The 15 Greatest Townes Van Zandt Songs of All Time
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images Music Lists Townes Van Zandt
If you’re a fan of outlaw country, there’s a pretty good chance the name Townes Van Zandt means a lot to you. The rebellious singer spent his lifetime penning flowery ballads that land somewhere in between Gram Parsons and Bob Dylan. While Van Zandt is a prolific figure within his niche, on a broader level, he’s one of the most underrated songwriters of all time.
Van Zandt was born in Fort Worth, Texas in 1944. His parents were well-off descendants of Confederate generals and leaders of the Republic of Texas. He spent his childhood bouncing between Texas, Montana, and Colorado, and this unmoored youth seems to have impacted his enduring nomadic spirit. Van Zandt was gifted a guitar at age nine, after he became infatuated with Elvis Presley. He nonchalantly mastered the instrument on strolls through the countryside.
The troubadour went off to college at the University of Colorado Boulder and quickly discovered his love of binge drinking. His parents took him out of school as a sophomore, and he was quickly diagnosed with severe depression. This led to Van Zandt receiving insulin shock therapy, which involved being put in daily comas for weeks on end. At the end of his treatment, his long-term memory had been erased. He was later accepted into a pre-law program and, eventually, tried to join the Air Force. But his history of mental illness led to him being deemed unfit for military service. Shortly after, Van Zandt’s father died. He dropped out of school for good, and embraced the tough life of a musician.
Van Zandt cut his teeth in Houston, playing cheap shows at divey coffee shops and lounges. During this period, he bumped shoulders with kindred spirits, and was asked to audition for the 13th Floor Elevators. In 1968, he released his melancholy debut, For The Sake Of The Song. Though the record was commercially unsuccessful, it didn’t stop Van Zandt from putting out five more albums over the course of the next four years. His early run as a songwriter produced timeless gems like 1969’s Our Mother The Mountain and 1972’s The Late Great Townes Van Zandt. After laying low for a spell, he resurfaced in 1977 with the incredible Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas. He would continue releasing music through the mid-‘90s.
A true oddball defined by puzzling contradictions, Van Zandt lived a cinematically troubled adulthood. His touring mainly brought him to ramshackle bars, and he often lived in heatless shacks and motel rooms. He repeatedly married and divorced, and was a distant father. Van Zandt struggled with heroin addiction, and drank so heavily that he had to be constantly supervised by a caretaker. He often became so inebriated, he would forget his own songs on stage and end shows early. After numerous trips to rehab and a one year period of failed sobriety, Van Zandt’s habits got the best of him. He fell down the stairs in 1996 while recording with members of Sonic Youth in Memphis, severely injuring his hip in the process. After begrudging hospitalization, he overdosed on a mixture of vodka, marijuana, and Tylenol shortly after returning home.
In spite of his problematic tendencies, Van Zandt’s artistry was generally poignant and tender. For as much as he leaned into the seediness that often got the best of him, he was also one to find boundless inspiration in the mundane. To honor Van Zandt’s legacy, Paste is looking back at his 15 best tracks.
15. “Mr. Mudd And Mr. Gold”
Townes Van Zandt’s 1971 record High, Low And In Between is an understated gem in his discography. The standout from the record is “Mr. Mudd And Mr. Gold.” Over blocky chords, he tells a verbose tale of two men playing stud poker, and each other in the process. It offers a snapshot of Van Zandt’s charismatic slyness.
14. “Honky Tonkin’”
Van Zandt’s music usually feels as indebted to folk and Americana as it does to typical country. But “Honky Tonkin’” is a pure Western gem. “We’ll go honky tonking, honey baby,” he sings on the chorus, over a shuffling beat.
13. “Sad Cinderella”
The version of “Sad Cinderella” that appears on Van Zandt’s debut is sonically kaleidoscopic. Bright guitars and harpsichords complement swirling choral arrangements. But Van Zandt’s verse lives up to the song’s forlorn title. “When the fire dancers finish and leave you alone / With nothing but embers and sacks full of stone / That hang round your neck, slicing through to the bone / Will there still be a place for your laughter?,” he ponders in the third verse. It’s a mesmerizing track about desolation and emptiness.
12. “If I Needed You”
“If I Needed You” is yet another standout from The Late Great Townes Van Zandt. It finds his uplifting vocal melodies resting atop simple, but commanding drums and sepia-tinted slide guitar. The whole thing drips like honey, and lent itself well to a 1981 cover duet from Emmylou Harris and Don Williams.
11. “Lungs”
“Lungs” opens with a mournful, overcast lick. It appropriately prefaces Van Zandt’s depressing grappling with the long-term effects of insulin shock therapy. The severe treatment permanently damaged his lungs, and this song finds him yearning for a healthier body. “Won’t you lend your lungs to me? Mine are collapsing / Plant my feet and bitterly breathe up the time that’s passing,” he sings in the opening lines. It’s one of the most heart wrenching and direct songs Van Zandt ever laid to tape.
10. “Heavenly Houseboat Blues”
The most recognizable song from The Late Great Townes Van Zandt is “Pancho & Lefty.” But the most beautiful cut on the record is the closer, “Heavenly Houseboat Blues.” Over a sepia-tinted melody, Van Zandt croons about sailing to better places in an ornate ship. At once cosmic and spiritual, it’s one of the warmest songs he ever penned.
9. “Dead Flowers”
1994’s Road Songs is a late-career standout in Van Zandt’s discography. As dusty as its cover, it finds his liquor-soaked vocals lilting over bluesy guitar licks. My favorite song from the record is “Dead Flowers.” A cover of the Rolling Stones’ 1971 Sticky Fingers cut, Van Zandt leads the ricketiness of the original to another level. Four years later, the song was selected to play in the final scene of the Coen brothers’ iconic film, The Big Lebowski.
8. “Tecumseh Valley”
Named for a location in Oklahoma, “Tecumseh Valley” tells the tale of a woman living a hard knock life in the American West. “But the times were hard, Lord, / The jobs were few / All through Tecumseh valley,” he sings, setting a stoic scene before he tells the story of her descent from bartender to sex worker to death. While gritty and pessimistic, the song still flaunts an airy, bohemian sonic edge. It was inspired by the ‘30s, but bears understated trappings of ‘60s psychedelia.
7. “Cocaine Blues (Live at the Old Quarter)”
Van Zandt’s live shows were famously hit or miss. Sometimes, his steadfast charisma would beam bright. At others, he came on stage too drunk to play at all. In spite of this volatility, the live recording of his 1973 concert at The Old Quarter in Houston, Texas is one for the books. Over the course of 92 minutes, he cracks jokes to a quiet audience in between barren strumming and withdrawn vocals. On “Cocaine Blues,” Van Zandt presents his overcast take on Lead Belly’s “Take a Whiff on Me.” For a song about uppers, this one is alluringly downcast.
6. “For the Sake of the Song”
“For the Sake of the Song” initially appeared as the title-track of Van Zandt’s debut. But my favorite version is the reworking that opens his eponymous 1969 record. Stripping the jangly original to its roots, Van Zandt’s voice is particularly commanding here. “Maybe she just has to sing for the sake of the song / And who do I think that I am to decide that she’s wrong,” he ponders over resonant fretwork. The end result teems with hoarse, pleading energy.
5. “Our Mother the Mountain”
Van Zandt’s second album, Our Mother the Mountain, found him settling into his trademark stripped-back sound. The title-track is cavernous and ruddy, driven by full-bodied, rhythmically off-kilter vocals. “I reach for her hand and her eyes turn to poison / And her hair turns to splinters, and her flesh turns to brine,” he sings in the fourth verse, over what sounds like a demented Donovan arrangement. A dramatic lament over a fleeting lover, “Our Mother The Mountain” captures Van Zandt at his darkest.
4. “Waiting Around To Die”
Van Zandt’s 1968 debut is one of the saddest records in his entire catalog. Produced by Nashville legend Jack Clement, the album drowns morose lyricism in a chipper wall of sound. “Waiting Around To Die” is a haunting standout on the album. “Sometimes, I don’t know where this dirty road is taking me / Sometimes, I don’t even know the reason why / But I guess I keep a-gamblin’, lots of booze, and lots of ramblin / Well, it’s easier than just a-waitin’ around to die,” he sings in the first verse, over lonesome theremin flourishes and galloping woodblock. By the time the song is fading out, Van Zandt has chipperly vowed to die with a codeine bottle in hand.
3. “Pancho & Lefty”
“Pancho & Lefty” is arguably the most iconic cut in Van Zandt’s discography, thanks in large part to a 1983 cover by Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. Their bold take landed at number one on the Billboard country chart. And while that reworking is certainly great, it lacks the dustiness that makes Van Zandt’s original so eerie. Regardless of who’s singing it, lyrics about bandits, betrayal, and loneliness seem to present a far-fetched spin on Van Zandt’s own human experience.
2. “I’ll Be Here In The Morning”
“I’ll Be Here In The Morning” is one of the most romantic country songs ever written. Carried by Van Zandt’s nimble fingerpicking, he contrasts oblique verses about rambling freedom with a romantic chorus. “I’ll be layin’ here beside you when the sun comes on the rise / I’ll stay as long as the cuckoo wails and the lonesome blue jay cries,” he sings on the fourth verse, addressing his aloofness with a touch of bittersweet humor. It’s an outwardly intimate song whose candid selfishness only becomes apparent upon close examination.
1. “Fare Thee Well, Miss Carousel”
Van Zandt was a big fan of Bob Dylan’s work, but he consistently rejected offers to collaborate with the legendary songwriter—he was nervous about what might happen if he attached himself to celebrity. 1969’s “Fare Thee Well, Miss Carousel” plays like what a hypothetical partnership between the two great musicians may have sounded like. Over five and a half minutes, Van Zandt uses simple rhyme schemes to paint a picture that is at once ordinary and biblically epic. Many think that Van Zandt’s verse tells the story of a man leaving an abusive woman. But the way he shifts between characters and backdrops has always struck me as more brilliantly scatterbrained than narrative—like Townes Van Zandt himself may have only half followed as he wrote in a flash of feverish genius. “Fare Thee Well, Miss Carousel” effortlessly packs the punch of a dizzying postmodern novel into a single song.
Listen to a playlist of these 15 songs below.