“Tecumseh Valley” (Townes Van Zandt/Nanci Griffith)

Today’s classic sad song of the day is “Tecumseh Valley,” a real tear-jerker written by Townes Van Zandt and best remembered as performed by Nanci Griffith. Townes wrote this one in 1968 and first released it on his For the Sake of the Song album. It was always a staple of his live sets but didn’t get widespread airplay at the time.

In 1993, fellow Texan Nanci Griffith released the album Other Voices, Other Rooms, a collection of songs by other folk and Americana songwriters, performed by herself and a cast of notable guest stars. That album introduced many great but little-known songs to a wider audience, including Kate Wolf’s “Across the Great Divide,” Frank Christian’s “Three Flights Up,” John Prine’s “Speed at the Sound of Loneliness,” Ralph McTell’s “From Claire to Here,” and Tom Paxton’s “Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound.” She performed “Tecumseh Valley” as a duet with her friend Arlo Guthrie, and it was one of the highlights of an album full of highlights.

“Tecumseh Valley” is a story song that tells the sad tale of a young woman named Caroline, the daughter of a miner who came from Tecumseh Valley to the town of Spencer to earn some money to take home to her father. Though the times were hard and the jobs were few, she eventually got a job tending bar for saloon owner Gypsy Sally. Before Caroline could get back home, however, she got word that her pa had died, so “she turned to whorin’ out in the streets, with all the lust inside her,” eventually dying beneath the stairs at Gypsy Sally’s. In her hand when she died was a note that cried, “Fare thee well, Tecumseh Valley.”

There. I just told you the entire story, in a few words less than Townes Van Zandt used. (Well, using many of the same words he used.) The song is powerful, however, giving dignity and beauty to the young woman’s hopes and dreams before dashing them on the dirt streets of Spencer. Life was hard back then, and there was ultimately no hope left for Caroline.

Nanci’s sensitive performance brings out the best of the song. It’s worth listening to Townes’ original version, however, which may be even more heartrending—but in a stark, almost emotionless way. Townes just tells the facts, as they were, and lets the story tell itself.

By the way, if you have never heard the album Other Voices, Other Rooms, you are living a life deprived. Go out and buy it or download it or stream it right this minute; the songs on that album will change your life.