The Pop Weekend : He’s Still Got It : John Prine Proves He Has the Old Magic but Uses Little That Is New in San Juan Capistrano Performance

For anyone who recognizes John Prine as one of the two or three finest songwriters of the rock era, the best thing about his show Friday at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano is that he proved he’s still got it.

Only trouble is, he left unclear just how much of it remains.

There’s no arguing about the quality of the material he presented during the first of three nights at the club, where last year about this time he thoroughly mined his extensive repertoire for the double album that resulted, “John Prine Live.”

But it was frustrating to walk away from a 90-minute solo concert that covered two dozen songs and realize that only two numbers were less than 10 years old. Of those, “One Red Rose,” used in the encore, was recorded in 1980 and getting mighty close to adolescence itself.

Any inkling as to what the 43-year-old songwriter from Illinois has up his typewriter these days had to come from one lone new song, about picking up the pieces of a shattered relationship.

At least that made it possible to breathe a little easier about the direction of Prine’s career, which has been spinning circles since his last major accomplishment, 1984’s “Aimless Love” album. (“German Afternoons” in 1986 is as close to a disposable album as one hopes Prine will ever get.)

As is his forte, Prine uses the details of everyday life, instead of espousing grandiose universalities, to illustrate the truths he finds in human nature. On the new song, which he didn’t give a title, he contrasted the sunny view of romance that children might have against the wistful rear-view-mirror glance of one who has seen love in all its glory and its pain.

When he reached the song’s hook, “I wish you all the best,” it wasn’t a fluffy, addle-brained refrain like Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” but the resigned acceptance of one who knows there’s nothing else to do after love has gone.

Prine had promised in an interview before the tri-night stand that “I won’t be lip-syncing the (live) record.” Truth is, however, that new, live versions of 11 of the 19 songs he sang Friday are on that album. Oh well--who’s counting, right?

Statistics aside, the remainder of the evening’s considerable rewards came in reveling in the skills of a master lyricist. He’s like a short story writer who paints a scene with a minimum of words chosen for maximum power.

From “Donald and Lydia,” a character sketch of two pitiably lonely souls, Prine sings: “Bunk beds, shaved heads, Saturday night/A warehouse of strangers in 60-watt light.” With 14 words, he creates a vision of a barracks full of alienated recruits waiting for something--anything--to deliver them from the killing fields of boredom.

And, like Mark Twain, Prine has a keen ear for speech. The way he enunciates the word “jewelry” as “joo-la-ry” helps conjure the image of a bewildered average Joe, hopelessly trying to figure out where the rosy future we were once promised disappeared to: “We are living in the future/I’ll tell you how I know/I read it in the paper/15 years ago/And we’re all driving rocket ships/And talking with our minds/And wearing turquoise jewelry/And standing in soup lines.”

The evening offered one other significant point of departure: fathoming the knee-jerk tendencies of audiences to sing along with favorite songs, no matter how odd the setting.

As Prine sang “Sam Stone,” his ode that crystallized the plight of the Vietnam vet, the crowd jumped in, brightly singing the harrowing chorus about a strung-out ex-soldier with no future: “There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes.” All that was left was for all to join hands and sway back and forth.

Randy Newman made a joke--or was it?--a few weeks ago when he played the Coach House and introduced a song as his attempt at a “We Are the World”-like anthem, encouraging everyone to chime in with him on the less-than-brotherly refrain “I Just Want You to Hurt Like I Do.”

Come to think of it, it just might make a guy like Prine wonder whether most people notice if he ever has anything new to say.