Top Ten Townes Tales

(For the record, the above picture does not represent my feelings on the use of alcohol.)

Townes Van Zandt passed away on January 1, 1997. In honor of his memory, here are the Top Ten Townes Tales. Check back later today for the Top Ten Townes Tunes.

One thing you should know about Townes: he is a legend. Which means that the stories about him have grown and changed over the years, and one is never sure which details actually happened. But it doesn't matter.

10. First Death
Townes was declared DOA after an overdose (presumably from inhaling airplane glue). He said that that was why his brains were scrambled. Two doctors sat over him and argued over whether or not he could be revived. After an hour of arguing, the older doctor’s shift ended, and he left. The younger doctor used the defibrillators and brought Townes back.

9. Desert Travel
Joe Ely was out driving, and saw Townes, a stranger to him, carrying a guitar out on the edge of town. He said he had just been in San Francisco recording a record and was heading back to Houston. He gave him a ride to the other side of town. When he dropped him off, Townes opened his backpack and pulled out a record and gave to Joe. Joe points out that the backpack had no clothes or other belongings, only records. He took the record to his friend Jimmy Gilmour, and they played it over and over for weeks, and it made them rethink songwriting.

8. Heckling Steve
Steve Earle recalled the first time he played at The Old Quarter. Townes Van Zandt, a hero of Steve’s was in the crowd. All night, he kept heckling Steve and requesting songs. Steve decided that he needed to shut him up, so he played Townes’ own song “Mr. Mudd and Mr. Gold,” a very difficult song to play. Townes stopped heckling him, and they later became very close.

7. Pancho and Lefty Cops
Townes was pulled over for speeding. He also had an expired driver’s license. The police were set to arrest him, and even put him in the back of the police car. They asked Townes what he did for a living, and he replied that he was a songwriter. They asked what songs he had written, and he told them “Pancho and Lefty.” At first they didn’t believe him, but eventually were convinced and decided to let him go. He stopped and asked why they had decided to let him go, and they told him that at the dispatch center, they were known as Pancho and Lefty. Townes couldn’t help but ask which one was Pancho and which one was Lefty. It turned out that the white cop was Pancho, and the Hispanic one was Lefty.

6. Falls
Townes stood on the balcony of his fourth floor apartment. He wanted to know what it felt like at that moment when you knew you were going to fall, and he realized that the only way to know would be to fall. So, he leaned back real slowly until he fell. He landed flat on his back.

5. Frat
When Townes was in college, he joined a fraternity. He decided to attend one of their parties, and brought a few friends along. He was drunk and shirtless. One of the frat members started telling him how he was a terrible member and a disgrace. Townes reached into his pants pocket and pulled out his pledge badge. He pinned it through his shirtless chest and turned to the man. He said nothing, just stared at him, blood running down his chest.

4. Record Exec.
One of Townes’ proudest moments was when he intentionally sabotaged his chance at a big record deal. He and his manager were set to go sign the contract over dinner with the record executive. They arrived, and the exec. answered the door. He told the two that he had sent the help home, and that his wife had cooked their dinner. Townes said, “I don’t want to eat your wife’s slop.” The exec. ripped up the contract on the spot.

3. Predicts Death
They say that Townes predicted his own death. Since he is a legend, the story has grown and evolved, and nobody is sure of the truth. He may have just predicted that he’d die young. His wife said that he predicted that he wouldn’t finish his work, and sure enough, he died in the middle of recording an album. Others say that he knew that he would die at 52, which he did. His son says that Townes knew he would die on New Year’s Day, which he did. The truth may never be known.

2. Angel’s Wings
Townes was performing in Alaska. He was drunk. After the show, he said to his wife and daughter that the only thing that kept him from falling off the barstool was an angel, who was standing behind him with her wings wrapped around him. Later, an Inuit man in the crowd approached Townes. He told him, in front of Townes’ wife and daughter, that he had seen an angel standing behind Townes, with her wings wrapped around him, and that she was the only thing that kept him from falling off the stool.

1. Steve’s Ghost Story
Steve Earle tells this story.
“Townes spent his summers in Colorado and his winters in Texas and Tennessee…He had a buckskin horse named Amigo, and he kept him…in Aspen, Colorado. Every summer he’d pick Amigo up and ride across the mountains…and I thought that was the coolest thing I’d ever heard. But then the seventies wound down and times got hard, and Townes had to let Amigo go. I believe that he began to die that day. A few years back, I decided to tour the Rocky Mountains in the dead of winter…we made the trip back on my birthday, so it was the middle of January, and ran from Crested Butte back over to Aspen…probably 58 miles…as the crow flies. Trouble was, we wasn’t crows. It’s normally a three-and-a-half, four hour drive, but we ran into one of those snow storms that snows on your mountain and no place else. It took us eight hours. As the snow was blowing across the road, I’m sitting up front…cuz I couldn’t sleep anyway. It looked like ghosts, and I swear to God I saw Townes and Amigo about five times that night coming over the mountain.”
Here is one of many videos of Steve telling the story and playing "Rex's Blues."


I didn't start listening to Townes until about ten years after his death. Nevertheless, Townes, we miss you.