This next album came out in 1969. That year some pretty impressive albums were also released by The Beatles (Abbey Road), The Rolling Stones (Let It Bleed) and Bob Dylan (Nashville Skyline).
I own and love all these albums, but it is time to give this next record its equal share of the glory.
Disc 339 is...Townes Van Zandt (self-titled)
Artist: Townes Van Zandt
Year of Release: 1969
What’s Up With The Cover?: A peaceful looking Van Zandt sits at a table in his kitchen, eyes closed. Was he waiting to be fed and fell asleep, or is he just deep in thought? We just don't know. I do know his pants are a little short, but hey, it is 1969, so maybe that was the style at the time.
How I Came To Know It: As I alluded in the teaser, I've been on a Townes Van Zandt rampage the last two or three years, and this was just me buying more of whatever I could find by him.
How It Stacks Up: In addition to a couple of live albums, I now have seven studio albums by Van Zandt (with three more on my search list). Of the seven, this self-titled effort is pretty sweet. I'd put it second, displacing my earlier choice for that spot, "Our Mother The Mountain", by the narrowest of margins.
Rating: 5 stars
It has been over a hundred reviews since I reviewed my last Townes Van Zandt album ("Our Mother The Mountain" at Disc 236) and it is good to be back.
Townes' self-titled album was not his first album, but his third, immediately following "Our Mother The Mountain", released earlier in the same year. Where "Our Mother The Mountain" has a more sombre, moody tone, and a lot of narrative songs, "Townes Van Zandt" has a more introspective feel that is equally engaging; perhaps more so.
The topics on this album are those that Townes knows well; troubled relationships, living wrong and his ongoing (and only occasionally successful) efforts to find much meaning in day-to-day living.
This is an album from a man who thinks too much, and too deeply; character traits that speak to his exceptional intelligence, but that would also doom him to a life of substance abuse and an early death. On "Lungs" he sings:
"Well, won't you lend your lungs to me?
Mine are collapsing
Plant my feet and bitterly breathe
Up the time that's passing.
Breath I'll take and breath I'll give
Pray the day ain't poison
Stand among the ones that live
In lonely indecision."
The words of this song trip out quickly, and on every listen a different section will catch my attention and appreciation. No matter what section grabs me, I can see Townes standing in the dark, smoking and brooding about what it all means. He may be in indecision, but he's always looking for answers, and that's what makes the song resonate.
When Townes sings about love, he is part romantic, part realist. Like all subjects, Townes wants to get to the essence of any idea, and not just pay it lip-service. The first song on the album, "For The Sake Of The Song" is a beautiful depiction of an argument between a woman demanding a man be more emotionally open with her, and his reply that if he does not feel it, than to say otherwise would be simply dishonest:
"Why does she sing/her sad songs for me/I'm not the one
To tenderly bring/her soft sympathy/I've just begun
To see my way clear/and it's plain/if I stop I will fall
I can lay down a tear/for her pain/just a tear and that's all
What does she want me to do?/She says that she knows/that moments are rare
I suppose that it's true/Then on she goes/to say I don't care
And she knows that I do
Maybe she just has to sing for the sake of the song
Who do I think that I am to decide that she's wrong
The song is so melodic and true to the natural cadence of speech that at first I thought it was a form of sprung rhythm, but it isn't. It is actually a complex trio of rhymes broken by a caesura, or dramatic pause within each paired line like this:
ABC/ABC/DEF/DEF/GHI/GHI
Then just when you recognize and slip into this pattern Townes adds one extra third, an extra G (the rhyme, not the note), where he sings "And she knows that I do," creating a deeper emotional hit to the moment where he admits to caring for her, just not in the way she wants him to.
For anyone who thinks form and structure in writing is pointless, let Townes show you otherwise. The ear may not take the time to dissect the rhyming structure, but the use of it hits you where it hurts, and in doing so helps to demonstrate not only a conflict between two people, but an internal argument within the songwriter himself.
Thematically, I love how each verse ends with that heroic couplet, where he acknowledges that if she feels the need to tell him something, then who is he to tell her she shouldn't. It is his way of finding a middle ground, where if he can feel as he wants to, he must acknowledge she has an equal right to react to it. Brilliant stuff.
While "For The Sake of the Song" is perhaps the best example, Townes' phrasing and song construction is captivating on all these tracks. He's every bit the poet that more famous artists like Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen are, and his songs are just as thought provoking.
Musically, "Colorado Girl" is one of the better examples of how Townes draws us in, with simple arrangements, driven by a light western-guitar style. He plays similar to Gordon Lightfoot only a bit more thoughtful and - frankly - better (sorry Gord - you know I love you). I've always felt this song would be a great bookend with Jimmy Rankin's masterpiece "Colorado." Townes' song is about going out to Denver to find a girl he loves, and Jimmy's is about the heartache after that same woman leaves you.
Four of the tracks on this record were actually on Townes debut album titled, "For The Sake Of the Song", but this is actually a positive. "For The Sake Of The Song" suffers from low production value that make the songs on it (including the excellent title track) sound tinny and hurried. On "Townes Van Zandt" the production hits exactly the right notes, and shows these amazing songs in all their rightful glory.
"Townes Van Zandt" is a very short album. There are only ten songs, and the total running length is just shy of thirty-five minutes. I found myself having the opposite reaction I sometimes have, in that I wish it were longer. I'm not sure it could be long enough, in fact. This is a winner, and worth your time.
Best tracks: all tracks
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