Waiting Around to Die

The Be Good Tanyas discovered Townes Van Zandt's songwriting and covered "Waiting Around to Die" on their 2000 debut, introducing many listeners both to their own folk-country-blues synthesis and to Van Zandt himself.

The original Van Zandt recording is spare, confessional, and devastating. The Tanyas' version slows it further, the three-part harmonies creating something simultaneously warmer and colder — more beautiful and more terrible for the beauty.

The Be Good Tanyas' debut Blue Horse remains one of the finest Canadian folk records of its era. Their subsequent work deepened rather than diverted from the promise of that beginning.