What Do You Do When You're Lonesome

The authorized biography of singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle

When Justin Townes Earle died in 2020 at the age of 38 of an overdose, alone in a sparsely furnished apartment in Nashville, his death sent waves of grief through the country-Americana music community. The son of alt-country hellraiser Steve Earle, partially named after the Texas troubadour and patron saint of substance-fueled despair Townes Van Zandt, he had long struggled with mental illness and various addictions. Some weren’t shocked at his passing, but everyone had hoped Justin could beat his demons. There had been encouraging periods of long-term sobriety and active recovery in his adult life, including the years that led up to his career peak when he released the 2010 masterpiece Harlem River Blues, a career-making album of rambling folk blues set to Southern Gospel. He sang of cramped Brooklyn apartments and crippling hangovers, about emotional displacement, economic anxiety, and the wandering that characterized his feral, formative years as a rootless kid rambling around Nashville, developing his own unique guitar style and absorbing the musical influences that surrounded him. He appeared on Letterman, was named one of the 25 “most stylish men in the world” by GQ, and was anointed by critics as the next coming of the authentic troubadour. By the time of his death, he’d recorded and released eight albums, creating a striking and original body of work.

Rolling Stone journalist Jonathan Bernstein, with the full cooperation of the Justin Townes Earle estate, unravels in these pages a short but incredibly creative life, and reveals the backstories behind Justin’s greatest songs (“Mama’s Eyes,” “White Gardenias”) and what happened when it all fell apart while also capturing a shadow world of the neglected children of Nashville legends who wrestle with the legacies of their hard-living, road-weary, often absent parents. Justin’s journey to near-stardom is a harrowing story shot through with moments of clarity and promise, including his marriage to his wife Jenn Marie Earle and the birth of their daughter. But what Earle called “the myth”- the idea that one must suffer for one’s art – proved to be too powerful. This heartbreaking, deeply researched tale is an exemplary music biography.

Author Biography

Jonathan Bernstein is a senior research editor and writer at Rolling Stone, and before that was a freelancer for Oxford American, The Guardian, GQ, Vulture, Pitchfork, The Village Voice, Spin, Entertainment Weekly, and American Songwriter. He lives in Brooklyn.