Bruised Orange

1978’s *Bruised Orange* felt very much like a homecoming for 32-year-old John Prine. Recorded in Chicago and produced by Prine’s old folk compatriot Steve Goodman, *Bruised Orange* is a delicate, insular album. Prine wrote many of the songs in his Chicago apartment, and they take on the mood of an overcast Sunday afternoon. The opening lines of the title track symbolize Prine’s psychological geography: “My heart\'s in the ice house come hill or come valley/Like a long-ago Sunday when I walked through the alley/On a cold winter\'s morning to a church house/Just to shovel some snow.” The lyrics of “Crooked Piece of Time” and “If You Don’t Want My Love” are sparer and more straightforward than what people had come to expect from Prine, making them even more emotionally devastating. “Sabu Visits the Twin Cities Alone” is one of the most surreal songs Prine has ever written, yet it feels absolutely sober and truthful. Though *Bruised Orange* is a cold album about a cold period in a songwriter’s life, written in the coldest quadrant of America, it can’t conceal the warmth of its author’s compassion.