Townes Van Zandt is one of the greatest songwriters to ever put pen to paper.
Often said to be your favorite songwriter’s favorite songwriter, he never quite received the recognition he truly deserved, but that was largely by design, as he spent his life honing his craft and writing for the sake of the song and not in search of fame.
There’s a short and distinguished list of artists today that have taken a similar approach to their craft and embodied the altruistic spirit with which Townes approached his own, and of those, Benjamin Tod has etched his name at the top of the list.
Both a solo artist and the frontman of alt-country outfit Lost Dog Street Band, Tod has lived quite the life, and he writes with a level of authenticity and passion that few other artists are able to match. Often penning sad songs of heartbreak, addiction, and sorrow, much like Townes did, Tod has a special knack for evoking emotion through his lyricism, and he’s got a way of singing that makes the listener feel every word.
So with all of that said, it’s no surprise that Tod is a massive Townes Van Zandt fan in his own right, and has presumably drawn a great deal of inspiration from the late great and the catalog he left behind. In fact, if you saw Tod and Lost Dog Street band on tour in 2024, there’s a decent chance you may have even heard him cover a Townes song.
I don’t know for sure whether it made its way into the set list every night, but I know Tod delivered a chilling cover of Townes’ classic “Waiting Around To Die” when I saw he and the band take the stage in Charlotte last year, and it was something special. Thankfully for anyone who didn’t get to listen to it live, though, he just released a live cover to YouTube of the song from a different show on that tour.
Filmed by Jesse Weeden at the State Theatre in Portland, Maine during their “Survived” tour, Lost Dog Street Band’s must-watch rendition of “Waiting Around To Die” not only featured a passionate vocal delivery from Tod that makes you believe every word as if it were his own, but with an eerie drum beat and Tod’s wife Ashley Mae sawing that lonesome fiddle, the full band is able to capture sonically the essence of the song’s message.
Check out Lost Dog Street Band’s live cover of Townes Van Zandt’s “Waiting Around To Die” here:
“Sometimes I don’t know where this dirty road is taking me
Sometimes I don’t even know the reason why
So I guess I keep a-gamblin’
Lots of booze and lots of ramblin’
It’s easier than just waitin’ around to die.”
A dark and ironic tune about running from your problems with vices instead of “waiting around to die,” though both approaches ultimately lead to the same fate, the deftly written “Waiting Around To Die” was originally released in 1969 on Townes’ third album, the self-titled Townes Van Zandt.
For anyone who may not be familiar, Townes Van Zandt was born in Fort Worth, TX on March 7 in 1944. He received his first guitar at 12 years old, and initially inspired by the stardom of Elvis Presley, became nearly inseparable form the instrument, igniting one of the few relationships that Townes was able to maintain throughout the remainder of his troubled life.
He lived a relatively normal childhood, but a rebellious side began to emerge in Townes during his high school years, and while he was incredibly smart and successful in school when applying himself, he often was more interested in practicing guitar and experimenting with vices that would ultimately take over his life, developing addictions in his early adulthood that lasted the duration of his 52 years.
Deeply inspired by the natural world and the personalities, relationships, and experiences of the characters in his life, Townes had an uncanny knack for songwriting, and was able to exude emotion through lyricism in a way few artists before him, or after him, have been able to mimic. With a painfully sorrowful disposition stemming from certain traumatic experiences, crippling addiction, and fervid empathy for others, his music often takes on a somber tune and covers heavy material.
But above all else Townes Van Zandt was an artist, a creative who expressed himself through song and dedicated his life to doing so authentically, mastering his craft as a traveling folk songwriter who is revered by many to be one of the greatest to ever do it.
Having ultimately succumb to complications related to his struggles with addiction on New Year’s Day in 1997, Townes’ “Waiting Around To Die,” and many other songs within his catalog, take on an even deeper meaning within the context of his life. Check out the original version of the track here.
And while we’re on the topic of Townes Van Zandt, Lost Dog Street Band, and “Waiting Around To Die,” watch this video of Tod and his wife Ashley Mae performing this one back in 2014 while busking on the streets of Boulder, Colorado.
