You Are Not Needed Now

Just felt like it was time I did a quick Townes Van Zandt post. There was a time when this guy was one of my biggest artistic heroes, and even if he's too depressing for me to take most of the time these days (he outdid even Elliott Smith in terms of writing terminally sad songs) he was an incredibly talented, and criminally under appreciated songwriter. As Steve Earle famously quipped: "Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in America, and I will stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that."

Here's a song from High Low and In Between, one of a series of stellar albums he did in the 70's, before he really got around to the serious business of drinking himself to death and destroying his voice.