Chicago suburbs became the warmest, funniest, and most humane songwriter America ever produced, beloved by everyone from Bob Dylan to Kris Kristofferson.
The Short Version
Who Is This?
John Prine was an American singer-songwriter, active from 1971 until his death in 2020, who wrote plainspoken folk and country songs of rare warmth, humor, and compassion. He was a songwriter's songwriter, admired by Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson, and beloved by everyone who found him.
Two things make him singular. First, the humanity: he wrote about lonely old people, broken veterans, and ordinary lives with a tenderness no one else quite matched. Second, the humor: he could be laugh-out-loud funny in one line and break your heart in the next, often in the same song.
He is folk and country at the root, with a plain voice and simple guitar, and a lineage that runs from Hank Williams and Woody Guthrie straight into modern americana. If you love songs that are funny, wise, and kind all at once, start here.
Ordinary rooms, ordinary lives, extraordinary songs.From a Chicago Mail Route to Legend
The Story
Prine wrote his first great songs while carrying mail in the suburbs of Chicago, singing them at open mics until the right people heard. From there he built one of the most loved careers in American music.
1946
Born in Maywood, Illinois
Raised in a working-class family near Chicago with Kentucky roots, he learned guitar from his brother and grew up on the country music his parents loved.
1971
John Prine
His debut arrived nearly whole: "Sam Stone," "Hello in There," "Angel from Montgomery," and "Paradise" were all on it. Few first albums have carried so many standards.
1978
Bruised Orange
Produced by his friend Steve Goodman, a warm, sturdy record that many fans hold as his finest, home to "That's the Way That the World Goes 'Round."
1991
The Missing Years
A career resurgence on his own Oh Boy Records that won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album and introduced him to a new generation.
1998
A changed voice
Surgery for throat cancer, and later lung cancer, lowered and roughened his voice, which only deepened the tenderness of his later singing.
2018 – 2020
The Tree of Forgiveness, and farewell
His last album was one of his best-loved and most successful. He died in April 2020 of complications from COVID-19, mourned across the whole of American music.
The ordinary American life his songs held so gently.Three Songs, One Education
Start Here
Three songs that show his whole range: the most-covered classic, the gut-punch, and the joyful goodbye. Listen in order.
01 · The One to Play First
"Angel from Montgomery" — 1971
His most beloved and most-covered song, sung from the point of view of a weary middle-aged woman longing for something more. Bonnie Raitt's version made it a standard; Prine's original is the source.
02 · The Gut-Punch
"Sam Stone" — 1971
The story of a wounded veteran and his addiction, carrying one of the most devastating lines ever written. Proof of how much weight a plain, gentle song can hold.
03 · The Joyful Goodbye
"When I Get to Heaven" — 2018
The closing song of his final album: a rowdy, funny, defiant fantasy of the afterlife, complete with a cocktail and a cigarette nine miles long. A perfect last word.
The Studio Catalog
The Albums 5 to start with
A catalog that runs from a near-perfect debut to a triumphant farewell. The gold-topped cards mark the best entry points; the moss-green marks the earliest era.
1971
John Prine
One of the greatest debut albums in American music. "Sam Stone," "Hello in There," "Angel from Montgomery," and "Paradise" are all here. The obvious place to start.
The Grammy-winning comeback that reestablished him for a new generation, with guests including Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty. "All the Best" lives here.
One curated YouTube Music playlist gathering the essentials across the catalog. (Ideally, though, spend time with the 1971 debut whole.) Hit the button below to play it.
Essentials
Across the Catalog · 12 tracks
Angel from MontgomeryJohn Prine
Sam StoneJohn Prine
Hello in ThereJohn Prine
ParadiseJohn Prine
Illegal SmileJohn Prine
Dear AbbySweet Revenge
Christmas in PrisonSweet Revenge
That's the Way That the World Goes 'RoundBruised Orange
John Prine was a solo artist whose gift was disguised as simplicity. His melodies are plain, his guitar unfussy, his voice conversational, and inside that ordinary frame he fit some of the most precise and humane writing in American song.
His great subject was other people, especially the overlooked ones: the lonely elderly of "Hello in There," the broken veteran of "Sam Stone," the tired dreamer of "Angel from Montgomery." He gave them dignity without sentimentality, and let the details do the work.
He was also, crucially, funny. Prine could turn a whole song on a joke and still leave you moved, and that mix of comedy and heartbreak is his signature. Few writers trusted humor to carry such serious feeling.
What makes him worth following is the affection he inspires. Songwriters revered him, audiences adored him, and his late records found him more beloved than ever. He is proof that plain, kind, funny writing can be as deep as anything in the language.
Simple on the surface, bottomless underneath.The Roots of the Sound
Influences
Prine came out of classic country and the folk revival, and mixed them with a comedian's timing. Here are four touchstones.
The Foundation
Hank Williams
The plainspoken country song of joy and heartbreak, learned from his parents' records, is the deepest root of Prine's own directness.
Dylan showed a generation that a folk song could hold anything. Prine took that freedom and pointed it at ordinary American lives. Dylan, in turn, became a fan.
Prine was as warm and funny in conversation as in his songs. A talk about where the writing came from, and a visit at home late in his life.
Interview · On Creativity
Where the Songs Come From
Prine talks, in his easy and unpretentious way, about creativity and how his songs actually got written. A lovely window into a plainspoken master at work.
Once the songs have you, there is plenty more to love around them.
In Spite of Ourselves — his 1999 duets album of country covers, with the hilarious and tender title track sung with Iris DeMent.
The Steve Goodman connection — Prine's close friend and fellow Chicago songwriter produced Bruised Orange and is a whole rewarding path of his own.
The covers — follow "Angel from Montgomery" through Bonnie Raitt, and his songs through Bonnie, Bette Midler, and many more.
Oh Boy Records — the independent label he built to release his own music, a model of an artist owning his work.
The Way to Listen
Start with the 1971 debut John Prine front to back, then jump to The Tree of Forgiveness to hear the same warm, funny, humane writer nearly fifty years on.
