Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris – Return of the Grievous Angel

A song I heard many many years ago. This is about as genuine as you can get.

What a beautiful song. Country or whatever you want to call it…it’s a great one. Gram Parsons and poet Tom Brown wrote this song. This song was on his last solo album Grievous Angel. Gram was not a country wanna-be…he was country. Keith Richards has said that Gram taught him everything he knows about country music. After hearing Gram Parsons…Merle Haggard wanted to produce him.

After leaving the Byrds, Parsons made a series of albums… Grievous Angel completes the cycle. Beginning with the Flying Burrito Brothers’ The Gilded Palace of Sin, the work progressed through Burrito Deluxe and Parsons’ earlier solo effort, GP.

Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris3

I have not mentioned his singing partner yet. The wonderful and beautiful Emmylou Harris. Emmylou Harris was an unknown singer in her early twenties when Gram Parsons saw her perform at a folk club in Washington, D.C. in 1971. He recruited her the following year to sing on 1973’s classic album GP and the subsequent tour. She ended up on the GP album and this one…Grievous Angel.

Grievous Angel peaked at #195 on the Billboard Album Charts. If Parsons had survived it’s no telling what he and Emmylou would have done together. His voice wasn’t strong like Johnny Cash or Merle Haggard but it was so emotional that you were in the story with him.

This song describes the vision of home and love that haunts a wanderer through his travels across America.

Emmylou Harris:  “I would say until I had met Gram and started working with him I didn’t really understand or have a real love or feel for country music. Like most of my generation, you know, country music was politically incorrect for us at that point. It was associated with Republicans and Right Wing and that sort of thing. He taught me the beauty and the poetry, the simplicity, the honesty in the music. And the love of harmony came from really singing with him.”

Emmylou Harris: Well, we got fired after our first gig. We had two weeks of rehearsal. And I was just in the band. I never worked with a band. I didn’t know how you did things. So I just recorded things as we went down. But Gram didn’t focus on the material from the record; he just wanted to play songs. So we sat around and played all these songs, but we never worked up a beginning, middle, and end. It was such a train wreck that first night. But actually, before we got fired, the club got closed down because Weather Report had played there a few days earlier, and they were so loud that an injunction was put against the club. So, technically, we really didn’t get fired.

Emmylou Harris: “I discovered my own voice singing in harmony with Gram, there is something about the uniqueness of two voices creating a sound that does not come when they are singing solo, and I have always been fascinated by that. That song, and our harmony, is kind of a pinnacle of our duet-singing together.”

Return of the Grievous Angel

Won’t you scratch my itch, sweet Annie Rich
And welcome me back to town?
Come out on your porch or step into your parlor
And I’ll tell you how it all went down
Out with the truckers and the kickers and the cowboy angels
And a good saloon in every single town

Oh, and I remembered something you once told me
And I’ll be damned if it did not come true
Twenty thousand roads I went down, down, down
And they all lead me straight back home to you

‘Cause I headed west to grow up with the country
Across those prairies with the waves of grain
And I saw my devil
And I saw my deep blue sea
And I thought about a calico bonnet
From Cheyenne to Tennessee

We flew straight across that river bridge
Last night a half past two
The switchman waved his lantern goodbye and good day
As we went rolling through
Billboards and truckstops pass by the grievous angel
And now I know just what I have to do
Take it for me, James

And the man on the radio won’t leave me alone
He wants to take my money
For something that I’ve never been shown
And I saw my devil
And I saw my deep blue sea
And I thought about a calico bonnet
From Cheyenne to Tennessee

The news I could bring, I met up with the king
On his head an amphetamine crown
He talked about unbuckling that old bible belt
And lighted out for some desert town
Out with the truckers and the kickers and the cowboy angels
And a good saloon in every single town

Oh, but I remembered something you once told me
And I’ll be damned if it did not come true
Twenty thousand roads I went down, down, down
And they all lead me straight back home to you

Twenty thousand roads I went down, down, down
And they all lead me straight back home to you

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

50 thoughts on “Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris – Return of the Grievous Angel”

  1. Gram Parsons, the dark angel of the country music, burnt on the altar of the Joshua Tree, made one of my favorite records. And that song in duet with Emmylou give me the thrill each time I hear it. Thanx for these anecdotes I can keep in mind when I’m listening to the “Grievous angel”.

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    1. Thanks as always for reading. This song is just beautiful beyond words. I wish we would have had more of these two but I’m happy that we got what we got.

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  2. Wow! It’s really hard to describe my love for GP and how much his music means to me. As a young boy growing up in New Jersey, I never dreamed that I would one day live in Nashville and get to meet so many people who were a part of his life and talk about Gram with some of them: Emmy, Phil Kaufman, Chris Hillman, Walter Egan and Barry Tashian. And to get to visit the Country Music Hall of Fame and stare endlessly at Gram’s Nudie jacket which is on display there. But getting back to the song in question, it’s a masterpiece. One night many years ago here in Nashville, I spent 6 hours at a Gram tribute at a local club where a slew on bands played mostly Gram songs all night. When it ended in the early morning, a well-lubed gent was dismayed that no one had played “Grevious Angel.” He then proceeded to jump on a table and start a sing along with myself and many other loudly joining in. Of course we all knew the words. I have it on tape somewhere and need to dig it up. It was a magical Music City moment!

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    1. Mike…thank you for this commnet. I am going to make it down to teh Country Music Hall of Fame soon again. I went once before but I was in a big time hurry.
      Love the story about the guy getting on the table to sing it. I totally get it…how do you NOT do this song???

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    2. They do sound great together and the Dead Flowers (written by Townes VanZandt) cover by The Rolling Stones is damfine. In Keith’s book he goes into great detail about hanging out with Gram at the chateau when they were in exile.

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  5. They are great together. I remember as a teenager (late 60s) having a Fender catalog. I drooled over everything in it, including the double-necked pedal steel guitar. How would my life have been different had I learned pedal steel all those years ago? That’s what this music does to me…

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    1. I can promise you something…if you would have learned it…you would have been in demand! Thats like bass players were in demand also because everyone played guitars.

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      1. Same thing in orchestras. Everyone wants to play violin so violists are in demand. Part of the reason for viola jokes is that many took up the viola because they were mediocre violinists and weren’t going to make a living at it. Less common is the person who always knew they were a violist.

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      2. Yes…that is very same thing with bass players…failed guitar players. I actually wanted to play bass because of Entwistle, McCartney, and Jack Bruce…. but…yea I can’t rip off a solo in mid air like some can…so in a way…I am a failed guitarist!

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  7. Such a beautiful song and the two were magic together. I didn’t discover GP until the the early 80’s. It always irked me that Emmylou was not given proper credit as this and other songs were indeed duets. Then I discovered that apparently it was Parsons widow who was jealous and had her name removed. Not that it ever slowed Emmylou down.

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    1. I learned about him around the time I learned about Big Star…from a friends brother.
      From what I read he was going to divorce his wife…
      I was surprised at her quote…that he got her in this music…and she was more of a folk artist.

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      1. As she said it changed her career. I ran across something he apparently had said that he never considered himself to totally a country artist. Something about him creating a new genre called psychedelic country. Can’t remember where I saw that. But hey he was talking a lot of drugs.

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      2. Would you say that he was a big influence in “country-rock?” Randy you would know more than me…but I always considered Sweetheart of the Rodeo the album that started that genre…I could be wrong.

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      3. No doubt he was in the mix but his contribution with The Byrds came well after they had covered “Mr. Tambourine Man” which was of the genesis of Folk Rock. Country Rock really goes back much further, I think the same pioneers of Rockabilly are responsible for Country Rock. Johnny Cash with “Big River” was certainly an up tempo country song that rock’s pretty good to me. But if we look at how we see the genre as it develops Parsons played an important role. I’d go back to his International Submarine Band songs for some roots. Then he turned the Byrds with Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Sorry for the long winded answer but there’s more to it of course.

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      4. See…I thought you would know! Please Randy…go on for as long as you want.
        International Submarine Band…I have read and read about that but never listened…I’m going to now.
        I never really thought about it that way about Cash and other guys but you are right.
        It was reccomended to me earlier to watch the Ken Burns Country doc…I’m going to do it. I have it but I haven’t started yet.

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  10. “Twenty thousand roads I went down, down, down And they all lead me straight back home to you” when it’s meant to be it’s meant to be. They do sound good together. Fresh-sounding back up band also.

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    1. She really does that natural look well…better than well. Her voice is something else…like you said…the two make one.

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    1. Yes that is a great cover. It’s becoming my favorite version of the song.

      Graham off topic…but this is more your area…have you heard of a Canadian artist named Kathleen Edwards? She released an album in 2003 and has released 4 more since. I really like her music…just wondering. Very good songwriter.

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      1. Sorry, I didn’t see this until after I commented on your other post – I usually use my train commutes to catch up on comments and other people’s blogs. But I found your Kathleen Edward’s post anyway.

        I don’t like Nazareth’s version of Love Hurts so I was gobsmacked by how much I liked Parsons and Harris singing it.

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