“Angel from Montgomery” by John Prine & Bonnie Raitt

"Angel from Montgomery" first appeared on John Prine's self-titled 1971 album, and this take puts its writer side by side with Bonnie Raitt. It grew out of a friend's suggestion that Prine write another number about old people, a nod to his "Hello in There". Prine felt he'd said his piece there, but the idea steered him somewhere new: a middle-aged woman who feels far older than her years.

He pictured her standing at the dishwater with soap on her hands, aching to get out of the house, out of the marriage, out of everything, and wishing an angel would come and carry her off. Montgomery, he reckoned, came from his love of Hank Williams, who had ties to the city. Covers have piled up ever since, and no wonder: few songs pack that much quiet desperation into one plain picture.

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