Sam Stone

Sam Stone is about a drug-addicted veteran with a Purple Heart who dies of an overdose. Prine's original title was Great Society Conflict Veteran's Blues. The song never mentions Vietnam, saying only that Sam came home from serving in the conflict overseas, and it is usually read as being about heroin or morphine addiction among Vietnam veterans.

In a 1978 interview with Songwriter magazine, Prine said the refrain, there's a hole in Daddy's arm where all the money goes, came to him while he was walking his mail route. He knew there was a story to be told and wrote the song that same day, without a guitar, so the words had to carry the tune. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser said that none of our poets wrote anything better about Vietnam.

Roger Waters borrowed part of the melody for the opening of The Post War Dream on Pink Floyd's The Final Cut in 1983. Johnny Cash changed the line about Jesus Christ dying for nothing when he sang it live, with Prine's permission, though Prine called the original line the heart of the song. In 2013 a Rolling Stone poll put it eighth among the ten saddest songs of all time. Prine played it 488 times in logged setlists, more than any other song. He closed his 2010 Old Town School concert with it, along with Hello in There and Paradise.