Townes Van Zandt

[Curt McGirt]

You asked for it, now you got it. 

 

[Execproducer]

As long as there is going to be a Townes thread anyway.....

 

 

[Robert C]

Well, at least now I have an excuse to post this

 

 

[zev]

Taken by one helluva singer who is cool with me sharing it:

 

[Curt McGirt]

On 4/7/2016 at 7:17 AM, Execproducer said:

As long as there is going to be a Townes thread anyway.....

 

 

The backup musicians save it because if it was just him and his guitar, with that cracked and dying voice of his and those lyrics, you too would just roll over and die. Goddamn, the man was a font of misery. And I love him for it. Rest in Peace, Townes. 

EDIT: I found that version. Now I will roll over and die. Can't possibly subject you to it. 

[Robert C]

Speaking of just Townes and a guitar, this is probably my favorite song of his:

 

 

Also, not surprisingly, lots of folks have stories about Townes.  From a Billy Joe Shaver article a couple years ago:

“My wife just hated Townes [Van Zandt].  I met him when she and I lived in Houston, and me and him got into LSD. All these kids were into it, and they had places where you could hit it and watch movies, with mattresses on the floor where you laid down because after you took that shit, you couldn’t walk. My wife’d have to come and almost scrape us off the pavement. 

“Years later, after she’d had cancer a couple years and was getting close to death, a doctor told me she wasn’t going to make it through the night. So I told her I’d had a dream that she had passed and that Townes was up there to greet her. She hated that guy so bad she said, ‘I ain’t going.’ She lived another year almost.”