Townes Van Zandt
No Deeper Blue

"Too late to wish I had been stronger"

For a long time, I believed the title meant "No Deeper Sadness." And the title would make perfect sense.
These are the last songs released by Townes Van Zandt while he was still alive. 1994.
Years of depression, alcoholism, and drug addiction are now clearly visible on the songwriter's face. The brash young man from "Heartworn Highways" is just a memory: the body is weak and emaciated, the voice faded, hoarse. The fingers are no longer what they used to be.

You thought it was time to get back in the game and returned to the studio. You had no idea it would be the last time. Maybe you did it just because you needed money. You've never sounded so false; to be honest, though, never so sincere.

What came out was a bipolar album, with a truly unbearable "modern" sound (for those who want to hear more "naked" versions, I recommend "Last Rights, The Life & Times of Townes Van Zandt" ). You even sneaked in a few too many bland blues tracks, huh.

But what does it matter to you anymore.

"No Deeper Blue" is Townes looking back, on a life of wrong choices. For a man not strong enough to truly change his life, yet not weak enough to let go, drug addiction is the only real choice possible.
The only rebellion, saying something while you're swept away by the hurricane. And so you chose to tell your children how much you love them.
You said in front of everyone that you were born to lose.

You spoke of your abyss, of how it tried to tear your soul away. But you outsmarted it: you hid it within your songs, little by little, and left only a weakened body in the hole you had descended into.

And when I thought the deep blue you spoke of was where you were immersed in those days, you stunned me by whispering that it was the color of your 4-year-old daughter's eyes.

We miss you.