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Show Review Prine sings about people people who have been lost in the tide of the American Dream. The premises to his music haven't changed. He still sings with that country air without showiness. He hasn't lost his honesty or his guts. He can't be considered one of the best pickers around but he certainly cer-tainly can be considered one of the best lyricists. If you listen to the two albums back to back there seems to be little differentiation without listening to the lyrics. In the first such lyrics as "Your flag decal won't get you into heaven anymorebecause it's already overcrowded over-crowded from your dirty little war" and in Sam Stone he sings, "there's a whole in daddy's arm where all the money goes" about a returned veteran who destroys himself with an overdose, make it hard to match in the second. But he still sings about the pain of lonliness, "For whiskey and painboth taste the sameduring the time they go down" and about the war in a song about a sailor named Robert, in which he sings, "Don't you ask me any questionsAbout the medals on my chest. Take the star out of the windowAnd let my conscience take a rest." It is fair to reiterate that Prine, although not matching the first experience, ex-perience, hasn't let me down. And people should certainly keep tabs on him, because he is probably the best thing around. missed a tremendous experience. Furthermore, "Diamonds in the Rough" is still one of the best albums al-bums I have heard this year. Prine sings about people, he sings about exploitation and he sings about A By GAYLAN NIELSON J Chronicle Staff 3 when John Prine appeared on '1 the scene a year or so ago you 4, couldn't help making all the com-'"Iparisons com-'"Iparisons to Dylan or more so feel-i, feel-i, ing like he was picking up where t Dylan was leaving off. Well that first ' album seemed like it came from kthe heart of a old man who had f J waited a lifetime to release his wis-dom. wis-dom. Little could anyone expect '! that John Prine was only 25. When i got word that John's second album x was being released I went berserk. Now I have come to realize some- thing. I'm always yakking about commercial music and in fact forgot for-got why that musical corpse exists. It's us. With anxious fingers, rub-;bing rub-;bing those dollar bills; we are the '"'ones that are causing the destruction destruc-tion of honest music. John Prine's second album, '"Diamonds in the Rough" has 1!;'sounds like all his music on this 5f:album is what he has written since 'his last album (which is probably "'true.) Maybe it came too quick. In his first album, the impact was '"30 powerful that I assume my expectations ex-pectations for this album could "i'lave never been reached. All that "'legativism isn't to discourage Wijeople about Prine, in fact, if you "naven't heard him yet you have |