Lungs
Won't you lend your lungs to me: a song, he wrote, that should be screamed, not sung.
Townes Van Zandt, from Townes Van Zandt (1969)
- Written by
- Townes Van Zandt
- Released
- 1969
- Length
- 2:29
- Album
- Townes Van Zandt
In his 1977 songbook Townes wrote that it came from the darkness of disease and the fire of frustration, and that it should be screamed, not sung. Paul Cullum called it probably the angriest song he wrote; readers have heard in it addiction, a mining disaster and the shock treatment of his youth, and Steve Earle heard it was written during a bout of walking pneumonia in New York. Lyle Lovett and Steve Earle both recorded it and sang it together at the 1997 Austin City Limits tribute, and it was used in True Detective. The upload in the hypersongs web is the 1969 studio original.
Covers and versions
- Lyle Lovett (1998)
- Steve Earle (2009)
- Cowboy Junkies
More songs by Townes Van Zandt
Pancho and Lefty, Waiting Around to Die
Sources
- Townes Van Zandt, 9/11 and the wages of prophecy, Los Angeles Review of Books (2016-09-27)
- Lungs, as recorded by others, TVZ fan song guide