JOHN PRINE: WORDS FOR ASMR CALM

I heard of John Prine in 1972. This is his first album cover.

He’s a guy sitting on a hay bale like it was just another day.

Then he became the Mark Twain of songwriters.

His appeal was the simplicity of his work. He made it seem like anyone could do what he did.

I was a high school junior working a summer job in the local school district with older guys from California.

One was a guitar player who loved John Prine from the start. He was a mentor before mentors were lifted up.

That he was someone I thought of as a mentor is a character tell. He also married my favorite cheerleader in a fairytale setting.

When he played John Prine the first time, I heard it as a green light to embrace Americana with a twist. Didn’t sound like Nashville and Roy Acuff; didn’t sound like Charley Pride or Tom T. Hall; didn’t sound like Merle Haggard or Conway Twitty.

He opened a door with Angel From Montgomery’s first line, “I am an old woman, named after my mother.”

It helped me understand Judy Collins’ Someday Soon, a song of heartache and longing.

John Prine And ASMR

ASMR, Autonomous sensory meridian response, described on sleep.org:

. . . is still a relatively new creation. It describes a feeling of euphoric tingling and relaxation that can come over someone when he or she watches certain videos or hears certain sounds. What kind of visual or audio clips can create such a lovely feeling? It might surprise you, but the videos are of people doing incredibly simple, quiet, calming tasks, such as folding towels, brushing their hair, or flipping magazine pages.

Or speaking the lyrics of a John Prine song.

After I learned how to hook a usb mic to Garageband, I slow talked Paradise, Angel, and Someday.

I’ve had the mic a few years, quite a few, and left it in the case. After I recorded a section of three songs, what’s next? I used a jetpack audio widget.

Click Talking The Talk on the right sidebar for a listen, and tell me how it sounds.

If you drop off to sleep, the ASMR has kicked in.