Broken Boat - Vernon Rust

Why is this man homeless?

"Why is this man homeless? Why isn't he getting his royalties for these songs that were recorded by other musicians? Does he have an attorney (a good one, because I know quite a few, used to work for one of the best in Nashville)? Enquiring minds want to know!!!"

A good question came in via the Facebook page yesterday.  Why is Vernon homeless.  When I ask him questions like that, "where is all the songwriting money", for instance, he says that he has been without a permanent address for at least 10 years.  Couch surfing, staying in cheap hotels that cater to the down and out.  Urban camping as he calls it, sleeping in parks. 

When I got in touch with Vernon this summer past, he asked me to read Jeff Apter's biography of Keith Urban, Vernon's songwriting partner.  Fortunate Son:  The Unlikely Rise of Keith Urban mentions Vern's homelessness as problematic at the time that he and Keith were writing Keith's first American album, The Ranch.  Apter touches on Vernon's homelessness contrasted against his importance to the Urban camp at the time as the wordsmith for these great songs.

"Vernon is  the character in these songs.  He really lives them." - Keith Urban speaking about The Ranch

Why is a great American songwriter like Vernon Rust living in his car in a Walmart parking lot?  Is it a lifestyle choice?  A product of his drug abuse?  Bad choices?  Rip-offs by lawyers and insiders?  Why doesn't Vernon work outside of songwriting to provide for himself?  All good and obvious questions that this film will examine.  Perhaps Vernon answers it a bit himself in this poignant, unrecorded song, Broken Boat, recorded here on my iPhone 4 using the 8mm app, behind a liquor store somewhere in Nashville.