This morning’s NYTimes has an opinion piece, “A Life Without a Home: Voices from the tents, shelters, cars, motels,
and couches of America,” which adds a hell of a lot more to the John Prine song “Hello In There.”
We had an apartment in the city
Me and Loretta liked living there Well, it’d been years since the kids had grown A life of their own, left us aloneJohn and Linda live in Omaha
And Joe is somewhere on the road We lost Davy in the Korean war And I still don’t know what for, don’t matter anymoreYou know that old trees just grow stronger
And old rivers grow wilder every day Old people just grow lonesome Waiting for someone to say, “Hello in there, hello”Me and Loretta, we don’t talk much more
She sits and stares through the back door screen And all the news just repeats itself Like some forgotten dream that we’ve both seenSomeday I’ll go and call up Rudy
We worked together at the factory What could I say if he asks “What’s new?” “Nothing, what’s with you? Nothing much to do”You know that old trees just grow stronger
And old rivers grow wilder every day Old people just grow lonesome Waiting for someone to say, “Hello in there, hello”So if you’re walking down the street sometime
And spot some hollow ancient eyes Please don’t just pass ’em by and stare As if you didn’t care, say, “Hello in there, hello”— John Prine