About Sam Stone

"Sam Stone" is a song written by John Prine about a drug-addicted veteran with a Purple Heart and his death by overdose. It appeared on Prine's eponymous 1971 debut album. The song was originally titled "Great Society Conflict Veteran's Blues". The song is usually interpreted as a reference to the phenomenon of heroin or morphine addiction among Vietnam war veterans. A similar surge of addiction followed the Civil War, after which morphine addiction was known as "Soldiers' Disease". The song does not mention the Vietnam War, saying only that Sam returned from "serving in the conflict overseas".

There is a single explicit reference to morphine, but Prine alludes to heroin on several occasions including the use of the term "habit", slang commonly associated with heroin use, and the line "he popped his last balloon", very likely referring to one of the ways in which street heroin is commonly packaged – in small rubber balloons. The song's refrain begins, "There's a hole in Daddy's arm where all the money goes" and concludes with "Sweet songs never last too long on broken radios". Time magazine reviewed the song on July 24, 1972 "Sam Stone" ranked eighth in a Rolling Stone magazine poll of the ten saddest songs of all time.