This is a great documentary featuring some really great characters. Guy Clark is particularly funny. The subject matter is quite bleak, starting with the damage done to Townes’ mind by insulin shock therapy and going kind of downhill from then on. It’s amazing he lived as long as he did.

The music is particularly haunting and you get a good sense of why so many people consider him a great songwriter. Even despite the slide-guitar drenched shmaltzy Nashville version of Pancho and Lefty that crosses the line into that horrible mush that is modern country.

My most memorable part is when a Dutch interviewer asks him why his songs are all so sad and he replies that they aren’t sad, they’re hopeless.