Song of Renown: Townes Van Zandt The Catfish Song

"I'll kindle my fires with the words I can't send you/ And the roads I can't follow and the songs I can't sing/ I'll wander alone on the sleighbells of winter/ With the stars for a diamond and the world for a ring"  

Townes Van Zandt ,The Catfish Song

The Texan singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt, who died in 1997 aged just 52 after a long struggle with mental illness and addiction, is considered by many (me included) to be one of the finest contemporary songwriters.

Despite not being well known, Townes Van Zandt is revered and admired by musicians and musical aficionados alike as one of the most evocative lyricists in contemporary music. 

Van Zandt wrote songs of immense beauty, sadness and pathos, many of which draw from his conscious and unconscious experience and from historical and personal events. 

He wrote songs of tragedy and sadness, like Marie, perhaps the finest song ever written about homelessness and poverty, and songs of despair and sorrow in the face of the pain and struggle of daily life, such as A Song For (which mentions my home town Perth, Australia)

He also wrote songs that drew on his own struggle with mental illness and addiction, such as Sanitarium Blues, The Rake and The Hole.

 Van Zandt also wrote beautiful and life affirming songs of daily life, of love, of the cycles of nature and the landscape and environment, and of his reflections on the experiences of being human.

There is a timeless, poetic and deeply philosophical quality to his lyrics which stand as poetry first, then as music. For Van Zandt it was essential that songs work as poetry first and he worked tirelessly to craft his song lyrics.

The Catfish Song is the final track on Van Zandt's 1987 album At My Window. The album was Townes Van Zandt's first studio album in 9 years and is full of magnificent songs of love, loss, grief, the beauty of daily life and the struggles of living. This includes Songs like Snowin on Raton (which has featured on this blog before), At My Window and For the Sake of the Song.

But for me, The Catfish Song is the highlight of the album and ranks in the my top ten Van Zandt songs of all time.

Van Zandt's world weary spoken singing style is accompanied by the evocative gospel style piano of renowned jazz and country pianist Charlie Cochran. It is a magnificent piece of instrumental support; a performance of haunting intensity and profound humanity. 

The Catfish Song
Townes Van Zandt 

Down at the bottom of that dirty old river

 Down where the reeds and the catfish play 

There lies a dream as soft as the water 

There lies a bluebird that's flown a way

Well to meet is like springtime, to love's like the summer 

Her brown eyes shown for nobody but me

In autumn forever the fool come a-fallin' 

And the rain turned to freezing inside of me 

I'll kindle my fires with the words 

I can't send you 

And the roads I can't follow 

and the songs I can't sing 

I'll wander alone on the sleighbells of winter 

With the stars for a diamond and the world for a ring 

Well all you young ladies who dream of tomorrow 

While you're listening these words will I say: 

Cling to today with its joy and its sorrow 

You'll need all your memories when youth melts away

Well the angel of springtime he rides down the south wind

The angel of summer, he does just the same

The angel of autumn, she's blue and she's golden

And the angel of winter won't remember your name

Down at the bottom of that dirty old river 

Down where the reeds and the catfish play 

There lies a dream as soft as the water 

There lies a bluebird that's flown away 

Oh there lies a bluebird that's flown away