John Prine Jesus the Missing Years

In 1991 Prine released the Grammy Award-winning album “The Missing Years,” his first collaboration with producer and bassist Howie Epstein. The title song records Prine's humorous take on what Jesus did in the unrecorded years between his childhood and his ministry. The song later reappeared on the live album, “Live on Tour,” in 1997.

If you listen carefully you will notice many of John’s compositions include his view of religion. “God Only Knows,” “When I Get Heaven,” “Whistle & Fish,” even “Paradise.” There’s even an article called “John Prine's Images of God and Male Melancholia: Terror, Forgiveness, and the Persistence of Desire” in the “Journal of Religion and Health.” I guess I’m not the only one that has noticed.

Some poets, or in this case, a singer-songwriter, can get into trouble. No wonder Plato wanted to exile them from his Republic. These poets are like a force of nature tending towards disorder, challenging what we see, asking questions no one wants asked. It’s Warren Zevon declaring “I was born to rock the boat” (from “Mutineer”) and Bob Dylan declaring, “the sun’s not yellow, it’s chicken.”

Along comes John Prine asking questions and poking fun at Jesus or at least the common notions of Jesus and you know that’s trouble. It’s why our parents got so upset about the music we listened to.

In concert, Prine introduces this song with some humorous patter about his latter day discovery that there were these missing years in Jesus’ life. Anyone who pays attention knows this, but most glide right past the point. The Bible describes Jesus’ childhood that takes him to age 12, then he steps off stage and we hear nothing from him again until he’s thirty.

No one asks too many questions about what Jesus was doing all those years. If pressed, most Christians might answer that Jesus hung out in Nazareth with his family, perhaps working as a carpenter with his Dad. (Johnny Cash intones a song called “Jesus was a Carpenter.” “Jesus was a carpenter/And he worked with a saw and a hammer/And his hands could form a table strong enough to stand forever.”)

So John Prine lets the idea of the missing years roll around in his head for a while until he does what a songwriter does: he turns those musings into a song. If there are no facts, he imagines some truth, has some fun, lets loose a little whimsy as he imagines a life for the young Jesus. You might want to ground yourself before reading the lyrics as the lightning bolts might fly if you say them too loud. Or you just might consider that our Lord has a good sense of humor. Anyway, I assume John’s up there now, and I’ll bet they’re having a good laugh about …

(spoken) Jesus… the missing years

It was raining. It was cold
West Bethlehem was no place for a twelve year old
So he packed his bags and he headed out
To find out what the world's about

He went to France. He went to Spain
He found love. He found pain.
He found stores so he started to shop
But he had no money so he got in trouble with a cop

Kids in trouble with the cops
From Israel didn't have no home
So he cut his hair and moved to Rome
It was there he met his Irish bride
And they rented a flat on the lower east side of Rome…Italy that is
Music publishers, book binders, Bible belters, Money Changers,
Spoon Benders, and lots of pretty Italian chicks.

Chorus:

Charley bought some popcorn
Billy bought a car
Someone almost bought the farm
But they didn't go that far
Things shut down at midnight
At least around here they do
Cause we all reside down the block
Inside at 23 Skidoo.

Wine was flowing so were beers
So Jesus found his missing years
He went to a dance and said "This don't move me"
He hiked up his pants and he went to a movie

On his thirteenth birthday he saw "Rebel without a Cause"
He went straight on home and invented Santa Claus
Who gave him a gift and he responded in kind
He gave the gift of love and went out of his mind

You see him and the wife wasn't getting along
So he took out his guitar and he wrote a song
Called "The Dove of Love Fell Off the Perch"
But he couldn't get divorced in the Catholic Church

At least not back then anyhow
Jesus was a good guy he didn't need this shit
So he took a pill with a bag of peanuts and
A Coca-Cola and he swallowed it.

He discovered the Beatles
And he recorded with the Stones
Once He even opened up a three-way package
In Southern California for old George Jones

Repeat Chorus:

Charley bought some popcorn
Billy bought a car
Someone almost bought the farm
But they didn't go that far
Things shut down at midnight
At least around here they do
Cause we all reside down the block
Inside at 23 Skidoo.

The years went by like sweet little days
With babies crying pork chops and beaujolais
When he woke up he was seventeen
The world was angry, the world was mean
Well, the man down the street and the kid on the stoop
All agreed that life stank, all the world smelled like poop
Baby poop that is, the worst kind.

So he grew his hair long and thew away his comb
Headed back to Jerusalem to find mom, dad and home
But when he got there the cupboard was bare
Except for an old black man with a fishing rod
He said "Whatcha gonna be when you grow up?"
Jesus said, "God"
Oh my God, what have I gotten myself into?
I'm a human corkscrew, all my wine is blood
They're gonna kill me mama, they don't like me bud.

So Jesus went to Heaven
And he went there awful quick
All them people killed him
And he wasn't even sick

So come and gather around me
My contemporary peers
And I'll tell you all the story of Jesus
The missing years.

Repeat Chorus:

Charley bought some popcorn
Billy bought a car
Someone almost bought the farm
But they didn't go that far
Things shut down at midnight
At least around here they do
Cause we all reside down the block
Inside at 23 Skidoo.