Sunday, August 31, 2025
Time: 10:31 PM
Song: Paradise
Artist: Tom T. Hall
Mode of Consumption: Listening to a “The Magnificent Music Machine” album on vinyl.
Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/1K7D8NAd5eiltc7zrJGzXj?si=289d71799c934890
I was working on the weekly church treasurer books and Jodi was working in the kitchen when this song came on. This album had been part of a couple hundred records I had bought at an auction earlier this summer at the fairgrounds in Morrison and while the colorful cover had caught my attention, I hadn’t paid that close of attention to the track listing.
We like Tom T. Hall, so it was exciting to hear him covering a John Prine song, another artist we admire. It makes sense as both were at the height of their fame in the 1970s, and they both fall under the umbrella of country/songwriter artists. Plus, they both like to lace their songs with bits of humor and dashes of heartache.
With that being said, it surprised me a little that Hall chose “Paradise” to cover. It’s a great song, don’t get me wrong, it’s just I would have pegged Hall to choose one a little lighter from Prine’s catalog.
“Paradise” is about an actual town in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky that was destroyed by strip-mining by the Peabody Energy coal plant. Prine came under fire from the folks at Peabody and I believe he even faced lawsuits. The issues continued even beyond Prine’s death in 2020.
My sense is that Hall covered it to lend support to Prine, and likely to stick it to big corporations. I still find it interesting how much artists in the 60s and 70s covered contemporary artists songs, quite often within a couple years of the song’s original release. That’s just not something I see happening very much these days.
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