The Secret Message In John Prine’s Lyrics
Are There Easter Eggs in ‘Angel From Montgomery’?
I know I promised this piece would reveal some of the secret Easter Eggs hidden in John Prine’s “Angel From Montgomery”, and it will. But for that, you’ll have to read to the end! As we always do around here, we’re gonna start by exploring what makes this song so great. And friends, it IS great.
And, of course, if you’re more of an A/V person, you can watch this on YouTube:
Once in a while, a writer appears fully formed. I’m not talking about a prodigy, but rather an adult who emerges in the public with their potential fully realized and speaks from both inference and experience. You’ve probably heard this said about Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen or Bill Withers. And you may have heard it said about John Prine too. John Prine’s first album was a revelation. I know people overuse that term, but in this case, it’s warranted.
John Prine was a young man when he released “Angel From Montgomery” in 1971, but he didn’t sound like it…and he sure didn’t write like it. He possessed an eloquence, a raw honesty, and more than anything, an almost palpable, existential ability to convey the human condition. Part of this is probably owed to raw talent, but part of it is also probably due to something that doesn’t really exist in Americana anymore. John Prine was a very observant regular dude from a regular background. When John Prine wrote Angel From Montgomery, he was drawing from both experience and a very observant and empathetic eye. He was a working class, midwestern Army vet. And yes, as advertised, he really was “the singing mailman”.
John Prine wrote the bulk of his early material on his mail route while working for the USPS and he said he viewed his mail route as his library…a place to do research and draw inspiration. And I think anybody who’s ever worked labor, or service or operated machinery full time can relate to that. Eight-to-twelve hours a day is a lo of time for your brain to get creative. When you’re outdoors, doing repetitive work and not confined to the same cubicle all day, you have a lot of time, and a lot of space to observe. I’ve always supposed that a postal worker meets a lot of interesting (and just as importantly: average and uninteresting) people, and has a unique insight into people’s private lives. And I’d guess Prine used every ounce of that insight in his early work.
So these regular folks, slice-of-life songs are inspired by real regular folks and real slices of real lives. Now about this specific song:
Although it opens with the line; “I am an old woman”, “Angel From Montgomery” was actually written about a middle aged woman. In discussing the song’s origins, John Prine stated that he had already sort of written the book on old people with “Hello In There”. And he didn’t want to be repetitive. But as he knew, and as you may know, there’s a whole other cohort of old people in the world: middle aged people who feel elderly.
According to Prine, the lyrics began with a single image. He pictured a middle aged woman, living in a an entirely common rut, standing at a sink full of dishes and just deciding to walk away from it all. Her life hadn’t panned out as she might have dreamed in her youth, and there just didn’t seem to be much to hold onto. Middle age is a very specific reckoning for most of us. More often than not, it is defined by a very pronounced exhaustion and acute disappointment that we have never felt before and never saw coming. It’s pretty phenomenal that a twenty-something John Prine could so accurately evoke it. To believe in this living is just a hard way to go. Amen, young fella.
Nobody in modern popular music wrote details like Prine, and his philosophy regarding details and minutiae in lyrics was one shared by history’s most evocative fiction writers. Prine said you save the details for verifiable specifics rather than emotions and vaguaries. Describe the room. How far is the door from the sink? What color is the chair? How did Sam Stone buy his house? Speak in the character’s voice, and of course, show don’t tell. Build your audience’s trust with narrative and then in turn trust them to infer your characters’ emotions and motivation rather than trying to feed them a feeling.
As you may have noticed by now, when people talk about John Prine, they talk about the lyrics, and the lyrics are phenomenal. But on this channel, we talk about music. So about that music…
“Angel From Mongomery” is a pretty simple composition, but it’s not TOO simple. It has a G root, but it’s not necessarily the key o G Major as we’re used to it. It’s very folksy in the verse progression: one, four, five in G. But the chorus incorporates an F Major that keeps the ears on their toes. I guess someone with more education than me would say it’s Myxlodian or breaks key by incorporating a flattened 7th in the chorus, but I like to say that the F major gives it a little spice. It’s mildly spicy composition. And I’ll be honest, when I play this number, I like to throw a gloomy little F6 in there. Great folk music is like a great recipe…you can make it your own as long as you don’t bust the fundamentals. If you bust the fundamentals, you could still get something very tasty, but you’d be playing with genre. Haute folk fusion, buddy. Anyway.
The other thing I think is really interesting about the composition is the rhythm. Most of the original recording is a straight 4/4, but there are brief shifts at the end of each stanza (I think it’s 36 bars if you’re playing it full time) where the rhythm breaks down and comes, essentially to a rest. Pretty much everyone says that this is a conscious shift to 3/4 time, but I think they’re overcomplicating things. I think it shifts to free time. Angel From Montgomery was recorded with the legendary Memphis Boys at American Sound Studio, and the sessions were, for all intents and purposes, John Prine’s first time in front of a band. When you put a solo singer/songwriter in front of a great session band, there is always a danger of over-arranging, making the raw bits more standard or making the compositions too dynamic and drowning the honesty. But if you know the genre, which these cats certainly did, you know that a folk singer’s guitar and vocal parts work together and everyone else’s job is to follow those movements and that cadence as written. This can be especially challenging for a drummer, but drummer Gene Chrisman handled this both tastefully and organically, while still keeping the composition on the rails and moving. Those time shifts may be what makes the recording so enduring and unique. Although percussionist Hayward Bishop is on record saying that he did dreaded backing a young John Prine, I’m guessing none of the Memphis Boys ever regretted it.
Between 1971 and 1974 “Angel From Montgomery” was covered by all sorts of artists, including a really unorthodox Carly Simon version that was rejected by Elektra Records, but eventually released in 1995. The version you know, however, is the Bonnie Raitt version and it is phenomenal. The Bonnie Raitt version doesn’t start out half time, and doesn’t build dynamically as much as might be expected…it’s sort of a dialed-in, full band version. Otherwise, however, it’s a relatively reverent version. It’s in a different key, and the time signature is consistent throughout, but the Prine-isms shine through. Raitt was also young when she recorded this song, but it didn’t hinder the credibility at all, probably because she is Bonnie Raitt and she can do anything. Her rendition not only brought John Prine’s compositions to a far broader audience, but also fulfilled some of his other ambitions. He stated in interviews that he was always surprised when artists, especially women, would cover his songs and request to duet with him. Well, this song became a Bonnie Raitt signature number, and she never missed an opportunity to bring John out for a duet. The two shared a special bond through the rest of his career and life, and I guess it’s one of those very few wholesome and heartwarming show biz storylines.
And now for the mysterious part! What is the secret meaning hidden in the Angel from Montgomery lyrics? Well, on the surface, the song is about a middle aged woman in Alabama who wants out of her marriage, and out of her monotonous life. She longs for an angel to rescue her from the doldrums…maybe the sort of angel who might grace an old rodeo poster. But why did John Prine choose Montgometry? Well, Prine said that he was a big Hank Williams fan. Hank Williams was from Montgomery and referencing Old Hank would seem intuitive in any song about longing and regret. Hank Williams was also the quintessential male Honky Tonk angel: someone a lot of middle aged women down in Bama probably reminisced about in the 1970s. But friends, that ain’t it either. Here’s the secret reference that I think is hiding in plain sight:
In 1952, Hank Thompson (another Hank) released the single “The Wild Side of Life”. “The Wild Side of Life” is a classic country tune about restlessness, cheating and divorce, and it introduced most of us to the term “Honky Tonk Angel”. It is probably even more notable for the response it drew with Kitty Wells’ record: “It wasn’t God who Made Honky Tonk Angels”, also released in 1952. The two songs shared the same melody, and the Kitty Wells single was a female response portraying the other side of a marriage that disintegrates in a stagnant pool of restlessness. It’s also worth noting that “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” was written by a man, and originally recorded by Alice (Al) Montgomery. That’s right. Montgomery-comma-Al. Now, the term “Honky Tonk Angel” evolved a bit over the years, from a derogatory term similar to “wayward-woman”, to a more complimentary term for somebody who could steal your significant other (or steal you from your significant other and your boring life).
So I am proposing that, in his most decidedly countrified composition, John Prine is exploring the dissolution of a marriage in four dimensions. He is alluding to an old honky tonk song written by a man, from the point of view of a woman, that describes how the weight of our routines can make us long for a past that may or may not have been what we remember. And that song just happens to be about an angel, and it also happens to have come from Al Montgomery.
We’re through the looking glass, people.
Were all of these allusions so literal and conscious? Maybe. Who knows? John Prine was a pretty wily and witty writer. What is important though is the dimension that these conflicting and asynchronous references add to the lyrics. In this context, the song becomes more cautionary. One of the hardest lessons we learn in long term relationships, and one of the hardest lessons we learn in middle age, is that the grass isn’t always greener on the wilder side of the fence. Our relationships are not what make or break us. Our partners are not responsible for our self-satisfaction. We are the sum of every personal decision we’ve ever made and we take ourselves with us wherever we go. Time only moves in one direction. Ain’t no angels coming to save any of us, and if there were…well…beware. Because those angels are likely just as damaged as we are.
After all, it wasn’t God who made honky tonk angels.
