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It's better to have your heart broken than to never have loved at all. That's the part you have to stay in touch with if you want to sing these songs over and over again. -Chuck Prophet |
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I Bow Down And Pray To Every Woman I See
Men frequently struggle to articulate their feelings and thoughts about women. Even the best songwriters often unconsciously veer into misogyny or thickheaded simplicity (see Dylan's oddly beloved and oft-covered "Just Like A Woman" for an examples of both). Prophet manages to spring over these pitfalls, writing woman odes that use the distaff among us as genuine muse for tunes of real depth.
 Chuck Prophet |
"It's a delicate thing," cautions Prophet. "There's a delicate thing to the blues where it can go either way, where you can go downwards or celebrate the glory of having the blues. It's a glorious thing to have the blues because it starts with love. It's better to have your heart broken than to never have loved at all. That's the part you have to stay in touch with if you want to sing these songs over and over again."
His songs openly acknowledge the sway women have over many of us boys in a very honest way. "Yeah, absolutely," enthuses Prophet. "On 'A Woman's Voice (Will Haunt You)' [from Soap and Water] I cut verses. I have an editor's sense to take out the parts that I didn't think were true, even though they sounded really good [laughs]."
While women remain central to Prophet's creative process, he's often pretty solitary when working up new material.
"I don't really run it by people. I'm superstitious," says Prophet. "When I'm in the process of writing a song I don't go out of my way to solicit anything. I'm just happy when it's fucking over. At a certain point that's enough. They take up space in your psyche. Some songs can be really difficult. It's almost like I don't feel like starting them but it feels good when they're finished."
Taking his time means that what ultimately emerges has a craftsmanship and sturdy endurance that stays around for decades. It's a trait missing from a lot of modern rock, which too often has the staying power of Pop Rocks. Shortsighted rockers could never come up with a chilling lyric like, "I always did the right thing, what did it get me?"
"[laughs] I love that line, too. I really do. That might be my favorite part of the record, that bridge [on 'Let's Do Something Wrong']," says Prophet, who excels at lines you can't walk away from once you've been exposed to them. "It's a fun character study of someone who always played by the rules and never left his small town. I think what makes the song really come together is the children singing, 'Let's do something wrong, let's do something stupid.' They sing it in such an earnest way because they don't understand the implied costs, the repercussions as an adult for all your actions. When they sing, 'Let's do something wrong, let's do something stupid,' they sing it with all their heart and soul, without any sense of regret."
For many older fans, Prophet will always be associated with Green On Red more than any of his ten solo records. While the band does the occasional reunion gig it does seem fraught with the kinds of regrets Prophet was discussing. "It's like spending a weekend with the kids from your first marriage [laughs]. It's a mixed thing," admits Prophet. "We did one show and we were all really surprised how fun it was. We'll do it from time to time."
For now, his focus is his own work, a quiet, ceaselessly excellent string of recordings and performances that speak for themselves. All the praise in the world can't measure up to the intrinsic pleasures awaiting one, in both the long and short term, inside Prophet's music.
"I feel like I'm just getting the hang of it, so I hope I'm getting better. It's hard [to get records into people's hands] but my biggest fear is that I would have to stop. Ultimately, that's the thing any artist fears more than anything," says Prophet. "Economically, none of this has ever made any sense for me but you just make the records and play the shows. That's really all there is to do."
Chuck Prophet tour dates available here.
JamBase | San Francisco
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