Robert Earl Keen has never wanted for songwriting inspiration.

Since his 1984 debut album “No Kinda Dancer,” the Houston-born troubadour has earned a reputation for thoughtful, poetic lyrics that can leave listeners belly laughing one minute or deep in contemplation the next. Or both, more often than not, as on his signature story-song “The Road Goes On Forever,” about a waitress and a loner who hit the road on a crime spree. His literate storytelling has placed him alongside contemporaries and friends Lyle Lovett and Steve Earle at the vanguard of the Texas songwriter movement, the logical successors to such “outlaw” country acts as Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt (two artists Keen once toured with on a triple bill in the late ’80s).

“The one thing that has not changed, really, is I have never felt restricted by any subject matter as far as writing songs,” Keen said from a recent tour stop in Park City, Utah. Keen and his longtime band will be at the Tower Theatre tonight. “I always felt like, well, 95 percent of the world’s songs are love songs, and I always thought, why? I mean, songs are about celebration, and there’s all kinds of stuff you can celebrate. So I’ve always looked for other things to write about.”

Keen continues to seek inspiration off the beaten path. His latest project — a series of short songs, each no more than 90 seconds — came about when Keen was trying to get his daughter to practice her violin. He said he hopes to eventually release a compilation of these songs.

“In an effort to make sure she played all the time, I would say, ‘I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do: I want you to go practice for 20 minutes, and I will write a song in 20 minutes,’” Keen said. “I started doing that with her and that’s how that idea was born, and then from there I just kind of run into a weird idea that I think is fun and somewhat provocative. And then I decided, well, I don’t need to make a whole song out of this, or a song as in conventional standards. I just need to say what this thing says that I want to say.”

So far the songs have been well received when he’s performed them live, he said, and folks at the Tower tonight may get a sneak peek.

Keen has been on the road almost nonstop since his annual holiday tour, Merry Christmas From the Fam-O-Lee (from a song of the same name), hit venues in December. Before that, he toured with old college roommate Lovett from September through November — just two songwriters onstage swapping stories.

He was last in Bend in summer 2015 on a double bill with Earle at the Century Center, though he was billed as a featured performer. While he still seems frustrated to say the least about the mix-up (“I’ve never walked off on a gig yet, but that was about as close as I ever got,” he said), his good memories of playing in Bend outweigh the bad ones.

“As far as the town goes and stuff, I totally love the vibe,” he said. “I’ve had a really great experience there every time I’ve gone.”

Keen, the son of an attorney mother and geologist father, developed an interest in writing as a teenager, though music came later. Early on he was drawn to classic rock bands such as Cream, as well as Willie Nelson. Eventually, through his sister, he discovered the budding Texas music scene coming up around him. Besides a brief sojourn in Nashville for less than two years in the late ’80s, Keen has stayed close to these roots.

“It made it real for me,” he said. “That was really in Houston, Texas. And oddly enough, Houston, Texas, back when I got started, had a really, really healthy live music scene. And it wasn’t just some of the blues and soul that they were putting out there at the time, but it was truly guys with guitars, guys and girls with guitars, people writing songs and just playing in corners, playing anywhere they could play.”

Inspired by what he saw, Keen picked up guitar and began putting his writing to music.

“It was like I was Van Gogh with a pencil, and all of a sudden I found a paintbrush,” Keen said. “It just all of a sudden made all the difference in the world. It made 100 percent sense to me. I have to say looking back, I wasn’t very advanced and I wasn’t very courageous in my charge to make really, really, really — to write some fabulous songs. But as far as the comfort level, 100 percent comfortable. I felt like I had really found what I was supposed to do in life when that happened.”

More than three decades in, Keen has yet to slow down. “Ready For Confetti,” his last album to feature new, original songs, was released in 2011. In 2015 he tackled bluegrass for the first time on “Happy Prisoner: The Bluegrass Sessions,” covering classics by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs (“Hot Corn, Cold Corn”) and Bill Monroe (“Footprints in the Snow”) among others. The album seems to have had a lasting effect: He added a few musicians to his band for the tour behind the album who are still with him, and he’s still playing the songs live.

“We’ve got a lot more sound and flexibility as far as what we can do with the different players, and that had a huge part of it,” he said. “And then there are songs that I do from ‘Happy Prisoner’ because I really enjoy the songs, and there are things that I don’t really have that are comparable to some of those real simple, straightforward bluegrass songs. In my opinion, regardless of anything — whatever went on out there in the world — ‘Happy Prisoner’ was a huge shot in the arm as far as rethinking things and playing some really cool music with really cool people.”

In November, Keen also released “Live Dinner Reunion” to mark the 20th anniversary of his first live album “No. 2 Live Dinner.” Like “No. 2 Live Dinner,” the new set was recorded at John T. Floore’s Country Store in Helotes, Texas, a regular venue for Keen over the years. Unlike the previous album, the new one features guest appearances from Lovett, Joe Ely, Bruce Robison, Cory Morrow and Cody Canada.

“Kind of just by accident, we put this show together, and all these people showed up,” Keen said. “We had a huge crowd — we had 4,500 people, maybe 5,000 people. It was huge. They were just standing outside in the street and things, and I had all my friends, and the music was great, and everybody was having a really good time. We just had a jillion laughs, it was so great. And I just thought, really, really, it was just as beautiful and clear as anything that I’ve ever experienced. I thought for a year after that happened, I am never gonna complain again because I had this experience, and no one gets to have this experience like this.”