Customer Reviews

Aimless Love

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Aimless Love is perfectly crafted in simplicity. Prine's successfulness in analyzing relationships and social issues while maintaining a conversational tone without any of the arrogance that tragically inhabits many pretentious songwriters works is remarkable. There is no call for grandiose verbalism when speaking commonly of common matters. The beauty of the album comes from descript lines such as "But youth is a costume And the beauty within lies unfurled" from "The Oldest Baby in the World", a tale of aging - gracefully or otherwise. The other main compliment to the album is how well it plays from beginning to end as a seamless work. Each song is supported upon the delicacy of those that preceed and follow. To put it all simply - this is a very good album and not even his best.

If I were pressed, really hard, to pick my favorite John Prine record, this would be it. The gentleness and affection with which Prine approaches human weakness is quite moving, as is his skill expressing it. This is a mature and finely crafted album, with mystifying songs of pathetic love ("Maureen"), mildly scolding morality tales ("Unwed Fathers"), a patent-pending Prine-style nonsense song ("Bottomless Lake"), and the ethereal, life-affirming lullaby, "Only Love." Prine took five years to organize his life so that he could make the records he wanted to make, and the results straight out the gate were pretty impressive. Highly, highly recommended.

I really love John Prine's music. Aimless Love's title track is the best on the c.d. I also enjoy Unwed Fathers. John Prine has a way of making you think about the way we all treat other people.

Prine isn't for everyone (boy, are the others missing out!), but for some of us he is everything. Over 20 years on and this album holds its own. I've been a fan for 40 years now, and he hasn't failed me yet. After all of these years I'll finally get to see him live in June...forth row center...and I can't wait.

"Aimless Love" is probably the mellowest, and one of the most approachable, of all of John Prine's albums. The lyrics depart from the elliptical approach used in "Common Sense" and other albums. The tunes flow on from song to song. My favorites are "Be My Friend Tonight", "The Oldest Baby in the World" (featured on most of Prine's compilation albums), "Unwed Fathers" (a duet with first wife Rachel Pure Prine), and the irrepressible "Bottomless Lake", which I've performed in public a couple of times. It takes me back to my days growing up in central New York state, as Prine sings "we rented a car at the Erie Canal, but the car didn't have no brakes," and harks back to those disastrous family vacations, a la Chevy Chase. We never fell in a bottomless lake, but we did get rear ended by a drug and weapon-bearing hit and run driver on street corner in Phoenix. I would have enjoyed a couple more edgy tunes and lyrics, but the overall effect is still a very listenable (albeit short) record.

This album is not as Joe Sixpack has noted in his review. Perhaps too many sixpacks have clouded his judgemnt. This album at best is a commercial flop and is nowhere near some of Prine's other work. This work cannot and does not rise to the level of Sam Stone, Christmas in Prison or the funny ditty "Let's Talk Dirty in Hawaiian". Prine has had numerous other albums that deserve Grammy recognition but I'm sorry to say this is the weakest link in all his work. I wish him well in his sales of this piece of work but I'm not impressed. He is too good of a talent and entertainer to let this stand as a representative of his music. He really should withdraw this album from the public and redo it with better stuff. I expected more.