Musing on Prine

Written March 2023

You’re out there running just to be on the run

My roommate often brings up how isolated she feels here on campus. She’s a first-year student, with a lot left to do and see. She’s also from northern Virginia, where there is comparably (by most conventional standards) much “more” to do and see. That commonly held belief couldn’t be more wrong. 

John Prine was a famous folk musician lost to the coronavirus pandemic in April of 2020. One of his most well-known songs is “The Speed of the Sound of Loneliness” from his 1986 album German Afternoons. While the song might have infinite interpretations, I believe we can find within it a recipe for coming to Blacksburg, and how to cope with the differences from wherever it is you came from. 

You come home late and you come home early

…

Sometimes you don’t come home at all

One of life’s greatest simple pleasures is the freedom to go where you will when you can. Here, that more likely means the outdoors than anywhere else. Campus affords the opportunity to wander in the late night – grassy quads to lay in, staircases to stargaze from, unfamiliar buildings to explore. 

If you have a way to get off campus, you can go far – the West Virginia line lay less than an hour west, North Carolina less than an hour and a half to the south, Tennessee two hours to the southwest, and of course the whole of Virginia at your feet as well. I know people who’ve never left their home states, or never visited some of their border states, with the reasoning of never having had a reason to. 

There’s nothing wrong with running for a while – to the woods or to a city away from here, just to the highway and back, even just out your door to some cool night air. 

Coming home late is always a good enough reason in my book.