Let’s talk about Warren Zevon
(dead)
7 Likes
Never as good as i think he’s gonna be.
Plus i blame him for approx 10% of Kid Rock.
2 Likes
Excitable Boy is a fucking brilliant record. Had it on over the weekend there. Any record that can boast Nigh time at the switching yard, werewolves of london and lawyers, guns and money is fucking alright by me. 
11 Likes
The thinking man’s Elton John
4 Likes
First heard of him when he appeared on Later playing My Shit’s Fucked Up. One of the most gallows humoury songs ever written.
Edit: Not seen this in 23 years.
4 Likes
Always mix him up with Townes Van Zandt but turns out they’re not very similar at all are they
2 Likes
What a song.
8 Likes
I’m currently reading his biography (put together by his former wife, Crystal Zevon) ‘I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon’, and he comes across as a despicable, lovable, creative, tortured genius. A super read! Got into him just before he passed and some of his records can be patchy. His final album, ‘The Wind’ is both defiant and heartbreaking.
5 Likes
Love Warren Zevon. His earlier albums are brillaint - clever, witty and also a bunch of just great rock and roll songs.
His last album is one of the finest examples of ‘writing your own eulogy’ in music. Keep Me in Your Heart gets me every time.
4 Likes
Self titled is magnificent - that recent pitchfork Sunday review really nailed it. To follow it up with the super concise pop-rock body slam of Excitable Boy is crazy and great (although it’s a shame he was talked out of including the nakedly mournful Tule’s Blues, which is a bonus track on the reissue). Go walking to Excitable Boy, it’ll put a bounce in your step.
If he could have kept up that quality over the next two releases I suspect he would have been a much bigger star - and it begs the question: did he get derailed by all the booze or did he use it as a convenient excuse because he suspected he couldn’t possibly match up?
They have their moments, but Sentimental Hygiene after them is a great comeback radio rock record (using REM as his backing band), and Mr Bad Example is a scathing pitch black noir-like blast of charismatic bitterness that still manages to go out on one of his most wistful, gorgeous poppy songs - Searching For a Heart. Feels as glorious as Bound 2 at the end of Yeezus. (He was very good at closers - probably because of his novelistic writing style - that pitchfork review was right to rhapsodise Desperados Under the Eaves from the debut - there’s still nothing quite like that moment the orchestra matches his impersonation of the air conditioner).
Those last three albums - all seemingly predicting his early demise - are spotty for different reasons of low budget, or failing health, etc, but special, and given the subject matter can be whittled down to one totally classic album if you’re crazy like me.
Really enjoyed the book put together by Crystal Zevon on him. The first oral history I ever read, and the perfect way to approach a ‘complicated’ man like that. Long time since I read it but from memory it was warts and all - not shying away from why he was genuinely brilliant, but not air brushing his alcoholism, womanising and violence.
I was also recently reading Matthew Specktor’s wonderful LA/failure memoir Always Crashing in the Same Car and found a chapter on Zevon, after the author realises that his neighbour was the inspiration for the Mr Bad Example cut ‘Angel Dressed in Black’ - a song that opens with the line ‘Sitting on the sofa, sucking a bowl of crack’.
Once again, I’m afraid he didn’t come out of it too well (although mercifully there was no violence involved) but even she seemed still somewhat awed by his intelligence and talent.
Favourite thing from the oral history was finding out that his favourite author is also mine - Ross MacDonald, who wrote slightly more psychologically astute/real world chandler/Hammett type mysteries, and for my money was the best of those three. He even agreed to be part of an intervention for Zevon - being the person he respected most in the world. Those books maybe hint at who he wished he could have been. They’re very generous and compassionate and kind. He could be all of those things but also had a kind of madness inside him right to the end.
12 Likes
(Sorry about this)
Exactly what I was hoping for. Only really scratching the surface at the moment but feels like a future obsession. Can’t believe there wasn’t a thread already.
3 Likes
Great post. Have earmarked a number of things you mention to follow up on when I have a chance.
3 Likes
Thread has sent me on a Zevon deep dive. The Hindu Love Gods album with REM is great fun.
Has been on my list of ‘people I intend to get round to listening too at some point’ for a long time.
TALKIN’ ABOUT THE MAN!
2 Likes
so nearly started this thread the other day cos of this review
6 Likes
I’d never heard of Zevon till i was watching Letterman one night with a friend and there was this dude being interviewed (we switched on whilst the interview was already on so didn’t get the introduction). Anyway the chap being interviewed tells Letterman that he’ll be dead next springtime because of his cancer and we’re like ‘grim man’. Was a very interesting interview, whilst definotelt sombre this dude certainly had a sense of humour and seemed like he’d been there and done that.
Anyway letterman mentions his name and i’m thinking ‘who the fuck is warren zevon?’ So i do some digging and the first thing i came across was excitable boy and that was that.
A lot of his other stuff didnt land when i first listened to it except EB, anyway in light of this thread and the pitchfork review i’ve been listening to Warren Zevon which i don’t think i’ve given a spin in maybe 15 years.
Fuck me it’s brilliant. Not sure why i didn’t land way back when but so many great tracks. Especially Desperadoes Under the Eaves. Haven’t had it off all week.
Will be doing a full relisten to all his records over the coming weeks.
7 Likes
getting into this guy in the last couple weeks. im up through the 90s stuff. i really love so much of his music. hard to argue against excitable boy being his best work, but im really loving sentimental hygiene too.
5 Likes