Good Song: Sour Grapes

It's about time I shared a John Prine song.

The guy's catalogue is replete with complex, insightful meditations on the nature of life and suffering; incisive depictions of human reality with occasional flashes of enlightenment around the edges. And the self-mocking that signals that.

This one's a case in point. On the surface it's a straightforward portrait of the enlightened mindset, which I might boil down to "people are not the universe".

But hovering just beneath that is something else, that truly emerges into full sun in the last verse.

Considered in order, what you got here is a meditation on the nature of enlightenment practice. And a worthy memorial to my brother John, who died last year of the 2020 plague, and wrote this song when he was 14 years old.

Sour Grapes
by John Prine

I don't care if the sun don't shine
But it better or people will wonder
And I couldn't care less if it never stopped rainin'
'Cept the kids are afraid of the thunder

Say sour grapes
You can laugh and stare
Say sour grapes
But I don't care

I couldn't care less if I didn't have a friend
'Cept people would say I was crazy
And I wouldn't work 'cause I don't need money
But the same folks would say I was lazy

Say sour grapes
You can laugh and stare
Say sour grapes
But I don't care

I couldn't care less if she never came back
I was gonna leave her anyway
And all the good times that we shared
Don't mean a thing today

Say sour grapes
You can laugh and stare
Say sour grapes
But I don't care