This week Netflix brought me the Townes Van Zandt documentary, Be Here to Love Me. I’m not exactly the Townes superfan that somebody like, say, Steve Earle is (“Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world and I’ll stand on Bob Dylan’s coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that”*), so it was a difficult watch for me. Van Zandt, it seems, was almost single-mindedly self destructive and while the documentary shows quite a bit of the effects of his bad decisions, it doesn’t say much about why he made them. There are mentions that Van Zandt may have been manic depressive. There is the implication that the insulin shock therapy he got early in his life erased some of his long term memory and therefore took away some of his ability to know where he was from, leading to rootlessness and isolation**. If the documentary is to be believed, he did little to battle these problems. Instead, it mostly romanticizes Van Zandt’s life as the beautiful loser, the sort of guy who would fall from a fourth story balcony just to see what it felt like.
I’ve never much liked Van Zandt’s performances of his songs. Van Zandt lacked any sort of commitment. He sings his songs with little emotion as if they don’t matter and they are just something he’s doing to pass the time or collect the paycheck that would allow him to get to the next show. To be fair, I imagine it’s difficult to sing the same song for decades and still feel like you can do it any justice. Musicians also have to be actors and Van Zandt just wasn’t a very good actor. That’s not to say that the songs aren’t good. They work pretty well in the hands of other performers. Though his lack of commitment doesn’t work for the performance, it seems to work really well for lyrics. That’s a trick of poetry. The words don’t exactly mean anything, but are just rich enough to allow a listener to impose his own meaning. What they mean to you is probably not what they meant to Van Zandt. But his meaning is irrelevant—the lyrics are interactive; the point is in your meaning.
It’s hard to create things from thin air. There are lots of ways to conquer the uncertainty that comes with creating, tricks to convince yourself that what you’re creating matters and is worth creating at all. One way is to be born with a huge ego that lets you believe that everything you do matters. I’ve talked here before about the specialness complex. Van Zandt didn’t seem to have such an ego, so he either had to be able to convince himself that it doesn’t matter if it matters or at the very least impair his ability to determine if it matters. Guess which one he picked.
*Apparently Townes reacted to this by saying “I’ve met Bob Dylan and his bodyguards, and I don’t think Steve could get anywhere near his coffee table.”
**I was not aware that insulin shock therapy led to memory loss and am unable to find any information suggesting that is the case. There is quite a bit of evidence of memory loss resulting from electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), which is more commonly known as electroshock, but that is a very different procedure. Maybe somebody reading this knows more about it than I do.
I saw that movie too, and man, that was a real brutal watch. The whole Steve Shelley bit killed me. What’s up with Sonic Youth and their coddling of emotionally wrecked savants? Anyone else watch the Daniel Jonston movie? Man.
Your point about lyrics ring true. I feel the same about most lyrics that I like. The meaning hardly matters as much as the richness of the poetry or maybe the delivery. Bob Dylan’s lyrics are vague but rich which may be a funny thing to say about “the voice of a generation” but he was called that because his words could be interpreted just about any way you’d want to (and of course he never called himself that).
I agree that TVZ’s delivery leaves something to be desired however I like his lazy melancholy style as a counter balance to some of the more over the top music I listen to.
Oh also thanks for reminding me to put this one in the queue.
I also saw the Daniel Johnston movie and, yeah, you’re right Sonic Youth do seem to have some strange attraction to the human trainwreck.
For what it’s worth, I thought the Daniel Johnston movie was better done.
I haven’t seen the movie and I’m not an encyclopedia on Townes, but I don’t know if I agree with yer assessment. But then it’s not that i don’t agree with your points, its just that i think there’s so much more there that you missed. i suppose the movie wouldn’t convey that. I thought the Daniel Johnston movie was terrif, but it in no way relates to, or would let anyone in on the experience of, hearing Daniel Johnston in the right way.
There’s something about not being fake and continuing to put out music, even when some of it is crap. There’s something that you get from someone that is really writing poetry and singing it to you that you don’t get in any other situation.
I don’t know, but I do know that I listened to the same Townes Van Zandt album on my way to work every day for a year after graduating from college. And now every time I hear any of those songs, I desperately neeeed a breakfast taco from Mi Madre’s.
I’ve queued up the movie, so I’ll report back if my opinions change.
Also, here’s a story: Toto, Josh, Evan and I went to Memphis to record that great lost Springhill Mine Disaster album, “Small Pony, Large Pony” at Easley studios in winter 1996 and we got to start a day early because the people who had been there before us had left early. Over the week we learned that Steve Shelley and Townes Van Zandt had been there recording an album, but Townes had gotten sick and then we found out that he died while we were finishing our album. As far as I know those recordings haven’t ever been put out.
That was the thing I found weird too. It seemed like he just sorta decided one day to become a hopeless alcoholic, for no reason in particular. It was as if he had made a conscious decision to be that way from day one. I don’t know if there was some history of intermediate stages left out or what.
After listening to his live album, I’ve grown to like his delivery more. Of course, he’s no Celine Dion, I’ll give you that.
I sat about ten feet from Townes Van Zandt at a bar in Houston and watched him play “the Hole”. the impression it left on me wouldn’t have been the same if his delivery was more…. energetic? I have the doc in my netflix queue. If he was a manic depressive, his art reflected that, and no amount of front man charisma would have endeared him to me more. As far as why people choose death over life and all the various ways to demonstrate it, I’m thankful for what he left behind. It may have been the only thing that kept him going. This is all speculation.
I did see the Daniel J. documentary and … it had alot of good footage and photographs, but it didn’t really answer any questions for me about him.
It’s difficult for me to criticize mentally unhealthy artists. Everyone is just one reference blip on a screen and anyone can fall prey to the darker constructs of the mind. It’s easier for me to talk shit on the delivery of musicians like Dash Board Confessional than it is to poke a stick at the corpse of artists who did hard time in their time in life and at least gave something. What a surprise that I would feel that way.
Jay, I remember that Springhill Mine Disaster album. Did you ever release that? There is an interview with Steve Shelley in the movie where they talk about the recording of that last album at Easley. The impression the movie gives is that Van Zandt couldn’t pull things together long enough to record anything. They don’t say this explicitly, though. Instead, they play tapes of some incoherent studio banter that implies that there wasn’t much actual song playing. I guess it’s possible that something was recorded and they couldn’t get the rights to use it in the movie.
EM, I don’t think it’s possible to answer questions about Daniel or anybody else for that matter without actually talking to that person (and even then, sometimes not). I was just referring to the way The Devil and Daniel Johnston was put together. I really liked all the recordings they found (who would have thought there would be video of Lee Renaldo and Thurston Moore searching for Daniel in New Jersey?). They obviously did a lot of research and put a lot of thought into how it would all fit together.
In the Wearing Heart on Sleeve Department, I was probably being overly sensitive after hearing more news on my schizophrenic kid brother yesterday. He truly is alot like D.Johnston in the extent of his delusions and capacity for creative thought. I understand what you were saying about TVZ though. Sometimes people knock on our door here at 8 in the morning looking for booze… life is awesome.
Your brother has schizophrenia? My wife’s cousin fell ill with it about three years ago. Fortunately, she has responded very well to the medications. This is in contrast to a patient I had in pulmonary rehab where he appeared to be totally stoned due to his medication. He was still very sharp witted, but really, really slow. It’s just a matter of proper dosing and patient compliance. Those voices he hears can spark some creativity so long as the voice doesn’t do something stupid like tell him to kill himself.
Francesco
Francesco,
I know there’s hope, but the madness has a pretty good grip on the kid. I have suggested that he be given the bi monthly Risperdal injectable shot rather than rely on him to to be med compliant every day. You feel fine. You stop taking medication. Thats no good when your “illness” is chronic. His head is exploding with creative thought, and I hope that the support he will be getting now can help keep the demons at bay enough for him to have a decent quality of life from here on out. Likely, the structure he will now be getting will improve his circumstances vastly. He’s been teetering on the edge of homelessness in a party town tourist trap…. Thanks for your thoughts.