“Songs that meant something”: Townes Van Zandt’s favourite Bob Dylan album
If Bob Dylan is folk mixed with rock, Townes Van Zandt was his mirror. Standing as an example of folk mixed with pure country, the Texas-born singer had the heart, soul and poetic sentiment that the genre was built on. It would’ve been easy for Van Zandt and Dylan to be fierce competitors, but instead, the pair shared a clear and mutual admiration.
“One way to measure a songwriter is to look at the singers who sing their songs,” Dylan wrote in his latest book, The Philosophy of Modern Song. He said you know a song is great based on whether it’s still being performed. “Townes’s are,” he writes of the man he once labelled a favourite. “Every night—in small clubs, in lonely bedrooms, and wherever the brokenhearted watch the shadows grow long.”
To Dylan, Van Zandt’s songs are timelessly beautiful and beloved for exactly that reason. On a few occasions, he’s joined the hoards of musicians still covering his songs and keeping his memory alive, as Dylan performs ‘Pancho and Lefty’ occasionally during his gigs. It’s been said that as an essential part of his record collection, Dylan owns all of Van Zandt’s releases from his all-too-short life.
The feeling was very much mutual. While Van Zandt was a more understated figure who didn’t care to have the same level of celebrity as Dylan fostered in the 1960s and ‘70s, he was a huge fan of the music.
While Dylan got his start early, Van Zandt had a slower path. His breakthrough didn’t come till the mid-1960s, with Dylan actually providing some much-needed inspiration and artistic courage, pushing him to cast off his path and instead hit the road to make music.
One album in particular stood out as a vital release and a real turning point. By 1964, Van Zandt was writing poetry and listening to records while trying to recover from a serious bout of manic depression. He was accepted into the University of Houston’s Pre-Law programme and, by all accounts, was about to lead a straight-laced and standard life. He even considered joining the forces, almost straying down perhaps the most traditional path possible. At the same time, Bob Dylan was releasing The Times They Are a-Changin’.
“He was using a regular guitar and regular words and putting them together and coming out with songs that meant something,” Van Zandt said of the musician. Standing as a kind of godly example of what the working man could become, as proof that anyone could pick up a pen and guitar something and make something important if they had something to say, Dylan was also proof that poetry could be put to music and become something magical. Van Zandt heard it at just the right time. “I’ve been writing songs ever since,” he concluded.
Dylan’s impact is heard loudly and clearly in Van Zandt’s debut album. On For The Sake Of The Song, the musician navigates the same weaving path between the political, the poetic and the personal. Songs like ‘Waitin’ Around To Die’ or ‘All Your Young Servants’ carry the same thought-provoking weight as ‘Only a Pawns In Their Game’. ‘I’ll Be Here In The Morning’ is a stunning and simple country ballad, much like ‘Boots Of Spanish Leather’. Musically, both records do incredible things with the simple foundation of an acoustic guitar and a stunning voice.
Both albums helped herald two musical legends, and while they might be peers in retrospect, Dylan was leading Van Zandt down a prosperous and poetic path.
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