John Prine’s America, Hymns for the Working Class

A vanished hometown. A son who came back different. An elder on a quiet porch waiting for someone to say hello. We follow John Prine’s trail from Maywood, Illinois, to the coal seams of western Kentucky and the factory streets of Michigan, mapping how his songs became a living record of America’s working‑class migration. We start with the family story: parents who left Muhlenberg County for…