it is hard to believe, but this is john prine’s first collection of new original songs in thirteen years. he has certainly been active with other projects (his collection of duets, ‘for better or worse’, for example), but selfishly i have been yearning for new material from the man whom i consider to be on my very short list of the best singer songwriters of my generation. dylan (another person on that list) once famously remarked that prine’s ‘stuff is pure proustian existentialism, midwestern minds trips to the nth degree’. at only ten songs and a little over thirty minutes long, i wish there was more. but what is currently being offered is definitely worth the wait. he is 71 now and has had two bouts of cancer in the last twenty years (squamous cell carcinoma in his neck in 1998, and lung cancer in 2013). as such, his voice is not like it was in the past. however, like dylan, the magic of his songs are in the lyrical constructions, and these ten songs will sound vaguely familiar to anyone who has been a fan of his work over the last fifty years. any vocal misses are easily smoothed out by the wonderful harmonies provided by brandi carlisle, amanda shires, and jason isbell, to name a few.

maybe his advancing age or health issues have informed his writing here, as there is plenty of material about death and dying and loneliness. but if you really think about it, he has always infused these themes into his best work since the beginning (think ‘sam stone’, ‘hello out there’, to name a couple). john is in many ways a people’s poet, utilizing country folk idioms as his palate for his simple but thought provoking lyrics, often embellished with a wry sense of humor. the last cut, ‘when i get to heaven’, is a partially spoken word song that allows him to imagine the list of things he will do when he gets inside of the pearly gates. of course he wants to see his mom and dad and brother and aunts, but then he gets to the chorus where he admits ‘i’m gonna have a cocktail, vodka and ginger ale, yeah i’m gonna smoke a cigarette that’s nine miles long’. even though i know he really wants that smoke (he had to quit due to his cancer), here’s hoping we have a few more albums out of him before he gets to have it. he is heading out on tour (alas, nowhere close to me), so add this album to your collection and go out and see the legend.