A John Prine Christmas
  1. Everything Is Cool

    Everything is cool
    Everything's okay
    Why just before last Christmas
    My baby went away

    Across the sea to an island
    While the bridges brightly burn
    So far away from my land
    The valley of the unconcerned

    I was walking down the road, man
    Just looking at my shoes
    When God sent me an angel
    Just to chase away my blues

    I saw a hundred thousand blackbirds
    Just flying thru the sky
    And they seemed to form a teardrop
    From a black haired angel's eye

    That tear fell all around me
    And it washed my sins away
    Now everything is cool
    Everything's okay
    Everything is cool
    Everything's okay
    Why just before last Christmas
    My baby went away

    And I find it real surprising
    For myself to hear me say
    That everything is cool
    Everything's okay
    Everything is cool
    Everything's okay

    Why just before last Christmas
    My baby went away.
  2. All the Best (Live)

    I wish you love  
    And happiness
    I guess I wish you  
    All the best
    I wish you don't  
    Do like I do
    And ever fall in love with  
    Someone like you
    Cause if you fell   
    Just like I did
    You'd probably walk around the block 
    Like a little kid.
    But kids don't know   
    They can only guess
    How hard it is  
    To wish you happiness
    I guess that love   
    Is like a Christmas card
    You decorate a tree  
    You throw it in the yard
    It decays and dies  
    And the snowmen melt
    Well I once knew love  
    I knew how love felt
    Yeah I knew love  
    Love knew me
    And when I walked  
    Love walked with me
    And I got no hate   
    And I got no pride
    Well I got so much love 
    That I cannot hide
    Say you drive a Chevy  
    Say you drive a Ford
    You say you drive around the town 
    Till you just get bored
    Then you change your mind   
    For something else to do
    And your heart gets bored with your mind 
    And it changes you
    Well it's a doggone shame   
    And it's an awful mess
    I wish you love   
    I wish you happiness
    I wish you love   
    I wish you happiness
    I guess I wish you   
    All the best
  3. Silent Night All Day Long

    There's a pine tree in a window in a house on a hill
    With a tree top angel sitting perfectly still
    She's watching the shoppers walk through the snow
    With their arms full of treasures and hearts all aglow
    Chorus:
    We held hands and stared at the lights on the tree
    As if Christmas was invented for you and for me
    When the angel on the treetop requested a song
    We sang Silent Night All Day Long

    There's a family that's gathered in some living room
    Dinner on the table that's been cooking since noon
    Stockings on the mantle are hanging with care
    While every body is saying a prayer

    (Repeat Chorus)
    There's a room out there somewhere with a woman in a chair
    With memories of childhood still lingering there.
    How pretty the paper, the lights and the snow.
    How precious those memories of long long ago.

    (Repeat Chorus)
    When the angel on the treetop requested a song.
    We sang Silent Night all day long
  4. If You Were the Woman and I Was the Man (Live)

  5. Silver Bells

    City Sidewalks, busy sidewalks
    Dressed in holiday style
    In the air there is a feeling of Christmas
    Children laughing, people passing
    Greeting smile after smile
    And on every street corner you'll hear.
    Silver Bells, Silver Bells
    It's Christmas time in the city
    Ring-a-ling hear them ring
    Soon it will be Christmas Day.
    Strings of streetlights even Stop Lights
    Blink a bright red and green
    As the shoppers rush home with their treasures
    Here the snow crunch, see the kids bunch
    It Santa's big day
    And above all the hustle you'll hear
    Silver Bells, Silver Bells
    It's Christmas time in the city
    Ring-a-ling hear them ring
    Soon it will be Christmas Day.
    Silver Bells, Silver Bells
    It's Christmas time in the city
    Ring-a-ling hear them ring
    Soon it will be Christmas Day.
    Soon it will be Christmas Day.
    Soon it will be Christmas Day.
  6. Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

  7. A John Prine Christmas

    Pretty paper
    Pretty ribbons of blue.

    (Spoken)
    Man oh man,
    I just love Christmas it's just so darn neat.
    I kinda wish every day was Christmas,
    except Christmas eve and the Fourth of July.
    We wouldn't want to miss out on the fireworks, would we?
    When I was a kid, we used to get the Christmas catalog from Montgomery Wards in Chicago.
    Sometimes we'd get it as early as late August.
    It was the big book of wishes, hopes and desires.
    My three brothers and I were allotted twenty-five bucks a piece, including tax.
    So I'd make up a different Christmas list every night
    from the first of September 'til the twenty-forth of December.
    Matter of fact, let me present you with my Christmas credentials.
    When I was three years old, at least that's what my mother told me,
    I ate an entire ornament. I ate a big red one, I thought it was an apple.
    They kinda freaked out and was gonna take me to the hospital 
    but they couldn't stop me from laughing so they just left me alone.
    So I guess I still got that Christmas in me all the time, you know?

    One year, I got a wooden Roly-Poly for Christmas,
    you know the things you knock down and they bounce right back up.
    They made 'em out of wood back then, that's how old I am.
    Nowadays, they make 'em out of plastic.
    My mom says, "They just don't make 'em like that anymore." 
    And I says, "No ma, they don't".

    Then there was the year I came home only eave from the army,
    from Germany to marry my high school sweetheart on the day after Christmas.
    My little brother Billy, who was twelve at the time,
    had just gotten his first job so he was able to afford to buy some Christmas presents
    for his brothers and his mom and dad out of his own pocket.
    Billy had a job selling subscriptions for the Chicago Tribune.
    He told me this guy named Rocky would pick him up in a station wagon,
    him and some other boys, and he'd take 'em out to some strange neighborhood
    and drop 'em off and he gave them this whole spiel to give their potential customers.
    Supposedly their little brother had won a free trip to our nation's capital Washington, D.C.,
    but he couldn't go on the trip if his older brother wouldn't accompany him
    so if you would please buy a subscription to the Chicago Tribune then my little brother will be happy.
    Wow, what a shyster! Some people'll do anything to get to the Whitehouse.

    Then there was the year that my mom and dad gave me my first guitar.
    Ah man it was gorgeous, I still got the thing. It was a like aqua blue. Kinda dark aqua blue with a cream colored heart. 
    Was a Silvertone from Montgomery Wards. The model was called Kentucky Blue and man when I saw that sitting under the tree I just couldn't wait.
    First year so I didn't know how to play it,
    I'd just stand in front of the mirror with a string around my neck with that guitar and I'd try to look like Elvis.
    Then my brother Dave taught me a couple of chords,
    now I'm here in your living room singing and talking to you.
    It's funny how things work out.

    So-a whyn't you go find a stranger and extend your hand to 'em.
    If you see somebody looks like they ain't doin' quite as well as you, slip 'em a buck,
    'specially if they don't ask for spare change.
    Go buy your honey a cuckoo clock or a musical snow shaking water ball,
    that when you wind it up it plays,
    "I want you, I need you, I love ya with all my heart."
    'cause after all, hell man, it's Christmas.

    Away in a manger no crib for a bed.
    The little Lord Jesus lay down his sweet head.
    The stars in the sky look down where he lay.
    The little Lord Jesus asleep on the (1-2) hay.

    (Spoken)
    Merry Christmas Everybody.
  8. 7. Christmas In Prison.mp3

  9. Christmas in Prison (Live)

    It was Christmas in prison
    and the food was real good
    we had turkey and pistols
    carved out of wood
    and I dream of her always
    even when I don't dream
    her name's on my tongue
    and her blood's in my stream.
    Chorus:
    Wait awhile eternity
    old mother nature's got nothing on me
    come to me
    run to me
    come to me, now
    we're rolling
    my sweetheart
    we're flowing
    by God!
    She reminds me of a chess game
    with someone I admire
    or a picnic in the rain
    after a prairie fire
    her heart is as big
    as this whole goddamn jail
    and she's sweeter than saccharine
    at a drug store sale.
    (Repeat Chorus)
    The search light in the big yard
    swings round with the gun
    and spotlights the snowflakes
    like the dust in the sun
    it's Christmas in prison
    there'll be music tonight
    I'll probably get homesick
    I love you. Goodnight.
    (Repeat Chorus)