I can't hear you. Again, are you ready for some John Prine? …
That's better. You want some more, here's some more (obscure Zappa reference).
Sweet Revenge is the title track from Prine's third album, the one with the cover portrait of him with his cowboy boots on the upholstery in a convertible he bought with the money from his first two.
The songs inside are a rocking account of newfound success that immediately detours toward hilarity. It conveys cockeyed optimism with a smear of darkness dirtying the frame. (OK I copied that from somebody else. I can't create all the golden nouns and verbs.)
"I got kicked off Noah's ark," Prine sings like some shaggy Don Quixote. "There were two of everything but one of me." The wisecracks keep coming as the band plucks behind him and Cissy Houston adds some gospel harmonies. The narrator cozies up to an English teacher on a plane who doesn't like his jokes about red balloons, hears his own songs on the radio, and keeps things weird.
"The white meat is on the run and the dark meat is far too done," Prine croaks, whatever that means. It doesn't matter. What it means is that life makes no obvious sense, but people can make stories from the random-seeming joy and pain it offers, and share them with each other, and do a lot more than muddle through.
This album shows the maturity of Prine as he records with a full orchestra and vocal backings. Personally I sort of prefer the simpler "Prine," just him and some basic backing, maybe a sharp guitar player like Johnny Burns adding tasty riffs, a bass, possibly some drums. I like his duets, especially with his good friend Steve Goodman, and certainly I appreciate how Bonnie Raitt digs up extra melody in her rendition of John's song. But what I like best is John in a simple combo.
My favorite song from the album is Dear Abby. While almost all of the album was recorded in the studio, the cut of Dear Abby came from a live performance. It was attempted in the studio but, as Prine told David Fricke in 1993, "The studio version of that was cut with a band, and it was real stiff and humorless. We cut it once, live, and that was it. That was the power of the song, in the way people would turn their heads the minute I'd get to the first verse, the first chords. That was the reason we used the live version."
It comes from an experience when John was touring in Europe. Each morning he’d go down to the hotel breakfast where he would find a little locally printed newspaper in English. The staff would copy some items from the Times or the Post or the News in English for their foreign guests. As John perused the little mimeographed paper he found an old friend. Someone to make him think of home in that foreign language speaking country. A close old friend, Dear Abby. So he wrote this song about it:
Dear Abby, Dear Abby
My feet are too long
My hair's falling out and my rights are all wrong
My friends they all tell me that I've no friends at all
Won't you write me a letter, won't you give me a call
Signed Bewildered
Bewildered, Bewildered
You have no complaint
You are what your are and you ain't what you ain't
So listen up buster, and listen up good
Stop wishing for bad luck and knocking on wood
Dear Abby, Dear Abby
My fountain pen leaks
My wife hollers at me and my kids are all freaks
Every side I get up on is the wrong side of bed
If it weren't so expensive I'd wish I were dead
Signed Unhappy
Unhappy, Unhappy
You have no complaint
You are what your are and you ain't what you ain't
So listen up buster, and listen up good
Stop wishing for bad luck and knocking on wood
Dear Abby, Dear Abby
You won't believe this
But my stomach makes noises whenever I kiss
My girlfriend tells me it's all in my head
But my stomach tells me to write you instead
Signed Noise-Maker
Noise-Maker, Noise-Maker
You have no complaint
You are what your are and you ain't what you ain't
So listen up buster, and listen up good
Stop wishing for bad luck and knocking on wood
Dear Abby, Dear Abby
Well I never thought
That me and my girlfriend would ever get caught
We were sitting in the back seat just shooting the breeze
With her hair up in curlers and her pants to her knees
Signed Just Married
Just Married Just Married
You have no complaint
You are what your are and you ain't what you ain't
So listen up buster, and listen up good
Stop wishing for bad luck and knocking on wood
Signed Dear Abby
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