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IT WAS IN THE SPRING OF 1972, or thereabouts. Following wanderlust, Kerouac 101 and a love of William Faulkner, I’d gravitated to Oxford, Mississippi. Trading in one dream for another, I had taken a job registering black voters for the ill-fated presidential campaign of George McGovern, running against the ill-fated and criminal presidency of Richard Nixon.

I can still recall one of those intoxicating Spring evenings when the magnolias drifted down the wide boulevards, lifting you, for just a moment or so, above the dissension and division that had come to grip this Country that I loved so dearly.

Sporting nine stitches over my right eye, from an earlier encounter with the firm Hillerich & Bradsby, I was just ascending the long stairway of a beautiful ante-bellum home, beauteous in its upkeep, attributed only and allegedly to its birthrite of the scribe’s classic, “A Rose For Emily.” At the top of the stairs, I could hear the deep Kentucky-Chicagoan, Budweiser tinged drawl of a man whose face and voice, I had become fond of already.

Yes, atop the stairs, ceremoniously holding court over a sea of local musicians, professors, McGovern volunteers and other Ole Miss “long hairs,” aside, John Prine, with his Chicago sidekick and music collaborator, no stranger to great, indeed grand, lyrics himself, Steve Goodman. Steve would later lay his puckish, wisdom and love of playful lyric, upon me, pulling me to a corner, after a long discussion of our second adopted religion, seriously intoning, “Ya do know, Alex, dont’cha, that your boy George, has about a good ‘a chance ‘a winning this gutter fight he’s picked, as my Cubs have of winnin’ the ‘72 World Series?” Case closed. Undisputed, as John Prine later declared of Steve Goodman’s “The City of New Orleans,” it was, is and continues to be, “the best damned train song ever written.” Again, case closed.

1972 was the harbinger of the horrible and the Hellenic, no small part thereof, being the rise of the poet, song lyricist and players, unmatched in recent times (differing tastes accepted.) No small part of that accelerated acumen, now standing atop the steps Oxford’s finest “Hippie Hotel,” a collection of grad students who had come to take over the majority positions of influence in the University’s Music, Creative Writing, Journalism and Poitical Science areas—including the procurement of heavies on the cultural appearances budget.

John Prine had just released his second album, “Diamonds in the Rough,” in 1972, claiming him the title of the next Second Dylan, a throne, long bedeviled, beguiled and be-damned, as has been known by a suffering few, including Warren Zevon, Steve Earle and Bruce Springsteen.

Two of that collection, “Souvenirs” and “The Great Compromise,” continue to remain in my pantheon of greats: the first bringing my tears in the early morning of April 8th, the latter will, no doubt, return amid the early dawning of July 4, 2020.

For every Independence Day since it’s release year, including those emotionally charged days of 1972, the song I will play for myself, John and the country I love, on Saturday morning. With a few of the characters, battles, times and places changed, ironically, I find that little has changed:

The Great Compromise
(By: John Prine, Jan. 1972)

I knew a girl who was almost a lady
Had a way with all the men in her life
Every inch of her blossomed in beauty
And she was born on he 4th of July.

Well she lived in an aluminum house trailer
‘N she worked at a jukebox saloon
And she spent all the money that I give ‘er
Just to see the old man in the moon

I used to sleep at the foot of Old Glory
And awaken in the dawn’s early light
But much to my surprise, when I opened my eyes
I was a victim of the great compromise

Well, we’d go out on Saturday evenings
To the drive-in on Rt. 41
And it was there I first suspected
That she was doin’ what she’d already done.

She said, “Johnny, won’t you get me some popcorn”
And she knew I had to walk pretty far
And so as I passed through the moonlight
She hopped into a foreign sports car

Well, you know, I coulda beat up that fellow
But it was her that had hopped into his car
‘N many times that I’d fought to protect her
But this time she was goin’ too far

Now some folks they call me a coward
‘Cause I left her at the drve-in that night.
But I’d druther have names thrown at me
Than to fight for a thing that ain’t right.

I used to sleep at the foot of Old Glory
And awaken to dawn’s early light
But much to my surprise when I opened my eyes
I was the victim of the great compromise.

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-Many thanks to Lorna Silver, Brian Workman, Barry Bronson, Joe McGlohon, Bill Bedsworth, Kelly McCourt, Jim Rome, Linda Sanford and Alison Oscar.(in order of appearance)

• Special Guest Appearances by:
• Bruce Springsteen
• John Prine
• Steve Goodman

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Jon Alexander lives at Battery Pt. In Crescent City, CA. Jon can be reached at jonalexanderlaw@yahoo.com

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