“I Think That Guy Left”: Why John Prine Couldn’t Recognize Himself After His 1971 Debut Album

Few artists manage to release a debut album as poignant, enduring, and quintessentially themselves quite like John Prine did in 1971 with his self-titled first record. But 45 years after that first album propelled Prine to the highest ranks of songwriting stardom (with a little help from Kris Kristofferson), the “Paradise” singer struggled to recognize his 25-year-old self.

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His explanation for why that was offered fascinating insights into the never-ending battle between artists and industry—a conflict that not even country music’s Everyman could get out of.

John Prine Said He Didn’t Know Who Wrote His Debut Album

If some debut albums are polite introductions with a handshake and a smile, John Prine’s debut album was him coming out swinging with an emotional one-two punch for which no one could fully prepare. Songs like “Sam Stone,” “Hello in There,” “Paradise,” and “Angel From Montgomery” seemed to tap into the masses’ most private feelings about love, nostalgia, home, aging, war, drugs, and hope. The songs on this album were the same ones that bowled Kris Kristofferson over just before the “Me and Bobby McGee” singer helped Prine land his first record deal.

But speaking to No Depression in 2016, Prine said, “I wish I knew the guy who was writing those songs. I think that guy left; I haven’t seen him since he signed with a record company, when it all became professional. It takes a certain amount of innocence out of [the songwriting] when that happens because you know you’re writing songs to be recorded. Basically, I’m the same guy. But the guy who wrote those first songs, he didn’t know if anyone was going to listen or hear them. He was just writing.”

As for the immense weight behind those words, Prine said he was simply stuffing multiple ideas into one song because he “didn’t know any better.” He compared it to amateur guitarists who listened to musicians like Chet Atkins and Les Paul, both of whom used overdubs to create more complex guitar parts. These younger guitarists would assume Atkins and Paul were playing the part entirely themselves and learn to do it, too. “I threw everything in. I went through the weight of the world and included it all when I was writing.”

The Chicago Singer-Songwriter Credits This Fellow Northerner

John Prine released his debut album in 1971, six years after Bob Dylan released his magnum opus, Highway 61 Revisited, which included the generation-defining anthem, “Like a Rolling Stone.” The Chicago singer-songwriter credited the Minnesotan behind hits like “Blowing in the Wind” and “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” for inspiring him to write about the world around him. “If it wasn’t for Bob Dylan, on the strength of wanting to play Hank Williams songs for my father, I doubt I’d have wanted to write,” Prine said in his 2016 interview with No Depression.

“Dylan opened the door,” Prine continued. “No. Dylan built the door, opened it, and left the door open for a whole lot of us to walk through. He cut a path through that door and forward, and long after he’s gone, people will still be following his path. I thought he phrased [things] real cool and a lot of thought went into how he did it. The way he sang really pulled you into the words and what he was saying. That raised up what he was writing, too.”

This writer would argue that Dylan might have opened the door. But Prine was the one who taught the everyman how to walk through it. Using the same observational songwriting techniques as Dylan without some of the more obtrusive poetry and metaphors, Prine managed to connect to people of all walks of life, from cerebral to casual to blue-collar listeners. John Prine’s debut album, John Prine, an album still revered over five decades later, is evidence enough.

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