Every Friday around 11 a.m. Central, it’s time for Classic Americana on Radio Heartland. We pull a special track from the archives or from deep in the shelves to spotlight a particular artist or song.

This week for Classic Americana, we celebrate the great John Prine. It was just a little more than five years ago — on April 7, 2020, to be precise — that we lost John Prine when he died due to complications from COVID-19.

But in his 73 years, what a wonderful gift John gave us. In a career that spanned five decades, John Prine gave us a treasure trove of songs — some that make you laugh, others that make you cry, all that make you think.

Today, we’re going to celebrate one of John Prine’s songs that makes you laugh and think. In fact, this very song gave John Prine a moment to think, too — and it’s a funny story. Once at a gig in San Francisco, a woman in the audience asked Prine to play the “happy enchilada” song. Prine acknowledged he had written what he described as “some weird songs” during his career, but he didn’t recall anything about a happy enchilada. He asked the woman how the song goes, and she said, “It’s a happy enchilada and you think you’re going to drown … ” But the lyrics as John Prine wrote and sings them are: “It’s half an inch of water and you think you’re going to drown.”

That little snippet of lyrics comes from Prine’s song, “That’s the Way that the World Goes Round,” from his 1978 Bruised Orange, and it’s our Classic Americana pick this week. 

External Link

John Prine – official site