Lake Marie

To me, this song is about having one of life's precious memories permanently tainted. Legends such as lakes being named after lost babies are interesting to most people, thus enhancing the location's charm. It's not a lake named for some unknown politician of yore, it's named for a lost baby. That makes it cool. You want to tell your cousin visiting from out of state how the lakes got their names.

So, when you want to save your marriage, you go to a lake with character. You go to Lake Marie. Was the marriage saved? Maybe, maybe not. Either way, it was a good time. So good, you can almost feel the wind blowing and hear those sausages sizzle on the grill many years later. Every time you think of Louie, Louie, you remember her falling asleep in your arms. It's a good memory- most of us have a few of them.

Well, John's got a cynical sense of humor, so why not completely destroy that special memory? Create lots of images for the brain- horrible crime, black and white video, naked bodies, disfigurement, lots of commotion...

There's no way to escape, however your brain takes you back there- the song, the girl, the name Marie, fishing, Indians... whatever might have triggered that warm memory is now going to cause you pain or disgust or disillusion. What was once something good is now something bad. Peaceful waters? Yeah, right. John often tell us it can be a cruel world. Not even your own memory is safe.

Tremendous song.

You know what blood looks like in a black and white video? SHADOWS!

Love this line

Just found this on a website:

Prine’s first experience with the song came while talking to a crew member in Wisconsin after a show. The subject of the conversation turned to some local lakes. He told Prine of Lake Marie, which was an interesting tale. The lake was tangled with mystery, and this persuaded Prine to want to visit it. The crew member and Prine decided to travel toward Lake Marie, which was only about twenty-five minutes away. Later, John and his brother did a little investigative reporting. They ended up in a library, reading old stories about the lake. It turned out to have a sister lake, named Lake Elizabeth. The two lakes were named after two abandoned babies that were found by a tribe of Native Americans. Prine began to write the song, basing the first verse after the discovery of the babies. But after that, John went into some fictional story-telling about a marriage on the rocks, and a shadowy double murder that took place in the proximity of Lake Marie. "When I was done, it was exactly what I wanted. I guess the point of the song is that if the Indians hadn’t named the lakes after a couple of white girls, they would still be peaceful waters." (Puckett 15)

http://www.jpshrine.org/biography/frainbio.htm

But how did the Indian tribe know the babies' names? :P

I love the way he uses sounds to emphasize the meaning of some of the words e.g. "some SHHHHarp object" and "they were sssssizzlin'"

This song is pure poetry to me with a mega-catchy melody thrown in for good measure. Awesome!

I think all are applying rational minds (I assume) to an irrational mind, the narrator of the story. I have come to believe the song is sung from the viewpoint of someone who has gone crazy. Very little of the story is logical: Natives knowing the names of two white babies they find in the woods, his remembrances of meeting his wife (the wind, sausages on the grill) and especially his murder of his wife and some other seemingly prompted by the lyrics from 'Louie, Louie'.

hmm havent reeeli looked at the words to this one but the melody is scarily catchy. i heard it when jp ws in concert nearly a year ago and i can still remember the tune!

There isn't much to figure out... it's another contrast song from John Prine who mingles love and beauty with the darker realities of life.

However, for those interested... There is indeed a town in Wisconsin called Twin Lakes... It's right along the Illinois border... There are two lakes there... the larger of the two is named Lake Elizabeth... while the smaller is names Lake Mary.

Love this song. I've been to both Lake Marie and Lake Elizabeth.

Perhaps John is commenting on the media and our appetite for it here. The initial tale about the indians is obviously false suggesting the other stories to follow are colored by time and perception as well. The description of blood in a black and white video appearing as "shadow" diminishes the deaths as most television "news" reports do. Likewise, the wind blowing "especially " through his lover's hair speaks to the idea that we see things through our own prism. Bob Dylan claimed John to be his favorite song writer and this to be his favorite Prine song. It is not mine but perhaps I need to learn it better.

What the song always meant to me was the contrast between modern life and earlier times, and what we've lost. In the past, even helpless innocents would be adopted and cared for. Today, although we have iPhones and flat screen TVs, innocents are murdered, or allowed to starve. It's harder and harder to find peaceful waters. And then Prine--the genius that he is--personalizes it. He multiplies the contrast, as not just between the native Americans' treatment of innocents and our modern-day, inherent violence and vulnerability, but adding in the statistical fact that we can't even manage to take care of and nurture those we have sworn to love in our personal lives. "What a beautiful world it once was," Norman McLean said in A River Runs Through It. What a cold, cruel, and messed-up world we've built to take its place, I think John is saying.