Townes Lyrics

Four stories to the ground and he landed right flat on his back

Fallen angel with a death wish and a cowboy-cavalier kind of laugh

He'd been hanging out the window trying to figure out just where is too far

'Cause daring just a little doesn't suit our soon-to-be shooting star

He said he only wanted to know how it feels to fall

And the only way to really know is to fall

He'd been gliding around the campus with a glassy kind of far-away stare

He'd been sniffing on some substances that made him feel like walking on air

He was a poet and a scholar and an athlete and a good-looking guy

But something in his soul sought out the darkness like the moth to the fire

He said he only wanted to know how it feels to fall

And the only way to really know is to fall

He would fill his lungs with vapors from the stuff that holds together

Little flying things

But he sorely was mistaken if he thought that stuff could save him

With some glued-on wings

Disintegrating genius, the Icarus of Texas

Just the damndest thing

He wrote "To Live Is To Fly"

His family got worried when they heard their baby fell from the sky

So they swooped in trying to save him with the finest treatment money could buy

They called it insulin shock therapy, the doctor said let's give it a try

(on our boy John Townes Van Zandt)

It stole away his memories but left him his desire to die

He said he only wanted to know how it feels to fall

And the only way to really know is to fall