In 1983, six years after Emmylou Harris had first popularized it, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard covered his song "Pancho and Lefty", reaching number one on the Billboard country music chart. Much of Van Zandt’s life was spent touring various dive bars, often living in cheap motel rooms and backwoods cabins. For much of the 1970s, he lived in a simple shack without electricity or a phone.
His influence has been cited by countless artists across multiple genres, and his music has been recorded or performed by numerous artists, including Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Norah Jones, Emmylou Harris, The Counting Crows, Steve Earle, Robert Earl Keen Jr., Nanci Griffith, Guy Clark, Wade Bowen, Gillian Welch, Pat Green and Natalie Maines.
He suffered from a series of drug addictions, alcoholism, and was given a psychiatric diagnosis of bipolar disorder. When he was young, the now-discredited insulin shock therapy erased much of his long-term memory.
Van Zandt died on New Years Day 1997 from cardiac arrythmia caused by health problems stemming from years of substance abuse. A revival of interest in Van Zandt occurred in the 2000s. During the decade, two books, a documentary film (Be Here to Love Me), and numerous magazine articles about the singer were written.
Born in Fort Worth into a wealthy family, Van Zandt was a third-great-grandson of Isaac Van Zandt (a prominent leader of the Republic of Texas) and a second great-nephew of Khleber Miller Van Zandt (a major in the Confederate army and one of the founders of Fort Worth). Van Zandt County in east Texas was named after his family in 1848.
Townes's parents were Harris Williams Van Zandt (1913–1966) and Dorothy Townes (1919–1983). He had two siblings, Bill and Donna (1941–2011). Harris was a corporate lawyer, and his career required the family to move several times during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1952, the family transplanted from Fort Worth to Midland, Texas, for six months before moving to Billings, Montana.
At Christmas in 1956, Townes's father gave him a guitar, which he practiced while wandering the countryside. He would later tell an interviewer that "watching Elvis Presley's October 28, 1956, performance on The Ed Sullivan Show was the starting point for me becoming a guitar player... I just thought that Elvis had all the money in the world, all the Cadillacs and all the girls, and all he did was play the guitar and sing. That made a big impression on me." In 1958 the family moved to Boulder, Colorado. Van Zandt would remember his time in Colorado fondly and would often visit it as an adult. He would later refer to Colorado in "My Proud Mountains", "Colorado Girl", and "Snowin' on Raton". Townes was a good student and active in team sports. In grade school, he received a high IQ score, and his parents began grooming him to become a lawyer or senator. Fearing that his family would move again, he willingly decided to attend the Shattuck School, in Faribault, Minnesota. He received a score of 1170 when he took the SAT in January 1962. His family soon moved to Houston, Texas.
The University of Colorado at Boulder accepted Van Zandt as a student in 1962. In the spring of his second year, his parents flew to Boulder to bring Townes back to Houston, apparently worried about his binge drinking and episodes of depression. They admitted him to the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, where he was diagnosed with manic depression. He received three months of insulin shock therapy, which erased much of his long-term memory. Afterwards, his mother claimed her "biggest regret in life was that she had allowed that treatment to occur". In 1965, he was accepted into the University of Houston's pre-law program. Soon after he attempted to join the Air Force, but was rejected because of a doctor's diagnosis that labelled him "an acute manic-depressive who has made minimal adjustments to life". He quit school around 1967, having been inspired by his singer-songwriter heroes to pursue a career in playing music.
Van Zandt was addicted to heroin and alcohol throughout his adult life. At times he would become drunk on stage and forget the lyrics to his songs. At one point, his heroin habit was so intense that he offered Kevin Eggers the publishing rights to all of the songs on each of his first four albums for $20. At various points, his friends saw him shoot up not just heroin, but also cocaine, vodka, as well as a mixture of rum and Coke. On at least one occasion, he shot up heroin in the presence of his son J.T., who was only eight years old at the time.
As a result of Van Zandt's constant drinking, Harold Eggers, Kevin's brother, was hired on as his tour manager and 24-hour caretaker in 1976, a partnership that would last for the rest of the singer's life. Although the musician was many years older than he was, Eggers would later say that Van Zandt was his "first child." His battles with addiction led him to be admitted to rehab almost a dozen times throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Medical records from his time in recovery centers show that he believed his drinking had become a problem around 1973, and by 1982 he was drinking at least a pint of vodka daily. Doctors' notes reported: "He admits to hearing voices, mostly musical voices", and "Affect is blunted and mood is sad. Judgment and insight is impaired." At various points in his life, he was prescribed to take the antidepressant Zoloft and the mood stabilizer lithium. His final and longest period of sobriety during his adult life was a period of about a year in 1989 and 1990.
Van Zandt has been referred to as a cult musician and "a songwriter's songwriter." Musician Steve Earle, who met him in 1978 and considered Van Zandt a mentor, once called Van Zandt "the best songwriter in the whole world and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that." The quote was printed on a sticker featured on the packing of At My Window, much to Van Zandt's displeasure. In the years following, the quote was often cited by the press, much to Van Zandt and Earle's embarrassment; in 2009, Earle told the New York Times, "Did I ever believe that Townes was better than Bob Dylan? No." But he concluded at the end of the same article that, "As a songwriter, you won't find anybody better." Earle has championed the songwriter on a number of occasions: his eldest son, Justin Townes Earle, also a musician, is named after Van Zandt. Earle wrote the song "Fort Worth Blues" as a tribute to the singer in the late 1990s, and in 2009 released an album titled Townes, which featured all covers of Van Zandt songs.
His Texas-grounded impact stretched farther than country. He has been cited as a source of inspiration by such notable artists as Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Willie Nelson, Guthrie Thomas, John Prine, Lyle Lovett, Chelsea Wolfe, Scott Avett of The Avett Brothers, Emmylou Harris, Nanci Griffith, Cowboy Junkies, Vetiver, Guy Clark, Devendra Banhart, Norah Jones, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, The Be Good Tanyas and Jolie Holland, Rowland S. Howard, Michael Weston King, Josh Ritter, Gillian Welch, Garth Brooks, Simon Joyner, Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes, Caleb Followill of Kings of Leon, Laura Marling, Andrew Adkins and Frank Turner. Folk musician Shakey Graves has credited his fast-paced, rhythmic style of finger picked guitar playing partially to Van Zandt's influence.
In 1994, Israeli singer David Broza performed with Van Zandt during a Writers in the Round concert in Houston. When Van Zandt died, he left a shoe box full of unreleased poems and lyrics with a request that Broza set them to music. The resulting album was Night Dawn: The Unpublished Poetry of Townes Van Zandt.
In 2012, Van Zandt was inducted into the Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Fame.
In July 2012, Neurot Recordings released a three-way split album in tribute to Van Zandt, featuring Neurosis singer/guitarists Scott Kelly, Steve Von Till and doom/stoner metal legend Scott "Wino" Weinrich.
On June 18, 2015, Van Zandt was inducted into the second year's ceremony of the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame, along with Asleep at the Wheel, Loretta Lynn, Guy Clark and Flaco Jimenez. Gillian Welch inducted Van Zandt by telling stories about how he had come to her early gigs in Nashville and how he had bolstered her confidence in writing sad songs.
Nothin'
Townes Van Zandt Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Don't leave a thing behind
I don't want nothin'
I can't use nothin'
Take care into the hall
And if you see my friends
Tell them I'm fine
Almost burned out my eyes
Threw my ears down to the floor
I didn't see nothin'
I didn't hear nothin'
I stood there like a block of stone
Knowin' all I had to know
And nothin' more
Man, that's nothin'
As brothers our troubles are
Locked in each others arms
And you better pray
They never find you
Your back ain't strong enough
For burdens doublefold
They'd crush you down
Down into nothin'
Being born is going blind
And buying down a thousand times
To echoes strung
On pure temptation
Sorrow and solitude
These are the precious things
And the only words
That are worth rememberin'
The song Nothin' by Townes Van Zandt represents a feeling of detachment and emptiness. The first stanza has a request to the mother to pack away all the belongings so that there is no trace left behind. The poet doesn't need anything that's left behind; hence, he asks the mother to take it all away. The second stanza talks about being lost in life. It feels like the poet has seen too much and has lost everything that he had. The third stanza represents the emotional shutdown of the artist, indicating that the poet has given up all the sensory experiences of life, which reduces all he senses to nothingness.
In the fourth stanza, the artist describes the emotional numbness that's overwhelming. The poet is just like a senseless statue, limiting knowledge to the greatest knowledge, and nothing is beyond that now. In the fifth stanza, the poet shifts his focus to his brothers, sharing their own troubles, and being available for each other to lean on. The last three stanzas, the poet highlights the importance of self-reliance and not being a burden on another person's shoulder. The birth and death cycle are also highlighted in these stanzas, and the poet summarizes that the only thing worth remembering is sorrow and solitude, the essence of meaningful and mindful living.
Line by Line Meaning
Hey mama, when you leave
Asking someone leaving not to keep anything.
Don't leave a thing behind
Do not leave any belongings behind when leaving.
I don't want nothin'
I do not want any materialistic stuff.
I can't use nothin'
None of the materialistic things will be of any use to me.
Take care into the hall
Be careful while leaving and take care of everything.
And if you see my friends
If you get a chance to meet my friends,
Tell them I'm fine
Inform them that I am doing alright.
Not using nothin'
I am leading a simple life without the use of any materialistic things.
Almost burned out my eyes
I got exhausted trying to see and understand everything around me.
Threw my ears down to the floor
Ignoring every sound and not willing to listen to what anyone has to say.
I didn't see nothin'
I did not witness any remarkable thing around me.
I didn't hear nothin'
I did not pay attention to what people were saying around me.
I stood there like a block of stone
I was standing still, emotionless.
Knowin' all I had to know
Assuming I understood everything I needed to understand.
And nothin' more
I did not need to know anything else.
Man, that's nothin'
That understanding was trivial.
As brothers our troubles are
The challenges we as brothers confront,
Locked in each others arms
We have each other's support.
And you better pray
We should hope
They never find you
That our troubles do not find us.
Your back ain't strong enough
You are not capable enough to handle big responsibilities.
For burdens doublefold
You cannot carry a problem twice your own.
They'd crush you down
It would completely break you down.
Down into nothin'
It will reduce you to nothingness.
Being born is going blind
When you are born, you know nothing of the world.
And buying down a thousand times
You learn bit by bit through your experiences.
To echoes strung
The remnants of past experiences.
On pure temptation
Just following our temptation alone.
Sorrow and solitude
Pain and being alone
These are the precious things
Despite being tough, they teach valuable lessons.
And the only words
The only things that are significant.
That are worth rememberin'
That are worth holding on to.
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Written by: Townes Van Zandt
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
William Spitzer
It's insane how under-rated Townes Van Zandt is
Jimmie MacD
Was**
William Spitzer
@Jimmie MacD well technically speaking lol but I think Townes lives on through his music so that's why I put "is"
Michael Hughes
Absolute proof that authenticity comes ONLY when you live your honest truth. Could of been famous as any other "star". But he wasn't in it to exploit it. He was just wanted someone to hear his truth . Thank goodness he got enough word of mouth to be shared among the diehards who still hope that truth actually exists.
6dogs
To me it's not that shocking because as real as his music is only the realest will be listening to it and there isn't many real people in the world what so ever
Dermot
Absolutely insane my friend I plan to play his music and let the mans word provail.....hope the stars know it's time to shine wow❤
Arnie Garcia
This song cuts deep into your soul. I never get tired of hearing it.
James Holden
Nothin was the first song I heard and it blew my mind!. It was on a DVD about Townes's life and it's called Be Here To Love Me. Anyone out there reading this should get this DVD. It's terrific! It wasn't Townes singing this song on it, It was his son JT VAN ZANDT, and he's pure brilliant! Check it out all Townes fans.
kolonel Franz
Songwriter, musician, poet, troubadour, he has it all. A hidden gem in music history, if only he knew people now and for centuries to come are still listening and feeling his work.. A true Texas legend.
Omair Sheikh
One of my favourite songs of all time. So haunting