John Prine gets surreal once more about love and death on 'The Tree of Forgiveness'
“I live down deep inside my head,” Prine sings, in a voice that has turned to gravel yet remains impish, convivial, even when the news isn’t always good. “Well, you wished you’d left/ Your well enough alone/ When you got hell to pay,” he drawls on the cinematic “Egg & Daughter Nite, Lincoln Nebraska, 1967 (Crazy Bone),” punctuated by a gruff, wordless vocal melody. “Caravan of Fools” sounds vaguely political, and it’s darker still.