TD: A Troubled Troubadour

So far Pat has been mostly discussing music, although I did include a list of my favorite albums of the decade. I've decided to do a spotlight like he did, but focus on only one artist--Townes Van Zandt.

Townes was a singer/songwriter from the southwest who wrote songs from the the early 1960s to 1995, when he died. Troubled by a life of mental illness, Townes' songs are often filled with images of depression and loss. Wound together with by many colorful metaphors and soft guitar picking, Townes used his rough and tumble southern drawl to deliver his songs.

Every song Townes has written is unique and worth listening to but I'll spotlight a few gems.

"She Came and She Touched Me"

Here's one particular stanza that is beautiful:
"Then I turn and I see her
In a dress made of moonlight
Teardrops like diamonds
Run slow down her face
Her arms surround me
Like chains made of velvet
And the demons fall faithfully
Into their place"

"Pancho and Lefty"

This performance was near the end of his career so it's a bit shaky.

My favorite lyric "the dust that Pancho bit down south ended up in lefty's mouth" is only appreciated in context.

Currently my favorite TVZ song is "The Tower Song." This version is from his best album, Live at The Old Courter in Houston from 1973. It's a double disc of songs recorded from one night at a small bar owned by a few country/folk musicians. Townes played their often.

Townes was never concerned with studio albums and as result was brutally mishandled by managers and producers--over producing his simple sound with unnecessary strings.

There was a recently made documentary about Townes, Be Here to Love Me. The film is outstanding and the soundtrack even better. It's of course, all Townes.

Legendary country singer Steve Earl was quoted in saying, "Townes van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that."

Although Townes Van Zandt's career was sidelined by his drug and alcohol addictions and cut short by his death, I am starting to agree with Earl. I have yet to stumble across a Townes song that's shallow and I don't know of a songwriter alive that could stand behind that. Even Dylan wasn't always on his game. (Recent Bob Dylan is another story)

I find many similarities between Van Zandt, Dylan, Neil Young and other musicians from the 60s and 70s that consider themselves "singer/songwriters," but Townes Van Zandt is certainly the best singing poet I've ever encountered...and maybe the saddest.