There used to be a time when time was all John Prine had. So he let his mind wander to places where stories are born, rich characters spring to life and meaning is revealed in poetic grace.

"When you got a lot of spare time and you do nothing but daydream all day, you're able to use your imagination," the singer-songwriter said during a late October interview from his Nashville home.

Prine's daydreams have led him to write some pretty amazing songs — "Hello in There," "Paradise," "Illegal Smile," "Dear Abby," "Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore," "Angel From Montgomery." Many of those songs, which were never big radio or chart hits, have become nearly iconic and are mainstays of Prine's live shows. You can bet you will hear several of them when he plays at NAU's Ardrey Auditorium on Wednesday, the Dodge Theatre in Phoenix Friday, Nov. 20, and Fox Theatre in Tucson on Saturday, Nov. 21.

Which sort of surprises Prine. He was never one to project into the future when he started his music career nearly 40 years ago. But he certainly never imagined songs like "Sam Stone" would have a vibrant life nearly 30 years after he wrote them, or that he would have a tour schedule that kept him on the road a good third of the year.

"It's not like I had hits, but there are certain (songs) I have to sing because people are expecting it," Prine said. "They want to hear 'Sam Stone,' 'Hello in There,' a lot of the early stuff. I'm out there singing them every night and if they were going to get old, I would be the first one to know it."

Prine's daydreaming time was interrupted when he became a father 14 years ago. He has two sons — one 14, the other 13 — which has "really, really grounded me," he said.

"Now when I sit down to write it's more like, 'OK, it's Tuesday. Five o'clock and I got to be somewhere'," said Prine, 63. "It might be two weeks before I get a chance to sit down again."

Prine has never been one to write on demand, which he said is part natural inclination, part stubborn resistance. His songwriting is inspired, and when the inspiration strikes, he acts on it.

"I can write behind the steering wheel if something appeals to me. If an idea gets ahold of me, I don't let anything stop me. It stays in the back of my mind until I can actually sit down and commit it to paper," he said in a rough-hewn voice that has witnessed years of use and a fair amount of abuse.

"The best songs come along all at once, all tidy and wrapped up. When that happens, the best thing you can do is sit back and accept it. … Sometimes they are just delivered, like a child, and they are just perfect."

One of those songs was "I Just Want To Dance With You," which Prine cowrote with the George Strait in the 1980s. Prine cut the song soon after writing it. But it was Strait's version, released in 1998 when Prine was undergoing cancer treatments, that became a monster hit. Six months after Strait released it, Prine received a $600,000 royalty check — enough money, he recalled, to pay his medical bills.

Prine rebounded from the cancer with renewed energy and a new appreciation for life and his music.

The biggest change, though, came in his live shows. He had to rework his catalogue to match his new voice, which had dropped a register or two. Suddenly songs that he had been singing night after night for decades felt new.

"A simple thing like that was like I discovered the songs all over again," he explained.

Prine is not a prolific recording artist. His live shows have always driven his career, fueled by a constantly changing fanbase that includes older folks and their children and grandchildren. It is this universal appeal that stumps Prine. He muses aloud that his music career didn't start out as a career; it started out as a dare, evolved into a hobby and then turned into an enduring legacy.

"I couldn't say I had dreamed of doing this, but (I had) a yearning to do it. I would be making up songs even if I was a retired mailman right now," he said. "It's amazing to me that I have been able to make a living out of it.

"Right now, as far as I'm concerned, what I do, I'm at the top of my career," he added. "I'm playing nothing but places I want to play. The dressing rooms are real nice; there are no rats in them. The pizza's warm. What else could you ask for?"

Contact reporter Cathalena E. Burch at cburch@azstarnet.com or 573-4642.