On the face of it there’s not much connecting Townes Van Zandt and Shawn Colvin. There’s the obvious connection to roots music and a common attachment to where that music came from. There’s also a common thread of pure songwriting; story telling, melodies, heartbreak, but heck, we could say that of so many of our featured artists. On the AC we’re lucky to get so many fine singer songwriters through the door that we expect talent as a given.
Digging a little deeper however there is perhaps a thread that has run through both these artists lives. In the sixties Townes Van Zandt’s parents ‘sent’ him to a psychiatric hospital for treatment. It was short, brutal and, crucially not supported by any other therapy or counselling. Whatever their intentions had been, there was no real effective cure from the deep sadness and pain that troubled Townes for the rest of his life. Seeing him as a guy who drank a lot, took various stimulants and failed to form permanent relationships is true but unsatisfactory. His life, it seems to me, was similar to many people we all know who have suffered various forms of mental illness along the road. However much we find that difficult to live alongside, for them, the torment and the torture is a constant thorn in the side; from my own experience I rarely see these wounds permanently heal over.
I didn’t speak to Shawn Colvin about any of this. All I wanted to talk about was her songs. It was only as I prepared some questions and read around a bit that I realised how much her own life has been affected by similar issues. She’s written about this extensively and on the way back from the interview we did at AC towers she told me more about her own life. Here, elsewhere but in her own words, is how she’s described her struggle with mental illness:
“I think there’s a misconception that if one is an artist and, like myself, sings sad or sensitive material, that you’re risking losing that if you treat depression,” she said. “But when I’ve been seriously biologically depressed I’m actually unable to do anything.”
“In fact, being treated for depression restores me to be able to do what I do,” Colvin explained. “So, for people who are familiar with my music and like it, they should know that 90 percent of my recorded work has been done while I’ve been taking medicine for depression.”
So, as so often happens here on the AC, a disparate couple of artists – albeit with Texas connections – make up a fascinating pairing for two hours. Troubled, tortured but with grace and healing in their work we give you a very special Another Country this weekend. A special tribute to Townes Van Zandt seventy years since his birth and, one of my own favourite singer songwriters of any generation – Shawn Colvin talking through some of the major songs of her 25 year career. It will be a fascinating listen. Join me if you can this Friday evening from five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland.
I am *really* looking forward to this week’s show: for that education on Townes Van Zandt, and to able to hear from one of my all-time favourite singer-songwriters, the wonderful Shawn Colvin.
The connection you draw between the two of them here is a salient one, and one that very much resonates with me. (My own new blog analyses how mental illness is portrayed onscreen, an interest that relates to something I am writing myself, but also to a somewhat personal connection to the topic.) I think you’re absolutely right and wise to write in terms of some mental illnesses being a thorn in the side, and causing wounds that can never completely heal. All too often folks seem to seek out a non-existent miracle cure for conditions, wishing to take away those health problems that can indeed be so difficult to live alongside and so painful to witness in loved ones, let alone to endure for oneself.
I first discovered Shawn’s music through Whispering Bob Harris’ overnight slot on Radio 1 many, many years ago. Her cover of Steve Earle’s “Someday” became something of a personal anthem when I found myself stuck in a seemingly dead-end and solitary job working night shifts at a petrol station, and “Polaroids” was one of the first songs of hers that I first fell in love with, and which I still find to be an extraordinary piece of work with every listen. I really enjoyed her autobiography, “Diamond in the Rough”, too, for its simplicity and openness on so many topics.
Can’t wait to hear the show—and thanks for a great blog post to boot.
P.S. I meant to add a shout-out for the work of John Leventhal. He’s a musician that had somewhat gone under my radar for years, until I came to realise he had produced and written on some of my favourite albums, by the likes of Shawn Colvin in particular, but also Marc Cohn and, of course, Rosanne Cash. There’s something about his production that I think is so clean, drawing out exquisite musicianship and always placing both the song and singer centre stage, a style to which I am very much drawn.