Chords for My Memories Of Justin Townes Earle

[A] _ _ Hey friends, I wanted to say a [N] few words about Justin Towns Earl
I know a lot of you guys were fans [A] of his music and we were all
[Abm] You know really [N] sad to hear about his passing.
I figured I would just tell you some stories.
There's no easy way to
To ease into this so I'll do the best I can
If you hear a knocking my neighbor is hammering something down the street, so I apologize for that
When I first met Justin
_ Probably [A] 15 years ago.
I was doing [N] a
Residency at the basement in Nashville before I lived there and on and off night.
I went [A] ahead and
Went to see him [Gm] play upstairs at Bongo job as a coffee shop down [N] by Vanderbilt
and they had a room upstairs that would hold 20 people at the most and I
Went to see him.
I just knew Steve Earl's kid.
That's all I knew so I went
Steve was there I sat like right behind
[Em] Him [A] and I watched and and Justin was you know, I showed some promise.
[Ab] He wasn't great.
He hadn't put it [A] together yet
But it's like yeah, man
it seemed like the was still saying a puppy [C] dog with big feet and he's probably gonna grow in [D] too soon [G] and
I went ahead and cut out after the [N] gig and was walking out the front of the coffee shop and got out to the
Street and I heard somebody go.
Hey Otis and I turned around and it was Justin and
He walked up and he's like Otis.
I just want to thank you for coming to my gig
And I'm thinking how the hell does he know who I am?
And I said man, I enjoyed it, you know, it's nice to see and he said well actually
He had a one of my records called one day or whispers
And I believe he probably got it through Jeff fireball or Chuck Meade
So be our five guys were hip to what I was doing
You know most of the world [Em] wasn't it felt good like man Steve Earle's kid [N] knows, you know
He knows my music and we talked for a little bit and that was that
Probably eight or nine months later
He played at Spencer Stadium Tavern in Indianapolis
And I went down there and he'd gotten better in that short period of time.
It was fun and he still hadn't
Put it all together, but he'd gotten better and Amy and I [A] had a good time and I'm never one to
[Bb]
Hang out after the [A] show and chat people up and [Eb] all of that
So I went ahead and I left [N] afterwards and he chased me out to the car again
And he's like hey Otis man
I just want to say thanks for coming out to the gig and we talked for probably 25 minutes and I just
bright [E] sunshiny bubbly [Bb] guy who was fun and it was [F] really nice and and
[N] That was that and a [E] year or two later we moved to Nashville
[N] And I started running into Justin at the coffee shop and it got to where I was spending just about every afternoon
down at the coffee shop
Just talking to him and we would sit there and we would talk about labor history.
We talked about Joe Hill
You know, we talked about things you usually don't talk about with folks and he was always
_ Really really good to be around really fun guy to chat with and he was smart guy
It's obvious he had a lot of issues from his childhood and all of that
But [A] when you're just two guys at the coffee shop, you know
That's [N] sort of stuff doesn't matter that much and and I remember Hunt Sales
Would come up and we would talk with Hunt
For those of you that don't know Hunt Sales is just this great drummer who has an amazing history
His Soupy Sales son who was you know, old-school comedian
So he had all of these great ties to old-school Vegas old-school Hollywood
You know the cat skills and all this and Hunt had these stories
but Hunt
_ Played with Bowie.
He played with Iggy Pop and Todd Rundgren when you hear Iggy Pop's lust for life
You know the you can't hurry love drumbeat there that that that that that that's Hunt Sales
So he would be [G] there at the coffee shop and he was a little bit older guy and man he was [Gb] for real
[N] He was a really still as he's a very very real cat
he's got all of this jazz going through him and he's a rock drummer and he's the real thing and
Nashville didn't really appreciate him that much things weren't going that great for him
But me and Justin [C] thought he was amazing and we loved sitting there [Cm] listening to him tell stories
It's like man, [B] he would leave and Justin [Gb] and I would be like man, that's Hunt Sales.
That's great
[Ebm] And then we were just all excited and you know, Justin was like that.
He would get excited about the real deal
we'll just say in a town full of plastic flowers and Instagram outlaws
Hunt Sales was the real thing and
The town that wasn't that hip to
_ [Gb] Appreciating the real thing at that moment.
I don't think in some ways they did if you were old country, that's one thing
But if you're an old rock cat, you know, they had the history
we'll just say when Hunt showed up into the room with _ full sleeves of tattoos and
long dreadlocks and
Just this amazing
_ Or around him
He didn't really fit in real well with what was happening in the Nashville [Ebm] session world at that time
And I've huge [Eb] respect for that world and I have love for that world
But [Gb] sometimes the two just don't cross paths
[Dbm] But Justin and I really appreciated it and I like to think of Justin in that light of the guy that
You know kept his ear to the ground
Knew what was really happening
Cared about what became, [Gb] you know [Bb] what happened before him and
had a good knowledge of what happened before him and how important it was and
[F] You know, we kind [Gb] of I remember the morning
He showed up to the coffee shop and told me that he'd signed with bloodshot and I'm like man, that's great.
That's awesome
You know congratulations and he was all excited about that
And things just [Bb] instantly got [C] better for him, you know [Gb] career-wise [Eb] and _
_ He ended up on the road a lot [D] I didn't see him as [Db] much he moved to New York didn't see him [F] hardly at all I'm
[N]
Horrible at keeping in touch with [C] anybody like my closest friends in the world.
I never call him.
[A] I'm kind of bad that way
I'm not proud of it, you know, so [N] I'm not claiming that Justin I were real Justin and I were real super close friends
You know, but we were friends and I cared about him very much.
I would hear stories coming back
Into my world
about him behaving badly and you know, just bad things bad stories and
It was always a drag, you know, it just wasn't the guy that I remember
Hanging out with and I believe all those stories.
I still have issues about what went down in Indianapolis that night
So I had a lot of friends that were there and witnessed the whole thing.
I was friends
I'm [C] still friends with the people [N] who owned the bar and
You know, he went to jail and I think he should have went down to [A] jail that night
[G] You know, so I have a lot of [F] issues with that, but I don't [Ab] want to drag all [A] of that out
I just want you guys to think of [Abm] you know
that wide-eyed [N] kid who was excited to be hanging [A] out with Hutt sales and talking labor history and
You know just talking about
_ [Ab] possibilities and what [F] the world might be [N] so
_ Maybe down the road we can expand this out and get into all [A] the darkness about _
[N] The music world in general is there's plenty of it that we [Am] need to deal with someday
but [Fm] for now, I [N] just want to
think about Justin and
remember chatting at the coffee shops _ _
Take care of each other and rest easy, brother _ _
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