John Prine on his song “Lake Marie”
By MARK GUARINO | Daily Herald Music Critic
Nov 19, 1999
What makes a John Prine song so special is what makes every folk singer special: the words.
But with Prine, the words are never too obvious. The innuendo, wordplay, sly slang and workingman plainspeak always tell it like it is – and as it should sound, too.
When Prine played the Guinness Fleadh festival this summer, he was greeted by fans who sang every word along with him. The song he ended his show with was “Lake Marie,” which can be found on his last collection of all original songs, “Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings” (Oh Boy), from 1995.
There’s an odd sort of power in that song, mainly because he combines several disjointed images (a grisly murder, a failing marriage, Native American lore, grilling Italian sausages) and somehow makes them seem natural together. It’s also an example of how Prine’s Chicago past always somehow filters into his songs, whether he knows it or not when he’s writing.
The fact that “Lake Marie’s” a real place and is inspired by real events, makes it strangely moving.
The following is Prine’s own explanation of how that song came about. It’s not a quick answer. For Prine, being a songwriter is a lot like being a detective: it’s a slow, mysterious process that requires patience, curiosity, an eye for what sounds natural, and, of course like any good Chicagoan, a love of Italian sausage.
“It was just an idea I had. I was carrying it around with me. I had this idea for a song that was going to have half talking, half singing in it. It was going to have a strong chorus to it and it was going to start out with something that had a historical nature to it. I had nothing else. I just had an idea for a song like that. I just waited for something to come along that I thought I could fit into that.
“I was soundcheckin’ for a song at the Woodstock Opera House. The monitor guy mentioned something to another guy about Lake Marie. And I said ‘Lake Marie, is that around here?’ And he said ‘yeah, about 20 minutes down the road.’ I said ‘I haven’t been there in years.’ And he gave me directions and me and my brother Billy, we drove over there, it was like in February. There was nothing open hardly at all. Because the town of Twin Lakes was mostly open for the summertime. I saw a little library, a one-room one, I was looking at the bulletin board and I asked the librarian ‘Has anybody ever written anything about the history of this area.?’ And she said ‘No, but there’s a guy working on it; he’s been working several years on it.’ And she said she had a business card for him.
“So I called him and somehow – I felt like a detective at this point – and he sends me various articles. And one of them was talking about the two sisters that the lakes were named after, Elizabeth and Mary. And the little story about the Indians that were around the area when they found the girl.
“And I said ‘That’s that, that’s the song right there.’ And the rest of it, the second verse about meeting a girl and the Italian sausages cooking, that was kind of autobiographical, me and my high school sweetheart, we used to go to Crystal Lake and Lake Marie, the chain of lakes, you know? So did everybody else, we used to go there on weekends and have picnics. Just different lakes. Everybody bring their best-lookin’ car. You go there, cook up Italian sausage and have a game of baseball.
“And the third verse was all the mayhem and people getting killed. As far as I can figure where that came from is maybe all the unsolved murders that were goin’ on in the suburbs in the late ’50s, early ’60s. Like, ‘Who would do such a thing like that?’ The weird murders, and they were unsolved and they were all in the suburbs. We grew up thinking the bad place was bein’ downtown and here, all the sudden, like there’s real screwballs out in the suburbs. Like it was ‘Blue Velvet,’ you know? That’s where third verse came from. I just put it all together and for me, it worked, and I just went ahead and cut it.”
“Lake Marie” by John Prine
We were standing
Standing by peaceful waters
Standing by peaceful waters
Whoa wah oh wha oh
Many years ago along the Illinois Wisconsin border
There was this Indian tribe
They found two babies in the woods
White babies
One of them was named Elizabeth
She was the fairer of the two
While the smaller and more fragile one was named Marie
Having never seen white girls before
And living on the two lakes known as the Twin Lakes
They named the larger and more beautiful lake Lake Elizabeth
And thus the smaller lake that was hidden from the highway
Became known forever as Lake Marie
We were standing
Standing by peaceful waters
Standing by peaceful waters
Whoa wah oh wha oh
Many years later I found myself talking to this girl
Who was standing there with her back turned to Lake Marie
The wind was blowing especially through her hair
There was four Italian sausages cooking
On the outdoor grill
And they were sizzlin’
Many years later we found ourselves in Canada
Trying to save our marriage
And perhaps catch a few fish
Whatever came first
That night she fell asleep in my arms
Humming the tune to “Louie Louie”
Aah baby, we gotta go now
We were standing
Standing by peaceful waters
Standing by peaceful waters
Whoa wah oh wha oh
The dogs were barking as the cars were parking
The loan sharks were sharking
The narcs were narcing
Practically everyone was there
In the parking lot by the forest preserve
The police had found two bodies
Nay, naked bodies!
Their faces had been horribly disfigured
By some sharp object
Saw it on the news
The TV news
In a black and white video
Do you know what blood looks like in a black and white video?
Shadows, shadows!
That’s what it looks like
All the love we shared between her and me was slammed
Slammed up against the banks of old Lake Marie
Marie!
We were standing
Standing by peaceful waters
Standing by peaceful waters
Whoa wah oh wha oh
Peaceful waters
Standing by peaceful waters
Aah baby, we gotta go now