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John Prine & Iris DeMent — the story behind "In Spite of Ourselves"
100k ft — What is this?
John Prine & Iris DeMent — the story behind "In Spite of Ourselves"
50k ft — Why care?
Gems on VHS shares the duet and its backstory: Prine wrote the comic love song while recovering from throat cancer surgery and radiation, wrote it with DeMent's sassy voice in mind, and she first answered "Not while my mother's alive!" before recording it anyway.
10k ft — Key takeaways
• A great example of writing a duet for a specific singer's voice
5k ft — Tools & techniques
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1k ft — Deep-dive / try it
John Prine & Iris DeMent - “In Spite of Ourselves”
Today we’re looking back on a duet between two legendary figures of folk music. John Prine wrote this humorous track while recovering from radiation therapy and surgery on his throat. In a 2016 interview, he recounted requesting Iris Dement to join him on the track, “I kinda had her voice in mind when I was doing it because I know Iris can be a little sassy and she could tear this guy down… I told Iris, ‘I want you to listen to this and just see. It’s got a few questionable things in it that you’re gonna have to say. So you just tell me whether you would want to do it or not. We’ll leave it at that... So I didn’t hear from her for three weeks. Nothing. Finally, I called her and I said, “Iris?” And she said, “Yes?” I said, “Well?” And she…
Transcript excerpt
She thinks all my jokes are corny Conflict movies make her horny She lies a catch a bone and scrambles, swears like a sailor when she shaves her legs She takes a lick and keeps on taking I'm never going to let her go What's got more balls than a big brass monkey? Swacked out word or an a love bug junkie, spy as a fox, crazy as a moon Payday comes and he's a howling at the moon, but he's my baby, I don't mean maybe I'm never going to let him go In spite of ourselves, will he end up as it's not a rainbow? Against all odds, money we're the big door price