The Day the Music Died
I had never cried at the death of a celebrity before, but he was one of my Mom's favorites, and losing him so soon after her felt somehow significant. I grew up with his music on constant rotation. I can see myself standing in the living room of our farmhouse. The radio sat on a table made out of an old barn door that still had a working knob in the middle of it. Dear Abbys playing and I try to sing along, but I'm 5 and I have no idea what he's saying. My moms laughing from the kitchen at my rendition. Later that same year she took me to see him and Arlo Guthrie. It was my first concert. I remember being so excited to see the guy who wrote Dear Abby, thinking maybe I would find out who this Abby was and why she was so dear to him. Either way, I would get to see the real life guy who’s songs I danced to in my living room with my mama. He was a storyteller and as a child I was drawn to that.
On the way to the show we were in a small car accident. It was before car seats were required for kids over two and I had hit my head on the inside of the back door. When my mom asked if I was ok, I told her I thought I had brain damage. She laughed at this like it was the funniest thing she had heard in her entire life. I was confused, because I really thought I had brain damage but I laughed it off and felt special that she thought I was so entertaining. I swooned in the warmth of her admiration for my reaction. It was a feeling I felt a lot as a child. The satisfaction of knowing she not only loved me, but liked me.
The concert was late for a kid my age and I was the only one there. We had second row seats and I remember how he glowed up on that stage. Sitting on a stool, just him and his guitar, warm light surrounding him as he played acoustically. It was like the most beautiful lullaby and I feel asleep with my head on my moms lap as he called us out for how cool he thought it was that she had brought me, and then sang a song to us about mothers and daughters.
I know someone was with us this night, maybe more than one person. But all I can remember is my mom and me, so clearly as if it was yesterday. Her looking at me with admiration, her hand on my head as I lay on her lap, taking in her sent as my breaths became heavy with sleep while John Prine sang a song just for us. She gave me so many special memories like this. Things you don’t remember until something kicks it up, like the loss of an underground legend. I’m hoping that whatever happens after this life is over at the very least like energies are attracted to each other, and if that’s the case I know my mom is probably trying to force John into writing an arrangement for her song about the sad life of broccoli.
Im just a little vegetable
as you can plainly see
My name, however, makes things happen
That really bother me!
Like clothes pinned noses, rolling eyeballs a coughing gagging spree
From on the plate while looking up
That only I can see
Broccoli
If a mom could see the faces of her kids that stare at me
She’d know that they are not as nice as she thinks they can be
They chop me, spit at me, smash me, knife me- put me thru the ricer
They pick me up and do it again
Then put me through the dicer
For this Id throw them in there too
Brocc-a-lou
Now whats a beautiful floral veggie thing supposed to do
When every day someone goes blah and slobbers over you
So know if not placed in a vase or pinned to your lapel
Your mouth should shut when you go blah
Or you can go to
Broccolell
I spent a few days after his death reminiscing through his catalogue of songs. Crying through the ones that made me think of warm memories in the living room with my Mama. Laughing at the folky humor I didn't pick up on as a child, or the lyrics that were nothing near what I remembered. Music has always been a big part of my life. My mom lived for it, my dad lived by it, and for me its always been the thing that brings me back to places I had long forgotten. Stirring up memories that had been resting in the back of my mind. My life has a sound track and John Prine was on the early years, the side A of that ancient technology we knew as tapes. With his death he is now woven through like threads of sound, popping up in places triggered by visions of the past. I hope my Mom and John are dancing in the clouds, in spite of themselves I know they'll end up sitting on a rainbow.
Rest in Peace.
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