I probably feature John Prine more often that some people would like, but this is the rare Prine tune that he didn’t write himself, though he did sign its composer, R.B. Morris, a poet and playwright who moved to Nashville to pursue music, to his Oh Boy record label. The song was written during the G.W. Bush years, but it’s just as applicable today. Prine recorded it for his “Fair and Square” EP in 2008. The lyrics alternate between the personal and the political, but the last two verses are particularly pointed:
Padlock the door and board the windows
Put the people in the street
“It’s just my job, ” he says “I’m sorry.”
And draws a check, goes home to eat
But at night he tells his woman
“I know I hide behind the laws.”
She says, “You’re only taking orders.”
That’s how every empire falls.
A bitter wind blows through the country
A hard rain falls on the sea
If terror comes without a warning
There must be something we don’t see
What fire begets this fire?
Like torches thrown into the straw
If no one asks, then no one answers
That’s how every empire falls.
