Townes Van Zandt - For The Sake Of The Song

What I find interesting in terms of Van Zandt is he didn’t have so many songs – if you listen to his records, the songs come back often. This idea that you can have songs as a material that you redo and rebuild, like jazz standards, it’s something that I find fascinating.

I also love the photo where he’s sitting in this room. There’s a lot said by this portrait of him, the record is like zooming in. It’s really what the cover is for; it’s not often, but in this case, it’s so true. So it’s really great, about what it means to make a recording – this kind of photography of a moment and layers of time.

I love the lyric: “close your eyes and I’ll see you in the morning”. It’s so simple. But also, maybe this is why the song is a way to hold onto the next day, you know? It’s a bit like the first stories, it’s to the people who are afraid of the dark. We go back to darkness, and they had to prove to themselves that there’ll be another day. I think the music, it must be about that: don’t be afraid of the night, be open.