"Fair & Square," John Prine’s first album of new songs in a decade, was released today. I’m still absorbing it, but I like it just fine for an initial spin — I’ve hit "repeat" on several songs, which is a good sign.
A few years ago, Rolling Stone printed a story Prine told about running into Bob Dylan in a restaurant in Manhattan, if I remember correctly. They took a walk through the streets of Greenwich Village.
Prine doesn’t say precisely why — what in the conversation inspired it — but for some reason, at some point, Dylan says to Prine something like, "Come here, let me show you something." He leads Prine over to a night club where the ID-checker outside the door is a woman about 25 years old. Dylan says, "Do you know who I am? Who either of us are?" The woman looks at them very intently and answers, "No."