The Batlord

The Batlord Learns to Like Country...Maybe: Part III

Townes Van Zandt: Our Mother the Mountain

An actual old school country album for once. Yesterday a friend on another forum suggested the title track to this album and I listened to it about five times in a row. I even looked up the lyrics to follow along. I never do that. So, I'm kinda stoked to listen to this...




I'm not used to this kind of minimalist country so it's taking a little work to get into. It's pretty much just him and his guitar. There are accompanying instruments at times but the guitar is the center of the attention. His voice is low though not as low as Johnny Cash and is perfect for imparting despair and world weariness. But like I said, it takes a bit of getting used to and I had to actually go look up the lyrics and read them while listening to really reveal the songs' true scope, which is often quite engrossing and atmospheric. Some of this is some truly dark stuff. You could seriously slit your wrists to songs like "Our Mother the Mountain" or "St. John the Gambler". I wouldn't normally go through this much effort to read lyrics like this, but even just hearing bits and pieces of them got me interested. My favorites so far are the dark, surreal stories that I imagine are probably metaphors for his rampant drug use (apparently he was known to shoot up heroine in front of his children, and apparently he even injected the odd jack and coke into his veins) and death.

Given time, I might very well consider this brilliant, but I've got a ways to go before music like this comes naturally to me. This album doesn't really have any rock or pop influences to make it go down easy. It's pretty pure folk country and if you aren't making an emotional connection to the music then you might as well go listen to something else. Even so, I dig it far more than I probably would a lot of his contemporaries in the sixties/seventies.

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