| John Prine – Paradise Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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@[bjohns7778:34069] (Please excuse the long reply. I am having fun recalling the first 23 yrs of my life in rural Mississippi.) There is an amazing amount of rural culture encapsulated in this couplet. While I don't know about any actual 'snake smell,' any wet, muddy place would be thought to have snakes. Here are some of my thoughts related to the phrase: Where the air smelled like snakes we would shoot with our pistols, but empty pop bottles was all we would kill. Snakes are serpents, and serpents are 'bad' (They tempted Eve and brought sin into the world!) and must be eliminated from God's creation. This is the sacred mission of every teenage boy entrusted with the 0.22 pistol from his Granddaddy's tackle box. On a day when the fish 'ain't' biting, the pistol comes out and anything may become a target. The choice of 'pop bottles' is interesting, and I suspect it was to keep the rhythm of the phrase. Even in the 1970s when this song was recorded, pop/soda bottles were returned/reused for a deposit. (Typically 5 cents) Shooting 'money' would have been unthinkable! (In my young world, .22 bullets were free...) We would gather every can, empty mayonnaise jar, and cast-off container available for future targets. There was always a stash in the back of the trunk or hiding under the front of the Jon Boat. Killing a snake with a pistol? Never seen it happen. But we murdered thousands of cans & bottles. My favorites were Testors Model Paint bottles that were dried shut. |
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| John Prine – That's The Way The World Goes Round Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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JP had the amazing ability to tell an entire story in one simple phrase. "Naked as the eyes of a clown" is an entire short story. His use in this song is simple, but the implications are the emotions were exposed when everything else is hidden. |
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