It's TIME for a Rock Countdown: Crooked Piece of Time (#7)

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There's a meme on Facebook that's for various states, but the gist of it is: "Nature: You can't have all four seasons in one day! (State): Here, hold my beer." That's how we are here: it was 67 this afternoon, and it's supposed to get in the low 30s tonight. My sinuses are suffering from this nonstop roller coaster known as Ohio Valley weather. Good music cures the sniffles and everything else (or, at least, makes you forget about it), so here's another song on my list of favorite rock songs with "time" in the title. #7: Crooked Piece of Time - John Prine For our "fake Australian" Judy, who said that yesterday's singer, Neil Young, had a weird voice, here's John Prine! And for John, from whom I stole the idea, aren't you glad to see this fella show up again? John Prine was going through his first divorce (he's been married four times, so I guess he got used to them ), so to "console" himself he wrote some somber tunes. The results were Bruised Orange, an album that rivals Prine's classic first album as my favorite. While there are a few happy songs ("Iron Ore Betty," about a new girlfriend and some, ahem, "fun" ["I've got rug burns on my elbows, she's got 'em on her knees"]), there's a lot of agony on this album. The quasi-title song, "Bruised Orange (Chain of Sorrow)," is about an incident that happened when he was a youngster (an altar boy was run over by a commuter train one Sunday morning). If you're not already elated (according to Steve Goodman's biography, Goodman, who produced the album, told Prine to include razor blades with the album package in case people wanted to slit their wrists after listening to the album), "A Crooked Piece of Time" details the destruction of the marriage ("yesterday morning an ill wind came, even blew your picture right out of the picture frame"). The music is upbeat, though. I love playing this song on guitar. I much prefer Prine singing it...at least he can sing, even if he has an unusual voice. Crooked Piece of Time Written by John Prine Recorded by John Prine From Bruised Orange, 1978 Things got rough: