Regarding The Awesomeness Of Joe Pernice's "Prince Valium"

Overcome By Happiness is where I first learned about the Pernice Brothers, or specifically, Joe Pernice. I have no idea how I discovered them. In fact, it wasn’t until I fell in love wit that album before I knew about Scud Mountain Boys or that everything was pretty much a project of Joe’s. In fact, I assumed that the Pernice Brothers were some kind of brotherly project, like the Bee Gees or the Beach Boys or any other band that’s fronted by siblings.

Needless to say, I fell in love with Overcome By Happiness and wanted more. In the process of discovery, I found my favorite song ever by Joe Pernice-a song that came from a solo effort.

Or at least from a solo effort from the album Big Tobacco.

In the process of trying to help you discover how awesome this song is, I could only come up with an audience member video of a solo acoustic performance. The original version is a lot better and the lyrics are utterly stunning.

Hopefully, the greatness of this track transcends the quality of the video and you’re able to hear the words of my favorite Joe Pernice track ever.

I’d recommend Overcome By Happiness first; as a whole record, it’s much better than Big Tobacco. But if you’re not a completists or if you’re not one that needs to have the complete release, then go over to ITunes and spend the buck or so on “Prince Valium.”

If you need proof of the greatness of the lyrics, they’re reprinted below.

Follow along and weep; I swear I lived this track at one point in my life.

Once or twice to kill my pain
And once to bring it back again
Though I never leaned so heavy on a song

It’s the losing end that will bring you down
So broke and lonely you won’t be found
Though you pray sometime you’ll go back there again

Because the cure is long and coming
And it never lasts so long
Guess a little was just a little too much to ask you for

Maybe once or twice, for the last time try
And once to let my feelings die
I can’t remember if we both survived

Always knew you’d be going
But I did not know just when
So help me Lord, get me stoned again

Update: In the quest for these lyrics, I found out that there’s an artist with Caesar that has a song named “Prince Valium.” It’s not the same tune, and I don’t know why someone wouldn’t tell Caesar “Hey, you know Joe Pernice has a song that’s also called ‘Prince Valium,’ so you may want to change yours a bit because Pernice’s version is incredible.”