Tag Archives: Townes Van Zandt

Great albums, Steve Earle

Steve Earle – Train a Comin’

Steve Earle - Train a comin

“This ain’t no part of no unplugged nothin — God, I hate MTV”
~Steve Earle (Liner notes)

I got to thinking,…if I don’t make this record now, I won’t get the chance to make it. .. I’m singing the best I’ve sung in years. Mainly [because of] no dope. Heroin relaxes your vocal cords, it lowers the top of your range a little bit, and then when you try to sing over it…
~Steve Earle (to SPIN in 1995)

I wish I’d never come back home
It don’t feel right since I’ve been grown
I can’t find any of my old friends hangin’ ’round
Won’t nothin’ bring you down like your hometown

Hometown Blues – From Later With Jools Holland 1995:

Wikipedia:

Released February 28, 1995
Genre Folk, country, country rock, bluegrass
Length 40:21
Label Warner Bros.

Train a Comin’ is an acoustic studio album by Steve Earle. The album, Earle’s first in five years, was released in 1995. In addition to Earle, it features Peter Rowan, Norman Blake, Roy Huskey, and Emmylou Harris. The album was nominated for a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album.

steve earle 1995

 

If you see her out tonight
And she tells you it’s just the lights
That bring her here and not her loneliness
That’s what she says but sometimes she forgets

Sometimes She Forgets:

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Country, Singer Songwriter, Sound, Townes Van Zandt

If I needed you by Townes Van Zandt

3 Comments

I have nearly 30 albums by Townes Van Zandt, most of them live and released after he passed away. Most of them better than 99% of everything  released today.

My mother and father are heavy smokers. When we went camping when I was a child we drove in our Opel Record. No safety belts, no windows open, just  lot of smoke and country music.

It is glued into me, I still love those voices, Waylon Jennings, Burl Ives, Kenny Rogers, Johnny Cash, Townes Van Zandt and a whole bunch of other fantastic singers and songwriters.

I don’t mind the smoke as long a s I get the music!

One of my favourite songs from back then is If I Needed You, so sparse and so vulnerable.

My father had a good friend, Reidar, who collected all these great country artists. He was very passionate about the music and he was a very kind man. He died of cancer much too young.

He gave me casettes of fantastic country and western music, I didn’t really appreciate it at the time, but he played a big part in shaping my musical taste.

Townes Van Zandt was his doing. Thank you , Reidar!

If I needed you:

Version 2 by Townes (the song starts about two minutes into the video):

It is a popular song that is covered by a lot of artists. Here are a few of the best known ones:

Emmylou Harris and Steve Earle:

Emmylou in 1982, maybe the best cover version!

Don Williams had a hit with Emmylou Harris:

Very understandable, it’s a fantastic interpretation.

If I needed you, would you come to me?
Would you come to me for to ease my pain?
If you needed me, I would come to you.
I would swim the sea for to ease your pain.
Well the night’s forlorn and the morning’s born
And the morning’s born with the lights of love.
And you’ll miss sunrise if you close your eyes,
And that would break my heart in two.

last but not least, Townes Van Zandt again with the masterpiece if I Needed You:

– Hallgeir