Has there ever been a debut album with as many classic songs on it as the self-titled 1971 bow by singer-songwriter John Prine? Just look at the lineup: “Sam Stone,” “Hello in There,” “Angel from Montgomery,” and, the song we’re highlighting here, “Paradise.” It’s stunning when you think about it, although Prine’s talent level always soared well beyond the modesty of his persona.
Videos by American Songwriter
What inspired Prine to write “Paradise?” How indeed did he come out of the gate holding so many classics like a gambler might hold aces? And what keeps people coming back to this song? Let’s go back to the beginning when John Prine left his mail route behind to stun everyone with his songwriting skills.
The Singing Mailman Emerges
Prine’s famous nickname came from the fact that he was working a mail route in Illinois prior to his songwriting success. And that partially explains why the John Prine album came so jam-packed with such inspired material. As he walked the long routes, those melodies and words were bubbling up in his head.
But there are a lot of postal carriers out there, and only one that we know of turned out to be one of the premier singer-songwriters of his generation. Prine possessed a novelist’s knack for the telling detail. He also accessed his memories with stunning acumen, drawing on those that not only impacted him, but also proved relatable to those listening to his songs.
“Paradise” delivers touching evidence of this skill. Although he lived primarily in Illinois as a boy, he would spend summers in the town of Paradise, Kentucky, as his parents had been born there and would use those months to visit relatives. In an interview with Performing Songwriter, Prine called it “a real Disney-looking town,” replete with general stores and adjacent to the Green River, an ideal fishing spot.
While Prine was in the army in Germany, his father sent him a newspaper clipping telling him of the fate of this idyllic location from his childhood, how a coal company was essentially shutting it down for their mining operations.
“Then the bulldozers came in and wiped it all off the map,” Prine remembered. “When I recorded the song, I brought a tape of the record home to my dad; I had to borrow a reel-to-reel machine to play it for him. When the song came on, he went into the next room and sat in the dark while it was on. I asked him why, and he said he wanted to pretend it was on the jukebox.”
What is “Paradise” About?
That recording that so touched Prine’s father took on a bluegrass feel that set it apart from the rest of the John Prine album. Prine’s brother Dave plays the fiddle on the track, while fellow singer-songwriter Steve Goodman added harmonies. It’s the perfect touch for a song about tradition, even if it eventually reveals how rudely that tradition can sometimes be treated by the ruthless modernity.
Every verse in “Paradise” is a masterpiece in itself. Prine begins each with the details and then expounds on them via his unique way with a phrase. Who else would come up with And there’s a backwards old town that’s often remembered/So many times that my memories are worn?
The third verse depicts the strip mining that destroyed the town, and Prine stoically reports it all: Well they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken/Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man. You don’t need to have lived in Paradise to feel the impact of those lines. You just need to have lost something special from your youth due to a new way of doing things.
In the final verse, Prine asks that his ashes float down the Green River. I’ll be halfway to heaven with Paradise waitin’/Just five miles away from wherever I am. Unfortunately, as the chorus mournfully explains in an imagined conversation between Prine and his father, such a reunion isn’t available to the living: Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking/Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away.
John Prine Honored
Earlier this month, John Prine Memorial Park was dedicated in the artist’s honor in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, which is where Paradise was located. And yes, part of his ashes were indeed sprinkled in the Green River after his death in 2020. Prine made good use of the heavenly connotations of the name “Paradise” in his memorable song, suggesting that such unspoiled places might only be possible in the afterlife where humankind can no longer do damage to them.
(Photo by Tony Russell/Redferns/Getty Images)
