City Songs: Milwaukee Here We Come

John Prine w/ Melba Montgomery , Milwaukee Here I Come

[purchase]

Girl convinces boy to run away with her to Nashville. Upon arrival, boy loses girl to the Grand Ole Opry scene. Boy says he's heading back to Milwaukee until she decides which one she really wants: those opry stars, or him. Now give the poor, doomed fool the first verse, so we don't realize until the last minute or so that she was only using him to get to Ernest Tubb (though she'll settle for Lester Flatt, in a pinch); add a hopeful title and an upbeat countrified performance, set John Prine's broken twang against Melba Montgomery's aging but still perky country harmony, and you've got all the ingredients for the perfect honky-tonk tragedy.

From Prine's wonderfully consistent album of lighthearted classic country songs about infidelity, each one a duet with one of his favorite female folk and alt-country artists (Iris DeMent, Lucinda Williams, Connie Smith, Emmylou Harris, and more).