“I was sound checking for a song at the Woodstock Opera House (in Illinois). 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… 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 — I felt like a detective at this point — 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 brought their best looking 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 going 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 being 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.”
The Hello in There Foundation is an initiative established by the family of John Prine, to honor his memory and continue the love, kindness and generosity he shared with the world. The work of the foundation will be inspired and guided by John's simple song title, Hello In There. Our mission aims to identify and collaborate with individuals and communities to offer support for people who are marginalised, discriminated against or, for any reason, are otherwise forgotten.
John Prine performs "Lake Marie" Live from the Sessions on 54th St. Tree of Forgiveness available here: https://found.ee/uuFMSO FOLLOW JOHN: Website: https://found.ee/psULI Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/john_prine/... Facebook:/ johnprine Twitter:
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