townes van zandt

Townes Van Zandt took a conflicted dirty road in this sad lonesome cold world to desperately chase the shadows of a quicksilver daydream.  Van Zandt re-recorded four songs from his first album 'For the Sake of the Song' for the sessions that produced his eponymous third album. Kevin Eggers and Jim Malloy produced the sessions at Bradley's Barn in Nashville, Tennessee.  

Milton Glaser did the design for the album cover:  "Some of the photography we used at Poppy was very amateurish...That wonderful picture of Townes with his eyes shut at the table that we used for his third album was shot in my kitchen in Woodstock by Sol Mednick.  Sol told Townes to just sit down and close his eyes for a while."

As with his second album 'Our Mother the Mountain', released earlier in 1969, many of the songs were written on the road.  Van Zandt's manager and travelling companion Eggers reveals:  "Townes had a lot of girlfriends because he couldn't maintain a relationship.  All of his songs are very autobiographical.  A lot of times he sang about himself in those love songs."

Van Zandt would consider:  "Human's can't live in the present as animals do; they just live in the present. But human's are always thinking about the future or the past...What I do is between me and the Lord, to examine and possibly alter the state of grace in which I live, and thereby the state of grace of anybody who listens."






http://townesvanzandt.com/








Waiting Around to Die 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFh4DebJAfs





 (Quicksilver Daydreams Of) Maria 
Van Zandt:  "It's a song about everyman's everywoman...Caddo Parish Studdard III and I were spending a leisurely afternoon at the [now defunct Austin club] 11th Door.  Caddo invented a card game you play with coasters and I wrote this."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkAwARWBlEU



Well, the diamonds fades quickly when matched to the face of Maria
All the harps they sound empty when 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

Well, she stands all around me her hands slowly sifting the sunshine
All the laughter that linger down deep 'neath her smilin' is free
Well, it spins and it twirls like a hummingbird lost in the morning
And caresses the south wind and silently sails to the sea

Ah, the sculptor stands stricken and the artist he throws away his brushes
When her image comes dancin' the sun she turns sullen with shame
And the birds they go silent the wind stops his sad mournful singing
When the trees of the forest start gently to whisperin' her name

So as softly she wanders I'll desperately follow her footsteps
And I'll chase after shadows that offer a trace of her sight
Ah, they promise eternally that she lays hidden within them
But I find they've deceived me and sadly I bid them goodbye

So the serpent slide softly away with these moments of laughter
And the the old washy woman has finish her cleanin' and gone
But the bamboo hang heavy in the bondage of quicksilver daydreams
And a lonely child longingly looks for a place to belong





Townes Van Zandt
full album:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hrfjSaW8TQ


1 For the Sake of the Song   5:22
2 Columbine 2:34
3 Waiting Around to Die  2:45
4 Don't You Take It Too Bad  2:54
5 Colorado Girl  3:18
6 Lungs  2:29
7 I'll Be Here in the Morning  3:00
8 Fare Thee Well, Miss Carousel  5:22
9 (Quicksilver Daydreams Of) Maria  4:45
10 None But the Rain  2:23