John Prine take me home

I can feel the craziness already. I can feel it in my bones.

The 2008 Democratic presidential candidates are all setting up in the gates, and for all intents and purposes the bell has sounded and the most ludicrous joke of a horse race in our country has commenced. And they’re off.

And in my case, music most definitely soothes the savage beast. In this case, I reached for John Prine and his namesake album, CD, whatever from 1971. Prine is a poet and a troubadour who writes songs so simple they’re complex, then sings them in a twang that’s reminiscent of my homeland. He sings about the people that all of these politicians are going to woo, but I’ll guarantee don’t know the first thing about. He sings about the kind of people I grew up with, in a voice that sounds like home to me, and that’s why I know these politicians don’t understand the heartland because when I listen to them they sound insulting and a little stupid, to tell the truth.

Last time I checked my bankroll, it was getting thin//Sometimes it seems like the bottom/Is the only place I been. That’s taken from Illegal Smile, Prine’s tribute to the lower classes who need to escape from time to time.

And what man can’t identify with: Well I sat there at that table/And I acted real naïve/For I knew that topless lady/Had something up her sleeve. The singer eventually blows up his TV and moves to the country with his exotic girlfriend.

In Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore Prine sings: And Jesus don’t like killing no matter what the reason for. That’s perty plain, now ain’t it?

Prine’s beautiful, haunting Angel From Montgomery, could have been my house and my father when he sings: How the hell can a person/Go to work in the morning/And come home in the evening/With nothing to say?

When things start to get crazy the best thing to do is go back to your roots.