I'll Be Here in the Morning: The Songwriting Legacy of Townes Van Zandt

Graham Leader & Heartworn Highways

I guess I’ll keep a-gamblin’, lots of booze and lots of ramblin’ It’s easier than waiting around to die —TVZ, “Waitin’ Around to Die,” from For the Sake of the Song M any music critics consider the documentary Heartworn Highways (1981) to be a primary reference point for the 1970sNewCountrymusicmovement.1 Thenonlinearfilm draws parallels between the songwriting communities in Austin and Nashville by highlighting clear emphases on art rather than commerce. Furthermore, Heartworn Highways illuminates Townes Van Zandt’s naGraham leader & Heartworn Highways Graham Leader. Courtesy Graham Leader GrAHAM leADer AnD HeArTworn HIGHwAyS 63 ture as an outsider versus Guy Clark’s more communal approach to the songwriting craft. While the filmmakers find Clark, Steve Young, and youthful pupils Steve Earle, Rodney Crowell, and John Hiatt staking claim to Clark’s proclamation that “Nashville in the ’70s was like Paris in the ’20s,” Van Zandt alone represents Austin.2 The movie’s producer Graham Leader and director James Szalapski capture important insight into Van Zandt during a passage filmed inside his neighbor “Uncle” Seymour Washington’s small house in Austin’s Clarksville neighborhood. The scene shows Washington, a 79-year-old “walkingblacksmith”who“might’vemadeagoodpreacher,”explaining the equal measures of deliverance and damnation in drinking whiskey. VanZandtimmediatelybetrayshisidiosyncrasies.AfterWashingtonsays, “Peoplecondemnwhiskey,buttheyhavenorightto,”VanZandtexclaims, “Amen.” However, Washington quickly aims his attention at Van Zandt and lectures, “But you don’t have to drink a barrel of whiskey because you see a barrel sitting there.” The songwriter appears ashamed.3 The visceral power of Van Zandt’s music soon emerges. As he plays his song “Waitin’ Around to Die,” Washington openly weeps under the weight of its lyric, “I tried to kill the pain / I bought some booze and hoppedatrain.”4 VanZandtlaterrecalledthelighterfree-for-allaspectsof theday.“Itwaswinter,andtheywantedtohaveaSeymour-stylebarbecue where we lived,” he said. “A couple friends and I tried to get a fire going. There were people driving past looking at us like we were nuts.”5 Earlierinthefilm,VanZandtandhisyounggirlfriend(laterhissecond wife) Cindy Morgan give an animated tour of their ramshackle yard. The songwriter cradles a rifle, a bottle of whiskey, and a soft-drink mixer. He’s charismatic and reckless and clearly at ease in front of the camera. “He was the best thing in that movie,” Guy Clark says. “Townes is the only guy who didn’t try to play it like the camera wasn’t there. He’s just the most extraordinary character, the best as far as I’m concerned.”6 However,guitaristMickeyWhiteremembersthistimeduringthemid1970s as a creative low point for Van Zandt. “It wasn’t a very productive time for him,” White says. “He didn’t do too many gigs. He mostly sat around drunk all the time.”7 In fact, Van Zandt overdosed on heroin in 64 I’ll Be Here In THe MornInG frontofCindywhiletheylivedtogetherinClarksville(nothisfirstheroin overdose). In a separate incident, he was discovered unconscious in a dumpster two months before the filmmakers arrived in Austin and was admitted into the alcohol and drug abuse treatment ward of Austin’s Brackenridge Hospital.8 Townes Van Zandt’s contributions to Heartworn Highways nevertheless remaininvaluable.Notably,hissyrupyearlyversionof“PanchoandLefty” withitsmeasureddeliveryandunpolishedlyricsprovesadistincthighlight ofbonusfootageincludedinthefilm’s2003re-release.“Iwrotethisabout two Mexican bandits that I saw on the TV,” Van Zandt says, “two weeks after I wrote the song.” Equally loose extras, including performances by Clark(“DesperadoesWaitingforaTrain”),Earle(“Darlin’,CommitMe”), and Hiatt (“One for the One”), mirror Leader and Szalapski’s haphazard approach. “The film was really shot from the hip,” Leader says. “We went down there with an idea of what we were after and the musicians we were interested in and culture that we wanted to discover. There was no script, no blueprint, nothing.”9 • • • Graham leader Townes was going to be a central character in the film, to the extent that youcancaptureTownes.He’sfairlyelusiveinmanywaysandisveryopen in many ways. We didn’t have much time to make the film and very little money. We spent a total of three days in Austin, and we just took Townes as we found him. Everything Townes gives you is a gift. I think he’s clearly one of the most freethinking, original poets, and he’s a performer. He’s got the gift of the gab. He’s a performance artist. That whole thing in the film in the garden and around the cabin, the rabbit holes and everything, that’s completely off the cuff. He shows the chicken coop and the champion chicken and the piece...