John Prine
The Tree of Forgiveness

Album Release Date: April 13th, 2018

The Tree of Forgiveness is John Prine's first album of original material since 2005's Fair & Square—and it's worth the wait. The ten songs keenly display all of Prine's qualities that we've come to know and love; with a seamless ability to blend sadness and humour, to inspire memory and emotion, and to illustrate the lives of his characters through a line or two of cleverly simple lyrics. This album—Prine's 18th official full-length release—follows 2016's For Better, or Worse, a collection of duet cover versions of vintage country tunes featuring an all-star cast of female singers. As enjoyable as that album is, it's great to hear Prine now—at 71-years-old—still writing songs as good as the best of them.

John Prine instantly made his mark when he emerged onto the American folk music scene with his first album in 1971, at age 25. A compassionate humourist, his country-folk-rock songs radiate an entertaining sense of irony with witty turns-of-phrase, providing intimate glimpses into the lives of regular people in emotionally resonant ways. Prine's songs are often quietly political, profoundly poignant stories of human suffering outlined within a larger sociopolitical context. His are the politics of empathy, with an unparalleled skill in making audiences cry, or laugh—sometimes in the same song. He's kind of a songwriter's songwriter, having been cited by both Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash (and numerous others) as one of their favourites. Prine may not have achieved household-name status, but he's respected through and through as a legendary talent, an artist whose thoughtfulness and sensitivity is reflected through a seemingly plain yet weighty formula that balances evocative melodies with existentialist poetics. The Tree of Forgiveness delivers on all fronts, carrying us on a journey through life's joys and pains, loves and losses.

It starts out with "Knockin' on Your Screen Door", one of the album's more upbeat songs, with a chorus of "I'm knockin' on your screen door / In the summertime". With a classic twangy guitar country music sound, this opener seems at first to set a lighthearted tone. But in contrast to the cheerful vibe, the song is actually about poverty, alienation, and loneliness, exemplified with lyrics like: "I ain't got nobody, hangin' 'round my doorstep / I ain't got no loose change, just-a-hangin' 'round my jeans / If you see somebody, would you send 'em over my way? / I could use some help here, with a can of pork and beans."

Second track "I Have Met My Love Today" is a beautifully uncomplicated love song, with unembellished studio production highlighting lyrics like: "I've been holding on for you / Dreams I've had have all come true / I've seen your picture, and I knew you right away / I have met my love today". At under 2-minutes-long, it displays Prine's understated yet powerfully effective style, his masterful summoning of emotions by way of simple chord progressions and unpretentious lyrics.

The peculiarly titled "Egg & Daughter Nite, Lincoln Nebraska, 1967 (Crazy Bone)" is an amusing ditty that treads through small-town American imagery: "Take your hand-spanked, corn-fed gal / And your best friend's four-eyed pal / To a treat right down the street, that's dynamite". Prine elicits scenes from a bygone era, as the "1967" in the title implies, with lyrics like "Well you're prob'ly standin' there / With your slicked-back, Brylcreem hair / Your Lucky's and your daddy's fine-tooth comb.” An example of Prine's playful side, here he tells us that when accused of doing something wrong we should "Just blame it on that ol' crazy bone."

"Summer's End", my favourite song on the album, showcases Prine's gift for crafting sentimental ballads just as well as he can pen mischievously silly numbers. Prine played the song at NPR Music's Tiny Desk Concerts on March 12th, 2018, introducing it as "just a real pretty song, might drive you to tears." And he's right, as it indeed brings tears to my eyes with its conjuring of childhood memories of summer, from its opening line: "Summer's ends around the bend, just flyin' / The swimming suits are on the line, just dryin'." Here Prine shows he still has lines that register among the best he's ever written, like: "The moon and stars / hang out in bars / just talkin'." Prine's narrator observes and reflects on the passage of time to hypnotically nostalgic effect, using seasonal changes as a metaphor for love, loss, and the motion of life. But the official video for "Summer's End" relays a devastating underlying message, with references to the opioid crisis as clues that the song is also about grieving overdose deaths of family members. It's ultimately about relationships, and remembering times spent with loved ones now gone, with its refrain, "Come on home / No, you don’t have to be alone / Just come on home."

Prine's political identity in his music has mostly been through the narrative voice of a conscientious bystander reflecting on injustices around him with genuine solicitude, rather than as an angry, rabble-rousing protestor. And here it's no different, as Prine takes on a foreboding, warning tone in "Caravan of Fools"—one of the album's more political songs. A feeling of danger and darkness is induced with the opening lines: "The dark and distant drumming / The pounding of the hooves / The silence of everything that moves / Late at night you see them, decked out in shiny jewels / The coming of the caravan of fools". Though somewhat mysterious in meaning, with its slow tempo, haunting melody, and downcast mood, the song plays as a fitting commentary on the current U.S. government and fractious political climate. Prine also played this one at the Tiny Desk Concert, joking after the performance: "I'd like to put a disclaimer on that song that any likeness to the current administration is purely accidental." But it seems he's being sarcastic, and the mere fact he said this suggests the opposite is true.

With its quirkiness and tenderhearted charm, album closer "When I Get to Heaven" is signature Prine. It's another entry into his spoken-word song catalogue which includes such gems as "Lake Marie" and "Jesus, The Missing Years" wherein he speaks the verses in a casual manner—as if a friend telling you a story. Here Prine outlines what he intends to do when he gets to heaven, invoking the album title with the lyrics: "Then as God as my witness / I'm gettin' back into show business / I'm gonna open up a nightclub called 'The Tree of Forgiveness' / And forgive anybody who ever did me harm". In between the spoken verses Prine kicks it up with an old-timey piano saloon/ragtime hook, singing, "Then I'm gonna get a cocktail: vodka and gingerale / Yeah, I'm gonna smoke a cigarette that's nine miles long / I'm gonna kiss that pretty girl on the tilt-a-whirl / 'Cause this old man is goin' to town!"

With a guitar- and vocals-based, traditional country music sound, The Tree of Forgiveness is aurally not dissimilar from most Prine albums. The instrumentation includes a variety of guitars both acoustic and electric, bass, drums, and the occasional organ, piano, fiddle, and mandolin. Prine even plays theremin on one song. Eight of the ten tracks are cowritten by Prine and another artist, most notably Pat McLaughlin, Keith Sykes, Phil Spector, and Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys. Curiously but deservingly—in a nearly 50-year-long career—The Tree of Forgiveness is among Prine's most honoured albums; it debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200, his best-ever ranking on the chart. It also debuted at No. 2 on the Top Country Albums chart, No. 1 on Americana/Folk Albums, and won several awards. Prine's familiar, pared-down country-folk stylings permeate the album, with no-frills production that relies only on the seemingly carefully chosen melodies and the voice of Prine's narrator resonating with humility and warmheartedness, alternately celebrating, mourning, or poking fun at life's foibles, tragedies, and glories.

In many respects The Tree of Forgiveness embodies the qualities that led to and sustained Prine's success. What's the same is his uncanny ability to invoke fleshed-out envisionings of detailed scenes from the lives of the characters he sings about. What's different is that John Prine is now an old man, and sounds like it. Even on his last album of original material, Fair & Square, Prine sounded middle-aged—which he still was then, being 58-years-old at the time of that album's recording. But 13 years later and Prine sounds certifiably old, having since undergone surgery to remove a cancerous portion of his left lung. This was Prine's second health crisis having also beat throat cancer in the late '90s, after which his voice was more gravelly and shakey. And here his voice sounds even more slurred. But Prine's always had wisdom beyond his years anyway, so while his 71 years comes through in his voice—and on the closeup picture of his face on the album cover—it all just feels like his wise, plainspoken brand of sympathetic insight has just finally caught up to his age.

The Tree of Forgiveness manifests a worldview that suggests not taking things too seriously, evoking a feeling of surrending to life's overwhelming complexities. Not surrendering in the sense of giving up, but of keeping on. And keeping on through challenging times, John Prine teaches us, requires humour, love, and above all, forgiveness.
• Nik Dobrinsky / Boy Drinks Ink
April 30th, 2018 (Updated April 13th, 2020)