Credit: Kate IzorFounding Pink Floyd singer/bassist Roger Waters has posted a new video of him performing a solo acoustic version of John Prine‘s 1970 song “Paradise” in tribute to the acclaimed folk-country singer/songwriter, who died last Tuesday, April 7, at age 73 after contracting the COVID-19 virus.
Accompanying the clip, which is viewable on Waters’ official YouTube channel and social media sites, Roger posted a message that reads, “My friend John Prine died. This is his song, ‘Paradise.’ Miss you, brother.”
“Paradise,” which first appeared on Prine’s self-titled debut album, is a melancholy tune that tells the story of a young man who wants to visit his parents’ hometown in rural Kentucky, but is told by his father that it doesn’t exist anymore because it was destroyed by a coal company that had opened a mine in the area.
Over the years, a variety of other artists have covered the tune, including John Fogerty, Johnny Cash, The Everly Brothers, Jimmy Buffett, John Denver, Dwight Yoakam, Jackie DeShannon, Tom T. Hall, Lynn Anderson and Roy Acuff.
In an emotional, profanity-laced video message Waters posted on his Facebook page the week before Prine’s death, Roger said of his friend, “This man is full of love, and always has been his whole life…What a lovely, lovely, lovely, incredibly wonderful, talented human being [he] is.”
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