I’ve always liked my heroes broken and tortured. The square-jawed, clean-shaven, clean-living imagery never worked for me. They simply weren’t relatable. This is as true for my taste in musicians as it is comic book heroes. It’s little wonder then, that I took such a shining to Justin Townes Earle.
I confess he was one of those artists I knew of but had never taken the time to properly explore. Shamefully, I can’t even claim that finding him was intentional. It was simply happenstance – a suggestion via Spotify’s ‘Discover Weekly’ function. To make matters worse, it wasn’t even him I was being suggested. It was a cover of his anthem ‘Harlem River Blues’ by his father, Steve Earle. I fell in love instantly.
As a bluegrass loving Americana disciple, you can imagine how that song tickled me in all the right places. Thankfully, I had the sense to look a little deeper into the story behind the album. Simply titled J.T, it was an awakening in and of itself for me. I had no idea the guy who wrote ‘Copperhead Road’ was capable of this stuff. Reading into it, I discovered that the album was an homage to his late son, Justin Townes Earle. That hit me between the eyes. To begin with, I wasn’t aware the two were related. Neither was I aware that Justin had passed.
Naturally, my next step was to seek out Justin’s original recording of the song. Hearing it for the first time was one of those moments that make you question how credible you really are. It was so dramatically resonant that I was almost angry at myself for not already knowing it.
One evening, after a few glasses of red wine, I found myself down an Earle shaped YouTube rabbit hole. The fruit of that was the following video, which I think I watched about nine times in a row that night.
Lord I’m going uptown / To the Harlem River to drown / Dirty water gonna cover me over / And I’m not gonna make a sound
Cliché as it was, when I first heard that refrain, I felt as though JT was speaking directly to me. In retrospect, the knowledge that he had already passed away because of an accidental drug overdose made it all the more visceral. Here was another broken, tortured hero for my collection.
What ensued was weeks of deep dives into as much of his music as I could consume. The more I listened, the more I loved. Justin’s lyrics reveal someone who was comfortable with profound existentialism. They also exposed someone battling with a crippling internal punitive voice. All at once, he could diagnose the world and reveal a deep self-loathing.
Crazy next-door lady always giving me the evil eye / She says she don’t like me but won’t tell me why / She says she need to watch me day and night / Only trouble is / The bitch is right
Buy Justin Townes Earle’s Kids In The Street from Bayou Records here.
Most all of his songs were dichotomous to a degree. You’re certain the narrative is headed one way and then he jack-knifes it on you. Or, as in the case of ‘Aint’ Waitin”, he ruins a perfectly flippant bluegrass tune with some deep character development. Which, ultimately you thank him for.
I could use a haircut / I could take a shave / I could stand to hear my baby call me by my name / Put on a country station on that satellite radio / I ain’t waitin’ on nothin’ I just love her so
If that’s not enough to sell you, then he’ll throw in a slide guitar solo in the middle of the first verse.
The problem with broken and tortured heroes is they don’t tend to stick around very long. Yet, that unreliability is part of the appeal. Their warnings not to believe in them only make the appeal even greater. Plus, ultimately their genius is born of their brokenness. Or, perhaps it’s the other way around?
One thing is certain, Justin Townes Earle was a genius and he’ll forever be one of my musical heroes.
