Word In Your Ear

John Prine, Elvis Costello and a jukebox on fire


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Novelist and journalist Tom Piazza struck up a friendship with the irreplaceable John Prine in the last years of his life. This relationship, which began as a profile for a magazine, almost blossomed into an autobiography and involved a road trip in an inadvisable vehicle, has resulted in a new book “Living In The Present With John Prine”. Which involves:


•⁠ ⁠setting off in a 1977 Coupe De Ville and driving “until the engine burns up”.

•⁠ ⁠sitting up all night playing old country songs.

•⁠ ⁠remembering how he came to write some of the greatest songs of the last fifty years

•⁠ ⁠an evening’s swapping stories with Elvis Costello which ends with the alarming word “the jukebox is on fire!”

•⁠ ⁠what Prine’s last album “The Tree Of Forgiveness” has in common with Beethoven’s late quartets


Buy Living In The Present With John Prine: https://amzn.eu/d/9vWv9rg


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Word In Your EarBy Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold

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