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Townes Van ZandtAlbums ReviewedFor The Sake Of The Song (1968)Our Mother The Mountain (1969) Townes Van Zandt (1970) For The Sake Of The Song(1968)From a high profile Texan family, Townes Van Zandt was being groomed as Texas governor, but inspired by singer-songwriters like Bob Dylan, he dropped out of college in the 1960s to pursue a singing career. Of MENSA level intelligence, and diagnosed as a manic-depressive in his early twenties, Van Zandt rejected wealth and comfort, almost seeming to consciously fill his life with pain and instability to fuel his art; when accused that he only wrote sad songs, he replied that "well, many of the songs, they aren't sad, they're hopeless." The line "I'd like to lean into the wind and tell myself I'm free/But your softest whisper's louder than the highways call to me" from 'I'll Be Here In The Morning' seems to go against the grain of Van Zandt's nature, and "I guess I keep a-gamblin'/Lots of booze and lots of ramblin'/It's easier than just waitin' around to die" is more symptomatic of Van Zandt's mindset. While his Texan vocals give his music a country twang, he's as much a folkie at heart, and many of his songs are stripped down to guitar and voice. His tentative debut, produced by Jack Clement, doesn't do his emotional, humane songs any favours, stacking arrangements with backing vocals and strings, and the studio based approach leaves Van Zandt's singing style less relaxed and with less personality. But Van Zandt's already a skilled songwriter; 'Tecumseh Valley' and 'Waitin' Around To Die' are two of Van Zandt's best songs, and he's already a brilliant lyricist. The jaunty take on 'Tecumseh Valley' here, with its hackneyed country bass line, is nowhere near as affecting as the darker version on Our Mother The Mountain, while 'Waitin' Around To Die' almost gets a Phil Spector orchestrated treatment. 'Many A Fine Lady' even sounds more like an orchestrated Beegees ballad than normal Van Zandt fare, even though its pretty melody suits the arrangement. Some of the songs, such as the mournful 'Sad Cinderella' and the dry humour of 'Talkin' Karate Blues' are left acoustic and work nicely. More than half of these songs would be re-recorded on following albums: a bunch would turn up again of Van Zandt's eponymous 1970 record, while 'Sad Cinderella' would be reused on 1972's The Late Great Townes Van Zandt, but there are a couple of strong tracks, the amusing 'Talkin' Karate Blues' and the tragic 'Sixteen Summers, Fifteen Falls', that are unavailable elsewhere. Some good song writing means that For The Sake Of The Song is perfectly listenable, but it's far from Van Zandt's best work, especially since a lot of its key songs can be found in superior versions elsewhere. 
Our Mother The Mountain(1969)Like For The Sake Of The Song , Our Mother The Mountain is again given arrangements that go far beyond the acoustic guitar and voice usually associated with Van Zandt. This time, however, the orchestral arrangements are used to complement the bleak honesty of Van Zandt's lyrical vision - this is perhaps Van Zandt's darkest set of songs. The narrator in 'Kathleen' surrenders himself altogether to hopelessness: "It's plain to see, the sun won't shine today/But I ain't in the mood for sunshine anyway/Maybe I'll go insane/I got to stop the pain/Or maybe I'll go down to see Kathleen", while the lyrics of 'Tecumseh' are even bleaker than the debut. When he's not singing about the weakness of man in the face of sin and temptation, Van Zandt's writing gorgeous poetry - "Like silence she stands/Like laughter she falls/From a castle of sand/Like a memory she calls" - is the opening couplet to 'Why She's Acting This Way' - and it's the tension between tragedy and beauty, and between Van Zandt's dour Texan voice and lyrics and the lush strings and flutes that give Our Mother The Mountain its unique, at times otherworldly, power. More than anything, however, Van Zandt's a master of hopelessness, and it's the bleak material here that stands out immediately. The twenty year old who surrenders first to 'St. John The Gambler', then to death in the snowy mountains, the faithful daughter who succumbs to prostitution when her father dies, and the fated lover in the title track are all characters whose choices leave them utterly forlorn, and Van Zandt's gentle voice and guitar picking capture their despair with empathy and beauty. Of the more positive tracks from the record, the opener 'Be Here To Love Me' was recently covered by Norah Jones, while the pretty 'Like A Summer Thursday' is pared down to acoustic guitar and harmonica. The bluesy groove of 'Snake Mountain Blues' is an intelligent change of pace, giving the album a jolt of energy and dark humour just when it's needed. The only questionable inclusion, 'My Proud Mountains', steps into hackneyed territory, a tribute to Colorado where Van Zandt spent his college years, but ever here he's able to avoid cliché with lines like "Where the rivers like gypsys/Down her black canyons fall". Van Zandt captures sinfulness and beauty in equal amounts, and the resulting Our Mother The Mountain is a dark masterpiece, softened by pretty poetry.
Townes Van Zandt(1980)The string section helped to give Our Mother The Mountain an unsettling edge, but still it was inevitable and desirable that someone worked out that Van Zandt was most effective in a stripped down setting, and more than before Townes Van Zandt is pared down to relatively simple arrangements; there's a full band on 'Fare Thee Well Miss Carousel' and touches of orchestration here and there, but most of the songs are at least underpinned by Van Zandt's guitar. I'm sometimes surprised that the additional instruments aren't completely cut out, but some of the supplementary parts are effective (harmonica in 'Waitin' Around To Die', strings in '(Quicksilver Dreams Of) Maria'), and if you want to hear Van Zandt without all the bells and whistles, there are other places to find acoustic versions of his best songs. About half of these songs are recycled from the debut, but they're in far stronger versions here, so it's hard not to begrudge Van Zandt for presenting them in the form he originally intended. Of the older songs, 'Waitin' Around To Die' is even more compelling in this stark version, while 'I'll Be Here In The Morning' is as sweet as ever. Of the new songs, the closing 'None But The Rain' is prettily elegiac and mournful, even by Van Zandt's standards ("Who'll be your lover after I'm gone/Will it be the moon that hears your sighin'/Will it be the willow that hears your lonesome song"). 'Lungs' features one of Van Zandt's most memorable acoustic riffs, while 'Don't Take It Too Bad' lilts along gently. It's not as coherent a classic as Our Mother The Mountain, but song for song it's very nearly as good, and Townes Van Zandt is one of Van Zandt's strongest studio records.
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Written 2001-2009, Graham Fyfe
