Sam Stone notes
- "I wrote part of `Sam Stone' on the mail route. There's no one
person who was the basis for Sam Stone, more like three or four
people, like a couple of my buddies who came back from Vietnam and
some of the guys I served with in the Army. At the time, all the other
Vietnam songs were basic protest songs, made up to slap each other on
the back like 'Yeah, this the right cause.' I don't remember
any other songs that talked about the soldiers at all. I came up with
the chorus first and decided I really liked the part about the 'hole in Daddy's
arm' I had this picture in my mind of a
little girl, like Little Orphan Annie, shaking her head back and forth
while a rainbow of money goes into her dad's arm. I think I invented
the character of Sam Stone as a story line just to get around that
chorus. I am proud of 'Sam Stone', ( first performed in his Chicago
debut) It actually
kind of means a little more to me now because it gets labeled an
anti-war song, and all the problems the vets have had through the
years have come out recently. I was writing about coming back home at
the same time some of my buddies were coming home from 'Nam and Korea
(Prine was drafted in 1966 and spent two years
in Germany as a mechanic). Things were never quite the same for
us after that, I was just trying to explain it to
myself. I never get tired of that song." ~John Prine
- - From UNCUT
magazine Jan 2005: Free CD - - -
Track *#8. John Prine - Sam Stone - Taken from the Ulftone album SOUVENIRS.
Originally released on Prine's eponymous 1972 debut album, Sam Stone is often
described as 'the best Dylan song Dylan never wrote'. Certainly the man himself
was impressed enough to turn up unannounced at the Bottom Line in Greenwich
Village one night shortly after its release and back Prine on harmonica on the
song. The endorsement was enough to catapult Prine up there alongside Loudon
Wainwright among the more convincing pretenders to Bob's crown. His songs have
since been covered by every one from Bonnie Raitt to Dylan himself, who in the
early '90s sang Prine's “People Putting People Down” in concert.
- -From John Prine Live (transcribed by John Lyon) - About a
month and a half ago, my buddy Al Bunetta and me was in Washington DC, and, Al
had his video camera with him and we decided to play tourist 'cause we had a day
off after the show. So we went to see a couple of things like the Lincoln
Memorial, and a hot dog stand, and Kennedy's grave, and we went over to the Viet
Nam veteran's memorial. I'd never been there before - I'd seen pictures of it.
So I looked up, both Al and me, looked up guys in the telephone book there,
that's what it looks like. They got these little phone books around, and you
look up the person's name you want to see. It tells you which part of the wall
to go to. So we looked up our friends in there, and went and found their names
on the wall. And when you stand there lookin' at their names, it's black marble,
and you can see your reflection in the wall. So uh, if you ever get the chance
go there, I suggest you go to the place. It's a pretty fitting
memorial." ~John Prine
- Interesting tidbit about Johnny Cash and Sam Stone: When Johnny Cash sings this song in his Austin City Limits performance DVD, he replaces "Jesus Christ died for nothin' I suppose" with "Daddy must have hurt a lot back then, I suppose" in the first chorus, and then in all others he replaces it with "Daddy must have suffered a lot back then, I suppose." (There is absolutely no way Johnny Cash could ever say that Jesus died for
nothing, even to make a point in a song. - thanks to Scott Lavelle for this info)
- Sam Stone was banned in Singapore for a long time. The authorities were concerned it would encourage drug taking.
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