Riding with John Prine

The featured artist on FUV this week is John Prine, which means his work gets a lot of play. Prine's reedy voice, finely crafted songs, and country-folkish melodies are a good combination. And while he can be serious (take the chorus of Sam Stone,which begins "There's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes"), he's got a great playful quality. On my way in to work this morning, they played That's The Way That The World Goes 'Round:

I was sitting in the bathtub counting my toes,
when the radiator broke, water all froze.
I got stuck in the ice without my clothes,
naked as the eyes of a clown.

I was crying ice cubes hoping I'd croak,
when the sun come through the window, the ice all broke.
I stood up and laughed thought it was a joke.
That's the way that the world goes 'round.

It's really not a funny song, but Prine squeezes humor out of the human condition, and as I sang along to the chorus in what's left of my second tenor voice (second violins, second tenor - are we seeing a pattern here?), I couldn't help but smile.