"John is the only artist who can make the kids giggle on one track then move the adults to tears on the next. A powerful writer.  Master of word and emotion."                                   

Never one to shy away from life, John has always tried to reach out to his audience though his material. "I have always been kind of intuitively hooked into the idea that we're all not so far apart," John related. "And if we're honest with each other, we can find that out."

Although Flynn writes a variety of different kinds of songs from story songs to fun songs to almost songwriting exercises to deeply personal songs, it is in the last category that he feels he is the strongest. "I guess the songs that tend to mean the most are the ones that the only reason that they're songs is because I'm a songwriter." John stated. With those songs it's not, "Gosh, what should I write about today?" it's something that's going round and round in his head and instead of writing in a diary or talking it out with someone, he writes a song.

For instance, on his latest album, one of the most powerful songs is called "Thin Air." The song is about a friend's eating disorder. The first two lines of the song are "And if I don't swallow what you're handing me/That just kind of makes us even can't you see." That very clever way of saying, "I see what you're doing and I don't believe you're okay" while at the same time relating the problem, is the kind of songwriting wizardry that John does best.

For as strong of a song as "Thin Air" is, it was almost one of those songs that remained in the artist's personal collection, never to be displayed in front of a crowd. "When I look back on it, I didn't even know that I was going to let people hear it," John admitted. "I was afraid people would know exactly who I was talking about and in some way it might injure that person."

Ironically enough, the song ended up on the album largely due to the person the song was written about requesting it. John explained, "They came to me and said, 'I think this is a very important song and I'd be really proud if you'd sing it.'"

Another side of Flynn is the playful intellectual challenging himself with puzzles to keep his creativity flowing. The last track on the current album, for example, is entitled "Two Letters." Although the song is about two letters attempting to travel through the mail, the chorus is comprised of words which only contain... two letters.

John noted, "Students of James Taylor can see the line that goes back to the song he did that was a total word exercise. The title of the song was 'BSURSUCSIMIM.' I was just always blown away by that and in the back of my mind, I just always wanted to do something like that."

But don't think that it's total self-indulgence because besides being clever on a couple of levels, it also contains arguably the strongest melody on the album. And for all the work that went into the lyrics, according to John, the melody was effortlessly written, you know, one of those melodies that wrote itself. Flynn questioned, "What is it about 3/4 time that propels melodies? If you think

about it, it's really hard to come up with any kind of a waltz time tune that's not hummable."

A few degrees closer to center, there is the part of John that is interested in fun. When pressed about the level to which he has honed his craft, and the depths of meaning he can achieve, Flynn quickly retorted, "I'm a firm believer that songs don't have to be important."

It's actually kind of "funny" that he said that because it was originally "goofy" songs which brought him to the attention of the public. Years ago, after his stint as a staff writer, John broke heavily on local radio with songs like "The Duck Song" and "Road Kill Cafe." Both songs contained a brilliant flair for wordplay, and made their point in such an upbeat manner that they crossed-over and became embraced by a market that he wasn't particularly aiming for: Children's music.

 family CD which contained a lot of older material that may not have originally been intended for a younger audience, but ultimately became some of the best music of the genre.

Love Takes A Whole Box Of Crayons was the name of that family album. It was the first time in his career that Flynn made more money as a recording artist than he did as a performer. "My record sales generated enough money for me to live on... and the more I understand about the music business the more I understand that's amazing," he revealed.

Given the gift of his success in a particular market, it would only make sense that John would try and capitalize on his established crowd. As a matter of fact, John said it would have made perfect sense to have come out with another Children's album. Perfect sense to everyone but him. "I've never wanted to write a single type of song." John commented.

Which brings us back around for one last look at yet another side of this talented craftsman. All great songwriters, to varying degrees, are also great storytellers. John achieves the label of "storyteller" a few times on his latest album, but it's the song called "The Advice" which stands out as a lasting piece of fiction. John explained the story behind the song, "The song came to me in little bits and pieces from some of the people that I've run across in the business: either physical descriptions or pieces of soul. A lot of it was based on Kris Kristofferson and a lot of it was based on Ralph Waldo Emerson. It was kind of putting those two artists together and having a kind of a fictional conversation."

Story songs, fun songs, writing exercises and moving songs are all different sides of the man who said, "I've never wanted to write a single type of song." And all are equally represented on the debut CD entitled John Flynn (Sliced Bread Records, P.O. Box 606, Blue Bell, PA 1942)

"Old Paint"
The Story Behind the Song

"That's the name of my van, actually. I wrote the song about my van, but I decided to leave the connection a little ambiguous because I wanted it to be left to the listener whatever it is that takes a person home, physical or otherwise. But I actually knew a gerbil named Old Paint when I was younger and I thought it was a cool name."

The Story Behind the title

"It was a hard song to name. I'm not sure it's the best name because, as I said, there's really nothing to connect it to the van and I'm not sure that everyone has a gerbil named Old Paint. At one point, when I had played the song and hadn't named it, somebody in my audience said. 'Obviously that's going to be called This Old Horse and it will go with This Old Town, and he had a whole list of This Old songs that I had written. I thought, 'That's really true, I don't need another title This Old ____ ' so I started on a whole new titled process."

The Story Behind the Fade?!

"I originally ended up that song by whistling a few lines from Back In The Saddle Again - four notes - until Gene Autry's attorneys told me (after we had mastered the record), that that wasn't a good idea. We had to go back into the studio and fade it."

"I probably could have left those four notes on, but I had drawn so many allusions, that I didn't want to be showing disrespect. Also, we were standing on pretty shaky ground. What could I have said, 'It was a total accident sir... wasn't that J.S. Bach?' Plus, we tried to send the song to Gene because we thought he would be very cool with it, but I don't think it ever got past the watchdogs. So it ended differently than I had envisioned."

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