"It’s easy to say Prine got lucky, and he probably did, but in addition to that, his songs were, and remain, a rapid agent of intense connection. What Ebert and Anka and Kristofferson and Goodman—and everyone else along the way willing to break their necks to jump on Prine’s bandwagon—heard was something that only takes one listen of John Prine to understand: This music is special. Its everyday Midwestern simplicity, rural Kentucky roots, a city-bred flair, shiny country, ragged folk, laughable humor, crushing darkness, an unlikely cast of characters old and young, and songwriting so masterful and human that it bridged every ragtag bit of it together like it was music we were all born to hear. There wasn’t ever anyone like John Prine, and there probably never will be again, but boy, weren’t we lucky he happened to share this big, old goofy world with us in the first place?"