Aimless Love
Aimless Love | ||||
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Americana | ||||
Label | Oh Boy | |||
Producer | Steve Goodman, Jim Rooney, John Prine | |||
John Prine chronology | ||||
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Aimless Love is the eighth album by American folk singer and songwriter John Prine, released in 1984. It is his first release on his independent record label, Oh Boy Records.
Background
Prine and his longtime manager Al Bunetta formed Oh Boy Records in an attempt to take control of his own music. In a 1985 interview with
Composition
Prine co-wrote six of the ten songs on Aimless Love. Prine later commented, "In Nashville it’s hard to avoid co-writing a song. If you have a beer with someone, the next thing you know they’re calling you up to co-write.”[2] Several songs have as many as three writers, such as the opener “Be My Friend Tonight,” co-written with Cook and Playboy cartoonist, poet, screenwriter and children's author Shel Silverstein, and the George Jones-like tearjerker “Me, Myself, and I,” composed with Cook and Spooner Oldham. Prine also co-authored two songs with "Funky" Donnie Fritts. One of these, "The Oldest Baby In The World", was inspired by a story in the World Weekly News about ill children aging prematurely and some of the women Prine had encountered on the road. On the sleeve of his 1988 release John Prine Live, the singer noted that the girl in the song "is just trying to hang on to a shred of innocence. I personally love innocence." The songs "Aimless Love" and "The Bottomless Lake" had been kicking around for years – Prine had performed the original composition of "Aimless Love" on an episode of the TV show Austin City Limits in the 1970s – and comments in the Great Days anthology liner notes, "Love's just an aimless idiot walking down the street. You might bump into him or you might not. The song reminds me of an old Johnny Cash or Ernest Tubb song." Prine had performed "The Bottomless Lake," a song that was an amalgamation of old Prine family stories, on the 16 October 1976 episode of Saturday Night Live (still called "NBC's Saturday Night"). Prine also recalled in Great Days that "Unwed Fathers", his collaboration with Bobby Braddock, resulted from the pair deciding "that we were going to write at his house the day after the Super Bowl, I wrote down 15 titles, including one called 'Children Having Children' and 'Unwed Fathers'. I was reading the list off to him, and all the lights went on with those two. We kind of combined them and went right into it." The song would be covered by several artists, including Tammy Wynette and Johnny Cash. The socially aware "People Puttin' People Down" addressed alienation in America in the 1980s Reagan-era, with Prine commenting to David Fricke in 1993, "It's the only defense some people have. As long as you got somebody to look down on, you ain't on the bottom. So cold."
Reception
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [3] |
Robert Christgau | B+[4] |
Although Aimless Love was Prine's first release not to chart, it received positive reviews upon release and remains highly regarded. In 1985, Don Shewey of Rolling Stone magazine wrote that Aimless Love showed that "John Prine, the elegant pop songwriter, is still in top form." Writing for
Track listing
- "Be My Friend Tonight" (Prine, Roger Cook, Shel Silverstein) – 3:15
- "Aimless Love" (Prine) – 3:07
- "Me, Myself and I" (Prine, Spooner Oldham, Dan Penn) – 2:42
- "The Oldest Baby in the World" (Prine, Donnie Fritts) – 3:05
- "Slow Boat to China" (Prine, Bobby Whitlock, Linda Whitlock) – 3:46
- "The Bottomless Lake" (Prine) – 3:42
- "Maureen, Maureen" (Prine) – 3:16
- "Somewhere Someone's Falling in Love" (Prine, Fritts) – 3:04
- "People Puttin' People Down" (Prine) – 2:48
- "Unwed Fathers" (Prine, Bobby Braddock) – 3:30
- "Only Love" (Prine, Cook, Sandy Mason) – 3:29
Personnel
- John Prine – vocals, guitar
- Charles Cochran – organ, upright bass
- Roger Cook – ukulele, background vocals
- Philip Donnelly – guitar, backing vocals
- Stuart Duncan – mandolin
- Chuck Fiore – bass
- Steve Fishell – pedal steel, backing vocals
- Donnie Fritts – piano
- Jack Grochmal – guitar, tambourine
- Glen Hardin – piano
- James Harrah – electric guitar
- Leo LeBlanc – guitar, pedal steel, bass
- Kenny Malone – drums
- Dee Murray – bass
- Tony Newman – drums
- Kevin Wells – drums
- Bobby Whitlock – piano, organ, backing vocals
- Bobby Woods – piano
- Spooner Oldham – piano
- Rachel Peer-Prine – bass, harmony and backing vocals, guitar
- Dave Prine – fiddle
- Jim Rooney – guitar
- John Sebastian – harmonica, autoharp
- Sandy Mason – backing vocals
- Jennifer Warnes – backing vocals
- Greg Prestopino – backing vocals
- Matthew Wilder – backing vocals
Production notes:
- Steve Goodman – producer
- Jim Rooney – producer
- John Prine – producer
- Allen Reynolds – engineer
- Hank Neuberger – engineer
- Curtis Allen – engineer
- Gary Brandt – engineer
References
- ^ a b Huffman 2015, p. 127.
- ^ Huffman 2015, p. 123.
- ^ Ruhlman, William. "Aimless Love > Review". AllMusic. Retrieved July 9, 2011.
- ^ Christgau, Robert. "Aimless Love > Review". Robert Christgau. Archived from the original on 6 June 2011. Retrieved July 9, 2011.
Bibliography
- Huffman, Eddie (2015). John Prine: In Spite of Himself. ISBN 9780292748224.