It’s got his dad’s real character – the corny jokes, the cheap cigar, his greatness at selling used cars. Written in 1977, it was on Steve’s album Say It In Private, produced by Joel Dorn. And never was there a more sweet and poignant song about a father than this one. Even when he’d look you in the eye and sell you a used car. But as Steve sings in the song, never was there a more charming guy on this planet. Steve Goodman’s dad didn’t work in a coal mine. Although this is as specific as it gets, with the true details of the life of his dad, known as Bud Goodman, a used car salesman in Chicago, it’s a song about all dads, and all children of parents who have dealt with the grief of losing their own dads. It’s also a perfect example of the songwriting wisdom that the more specific a song is, the more universal. More than forty years since it first emerged, it still is pure and perfect. When Stevie wrote a song, he wrote a song to be remembered. The son, the father, the love, the regret, the tune.
But more than anything, because it’s genuine.
It’s a song long beloved as among the greatest ever written from a son to his dad. It was about America, and how swiftly it has changed.īut this one. It was about coal-mining in America, and the little town of Paradise where it happened. Prine had already written a great song about his own father, “Paradise.” It was a song that moved his father more than any he ever wrote. When it came to writing a song about your father, even John Prine knew that nobody ever did it better than his pal, the late Steve Goodman.
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