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

Introduction

introduction T ownes Van Zandt simply never fit this earthly world.1 After all, theFortWorthnative,acultfigureatbestoutsidetheTexasand Tennessee music communities during his lifetime, knew his time here would be short. “I don’t envision a very long life for myself,” a youthful Van Zandt says early in Margaret Brown’s 2005 documentaryBe Here To Love Me. “Like, I think my life will run out before my work does, you know? I’ve designed it that way.” The “electric cowboy” lived fast andwrotefaster,evenashisblueprintdevolvedintoalcoholismanddrug addiction’s slow suicide.2 Townes Van Zandt, born in Fort Worth, Texas, on March 7, 1944, baitedhisdemonsforfifty-twoyears,ajourneyfurtherdarkenedbysevere manic depression and electroshock therapy, before dying at his Smyrna, Tennessee, home on January 1, 1997.3 Along the way, he became one of the modern era’s most elegant lyricists. Consider the opening lines of “Quicksilver Daydreams of Maria”: “Well, the diamond fades quickly whenmatchedtothefaceofMaria/Alltheharpstheysoundemptywhen 2 InTroDuCTIon she lifts her lips to the sky / The brown of her skin makes her hair seem a soft golden rainfall / That spills from the mountains to the bottomless depths of her eyes.” Every word frames his desire’s beauty. His poetic skills eventually earned Townes Van Zandt the admiration of millions, including his own musical peers. “As far as I was concerned, he was the best songwriter that ever lived,” legendary tunesmith Billy Joe Shaver says of Van Zandt, “and that’s it.”4 Van Zandt believed his craft demanded high sacrifice. “You have to blow off your family,” he said. “You have to blow off comfort. You have to blow off money. You have to blow off your ego. You have to blow off everythingexceptyourguitar.”5 Manymusiccriticsagreethatatleasttwo dozen of his songs––including “For the Sake of the Song,” “If I Needed You,”“Waitin’AroundtoDie,”“Snowin’onRaton,”“Marie,”and“Flyin’ Shoes”––justifyhisclaim.Otherscitehigh-watermarkssuchas“Pancho andLefty,”“ToLive’sToFly,”“TecumsehValley,”“Lungs,”“TheHighway Kind,” and “Rex’s Blues” as unparalleled lyrical masterworks. Remarkably , Van Zandt composed his most timeless lyrics before age thirty.6 “When I heard ‘Marie,’ I thought that was one of the greatest tunes ever written,” says country music legend Willie Nelson, who recorded that song on the album Poet: A Tribute to Townes Van Zandt (2001). “You could tell exactly who Townes was by what he wrote. I think I knew him before I met him, just by listening to his songs.”7 TownesVanZandtdiscipleshavelabeledhimapoetandprophetforfour decades, but the songwriter’s own reckless and reclusive behavior stifled widespread notoriety.8 Living in shacks without indoor plumbing and performingfall -down(orfall-asleep-onstage)drunkconcertsattheUniversity of Texas’ Cactus Café in Austin and elsewhere fueled his myth as a brilliant but tragic figure. His was art ripe for posthumous renaissance. Recenthistoryhasobliged.VanZandthasgainedbroaderrespectand appreciationintheyearssincehisdeath,andbiographersJohnKruth(To Live’s To Fly: The Ballad of the Late, Great Townes Van Zandt, Da Capo Press, 2007) and Robert Earl Hardy (A Deeper Blue: The Life and Music of Townes Van Zandt, University of North Texas Press, 2008) have chronicled his life in InTroDuCTIon 3 detail. Songwriting pupil Steve Earle, who refutes theories that his tutor was ahead of (or simply beyond) his time, cracked Billboard’s Top 20 in May 2009 with his Grammy-winning tribute album, Townes. Earle says, “I don’t think [Townes] was a misunderstood genius. He shot himself in the foot constantly.”9 Most critics agree that the troubled troubadour produced his finest recorded work in Houston in July 1973. Taped over a consecutive sevennightstandatRexBellandDaleSoffar ’soriginalMagnoliaCityclub, Live at the Old Quarter (1977) showcases Townes Van Zandt’s raw narratives, solo and acoustic, before a rare full house and delivered in peak form. “I used to go see him at the Old Quarter when I was a kid,” says Jesse Dayton, a current Texas roadhouse staple. “I’d be the only one in there with the wait staff. It’d be like seeing Bob Dylan and Hank Williams all rolled into one––if he wasn’t drunk, of course. “Townes went from moaning these country blues to having this really smart folk sensibility without ever seeming like less of a hillbilly,” Dayton continues. “To me, ‘Tecumseh Valley’ is the saddest song I’ve ever heard. I intentionally don’t listen to that song because it makes me bawl like a baby. Townes had an intellectual side to his music that wasn’t something he was copying. I mean, Dylan has come out and said that ‘Pancho and Lefty’ is the best...