‘Dead Flowers’: Townes Van Zandt’s favourite song by The Rolling Stones
Malcolm Gladwell explores the emotional impact of music during an episode of his podcast Revisionist History, focusing on why country music can make you cry when rock and roll doesn’t. Using The Rolling Stones as an example, he explains that their lyrics are intentionally vague, allowing listeners from all over the world to relate to them. Country music, on the other hand, thrives on specificity. At its best, it tells a story that can truly break your heart—or so Gladwell argues. The irony, however, lies in how one country artist, Townes Van Zandt, demonstrated just how devastating a Mick and Keef song can be when placed in the right hands.
This was one of the many superpowers of Townes Van Zandt, being able to take the work of other songwriters and wring it for all the pathos that not even the original artist can muster. Take another cover Van Zandt made his own, Bruce Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town highpoint ‘Racing in the Streets’. In The Boss’ hands, it’s a kitchen sink drama. Powerful. Moving. Perfectly apt for music’s Steven Spielberg. In Van Zandt’s hands, it’s truly devastating. A picture of lost people that can’t fall back on glamour or romance for.
Springsteen though, for all his titanic success, is still a songwriter’s songwriter. The Rolling Stones do not have that reputation, as Gladstone points out. This isn’t entirely fair though, as the song that Van Zandt took and made his own is one that any songwriter would give their left arm for.
Tucked away as the penultimate track on 1969’s masterpiece Sticky Fingers is ‘Dead Flowers’ an absolutely vicious diss track that, in The Stones’ capable hands, is an absolute hoot. To be clear, this is not a criticism, by any stretch. Like the rest of Sticky Fingers, ‘Dead Flowers’ swaggers along in all its Mussel Shoals-inflected glory.
Pedal steel and organ combine with Jagger’s magnificently catty vocal to make one of the most fun moments of an incredibly fun album. In their hands, lines like “Send me dead flowers to my wedding and I won’t forget to put roses on your grave” are withering, scathing putdowns. The kind that would get woops and clicks at a drag show. In Van Zandt’s hands, they’re almost terrifying.
This was a cover Van Zandt often pulled out live, so it’s a stripped-down version, solely focused around Van Zandt and an accompanying bass player. With all the bells and whistles removed, and Mick Jagger’s panto villain delivery nowhere to be seen, the sheer cruelty and hurt on display can be felt in every syllable of Van Zandt’s seemingly unaffected delivery.
The shocking darkness plain to see in lines like “Well, when you’re sitting back in your rose pink Cadillac … I’ll be in my basement room with a needle and a spoon / And another girl to take my pain away.” Both his versions of ‘Racing In The Street’ and ‘Dead Flowers’ can be found on Roadsongs, a compilation album collecting the covers that Van Zandt performed live.
He writes in the liner notes: “These songs were recorded over a number of years in joints all over America. I wish I’d written every one. No such luck.”
Well, his lack of luck is very much ours because thanks to Townes Van Zandt taking on his favourite Rolling Stones song, we get to see the depth and darkness in their work that otherwise, it’s easy to miss.
