Before he died, he wrote songs. Good ones. He wrote “No Deeper Blue,” “I’ll be Here in the Morning,” “Be Here to Love Me,” “If I Needed You,” Pancho & Lefty,” and a whole lot more. He wrote “Rex’s Blues.”
Haunted throughout his life, he wrote songs to help keep the visitants at bay. He sang the good songs. He wrote better ones. He sang those songs too.
And on New Year’s Day, 1997, Townes Van Zandt died from cardiac arrhythmia aggravated by years of drug and alcohol addiction.
He was 52 years old.
“He sang about how precious it was to be alive yet spent a good deal of his life killing himself with drugs and alcohol.” — Michael Hall, Texas Monthly
He came from money, from an old Texas family that has a county named for them — Van Zandt County, about fifty miles east of Dallas. Townes Hall, the main building at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, is named for his great-grandfather on his mother’s side.
But Van Zandt didn’t care for money. He lived much of his life on the open road. If he came into any money along the way, he usually gambled it away; He preferred the company of outcasts, outlaws and the poor.
“You were living a lie if you sang the blues and hadn’t lived them,” he once told his first wife, Fran.
He lived them.
If I Needed You
If I needed you, would you come to me?
Would you come to me and ease my pain?
If you needed me, I would come to you
I’d swim the seas for to ease your pain
Well, in the night forlorn, oh, the morning’s born
And the morning shines with the lights of love
And you will miss sunrise if you close your eyes
And that would break my heart in two
The lady’s with me now since I showed her how
To lay her lily hand in mine
Loop and Lil agree, she’s a sight to see
A treasure for the poor to find
Well, if I needed you, would you come to me?
Would you come to me and ease my pain?
If you needed me, I would come to you
I would swim the seas for to ease your pain