DJ Deb Grant on John Prine

Great Lives

BBC

History, Documentary, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.2 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 8 September 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

DJ Deb Grant picks US mailman turned country-folk singer John Prine, whose beautiful songs captured the world in which he lived. Bob Harris, who first met him on the Old Grey Whistle Test, adds to the conversation.

"I came to know him through him speaking about his own music - it's his character, his personality and his attitude that I fell for," says Deb Grant. "When he died I was absolutely inconsolable."

Programme includes archive of John and his wife, talking after her husband died of complications arising from covid. There's also a reading of the lyrics from Sam Stone, his tale of a Vietnam vet returning from the war. "There's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes," he sings.

This is series 67 of Great Lives and future guests include Miles Jupp, Stewart Lee and Elizabeth Day.

The producer for BBC Studios Audio in Bristol is Miles Warde

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're dead to me.
0:05.0	No, no, that's the name of our podcast. Sorry.
0:08.0	And we're back for a brand new series.
0:11.0	Not only is it British history, it was a quill drop.
0:15.0	With more fun and facts from history without taking it too seriously.
0:19.0	Empress Matilda, what is she going to do now?
0:21.6	She decides to take back some of the jewels with her.
0:25.0	I'm taking these as well.
0:26.7	I'm going to come back for Tuscany one day as well.
0:29.2	You're dead to me.
0:30.6	Again, not you.
0:32.0	Name of the show.
0:32.8	Listen first on BBC Sounds.
0:36.3	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:40.7	Today's guest was on this series before, on that occasion as our expert, helping our guest
0:47.0	make the case for Frank Zappa.
0:49.4	But it wasn't she who had picked him, so we thought DJ Deb Grant should come back, this time
0:55.4	with her own choice of great life, and choose somebody herself.
1:00.1	Her first choice was Alan Lomax, but he'd already been picked.
1:04.5	Second choice, Bob Dylan, didn't work either.
1:07.0	At the moment, he's still very much alive, so tell us, Deb, third time lucky. Who's your next pick? I've decided to pick John Prine. I think he's kind of the songwriter's songwriter, which might be because, you know, he's not sort of widely known, I guess, in contemporary music unless you're really into country or Americana or if you want to follow other songwriters' references.
1:28.0	I know he's a favorite songwriter of Bob Dylan.
	...

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