The Story Behind John Prine's Bruised Orange

I'm a believer that John Prine is one of the top five greatest American songwriters. In no particular order that list also includes Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, and Bono. Just kidding, not sure who I'd go with for the other slots, maybe Hank Williams and Robert Johnson, but John Prine is definitely in there.

This John Prine video is one of the most entertaining eight minutes we've spent on YouTube lately. It's a clip from the late 70s of him driving around his hometown where he used to be a mailman telling the story about how he wrote the song "Bruised Orange." His charm and brilliance seemed to carry through to his everyday life.

I got this job at this church over here. And they paid me fifty bucks a month, I think. I'd have to go in on Saturdays and, uh, dust the pews. You gotta dust the pews, especially in the summertime. A lot people for some reason didn't go to church in the summer, they had other things to do, so the pews'd get real dusty. Somebody's gotta dust 'em. So it was me, ya know.

Now we just need to get the man wearing a Fuzz Strap.