3 Folk Songs From the 1970s That Turn One Simple Phrase Into Pure Poetry

These three folk songs from the 1970s take simple lines and turn them into pure art. They might be simple on paper, but their scope is as far-reaching as any lyrics have ever been.

[RELATED: 3 of the Most Tender Folk Songs of the 1970s That Will Leave Anyone Heartbroken]

“Hello In There” — John Prine

“Hello in there, hello.”

John Prine was the master of taking a simple phrase and making it resound through generations. In “Hello In There”, he used that skill to remind all of us that time isn’t always kind to our elders and that we all might do better to check in every once in a while.

The line above is the final lyric of the chorus. According to Prine, it’s the phrase that older people are waiting to hear from those around them, begging for companionship. “Old people just grow lonesome / Waiting for someone to say / ‘Hello in there, hello,’” he sings. There are many ways a songwriter could get this point across, but none are as simple and salient as the route Prine took in this folk song.

“Big Yellow Taxi” — Joni Mitchell

“They paved paradise and put up a parking lot”.

Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” is one of the most beloved and universal sentiments of environmental conservation from a 1970s folk song. Even today, this track holds up. Actually, with every passing year, this song hits harder and harder. “Don’t it always seem to go / That you don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone,” is like a gut punch in today’s society.

The line above is the chorus’s kicker. It’s a simple idea and captures just one aspect of environmental conservation, but that’s all that’s really needed. That line says a thousand words in just a few. It really encapsulates what we lose in the name of progress.

“Take Me Home, Country Roads” — John Denver

“Take me home, country roads.”

At first glance, the title of this folk song seems to alienate a large part of the world. Not everyone finds a home at the end of a country road. But that simple and iconic chorus has evolved into something universally comforting. Whether home is a dirt path or a bustling city street, you know what Denver means in this track.

“I hear her voice in the mornin’ hour, she calls me / The radio reminds me of my home far away,” he sings later in the song. Denver didn’t need to write a complex song that tries to sum up every kind of homesickness. The emotions he imbued in this song are feelings every listener knows, no matter their story.

(Ron Pownall/Getty Images)