# John Prine: The Secrets Behind His Classic Songs In writing *The Tree of Forgiveness,* John’s wife Fiona booked him a suite and gave him four grocery bags full of lyrics he had drafted. John has an eye for “the in-between spaces—the time in between the doors are getting slammed and sitting there having an argument, what is that little space in between?” John says when you come up with a character, you should speak in the first person. About Souvenirs, he says, “It was just the emotion of that happening, and I put it into words so I could get over to somebody else how I felt that day, without explaining that it was about losing my brother.” John was afraid to sing “Saturday Visits the Twin Cities Alone” and “Jesus the Missing Years” for fear people would think he was crazy. “But if I let it sit for a couple weeks and it still affects me, it’s something I would like to hear somebody say, then I figure, my instinct is as good as a normal person. I would like to hear that somebody do that, so I just go ahead and jump into it.” He says about The Speed of the Sound of Loneliness, “That was definitely a breakthrough song for me. I wrote that song not caring if anybody ever heard it. … It was this record that kept playing over and over; it was just something I had to get out of me. I didn’t know, or care, if anybody else could relate to that song. It turns out people relate to it in loads of different ways.”[^1] [^1]: [Site Unreachable](https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/john-prine-secrets-behind-classic-songs-976587/)