Zevon Tribute #1

We're coming up on the 10th anniversary of the passing of two great American artists, Johnny Cash and Warren Zevon.  So I'm going to do what I can in the next 10 days or so to pay tribute to each of them.  Wish they were both still here.

 

A few years back, I made a list of my favorite Zevon songs, and I'm pretty sure this ended up as #1.  I love this version, both for the way Warren looks, and the way he just nails it with the acoustic guitar.  This was on the first Zevon album I bought (was a senior in high school), so it also holds some sentimental value.

"Lawyers, Guns and Money," Warren Zevon, originally from the album "Excitable Boy," released in 1978.

"Don't It Make It You Want to Rock and Roll All Night Long?"

I'm pretty sure I've posted this one before, but that version of the video was taken down long ago. This one is worth watching until such time that it disappears. They couldn't ever have been this young, but indeed they were.

MacGillycuddy's Reeks

It's been almost five years now, but thanks to YouTube and the sheer power of his talent, Warren Zevon is still out there on the periphery. This song, from his 2002 album "My Ride's Here," is Warren at his clever, witty and sardonic best.

Warren Sings Prince

In 1989, while recording Sentimental Hygiene with Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Bill Berry of R.E.M. as his backing band, Zevon joined the trio to form Hindu Love Gods, releasing one album that consisted mostly of rock versions of Robert Johnson blues tunes and other old folk songs. The exception was "Raspberry Beret," by Prince. About the only thing Zevon's version has in common with the original is the melody.

In this clip, Zevon sings the song with Paul Shaffer and the World's Most Dangerous Band, on Late Night with David Letterman.

Warren and Joe

Always fun to discover a new Warren Zevon clip; this one is from the Jools Holland BBC program, recorded circa 2000. Near the end, Warren pays tribute to Joe Strummer in the song; Strummer's last band The Mescaleros was also on the program that night (you can see him near the end of the song, enthusiastically clapping along). Still hard to believe they're both gone.

"Send Lawyers, Guns and Money..."

I miss him. I wish there were new Warren Zevon songs to look forward to. It may be a small consolation, but finding gems like this keep the flame alive.

"Mohammed's Radio"

From a December 1976 appearance on "Old Grey Whistle Test," Warren looking impossibly young and innocent, joined by an equally young looking Jackson Browne and the great David Lindley on steel guitar.

This also is one of his greatest songs, though my favorite version of it is on the live "Stand in the Fire" album, with the altered lyrics "Ayatollah's got his problems too/Even Jimmy Carter's got the highway blues..."

"Excitable Boy"

The Rolling Stone review of Excitable Boy was written by the late Paul Nelson, one of the best rock critics of that (or any) era.

Nelson loved Warren, and loved the album. It was the first Zevon album I ever bought, and I also think it's great - but I'm not sure it's quite as great as Nelson wrote at the time: "...the best American rock & roll album since Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run (1975), Neil Young's Zuma (1976) and Jackson Browne's The Pretender (1976)." But there's no doubt that Nelson was a wonderful critic, and this review is filled with terrific nuggets:

"...[after the first album] there was some confusion whether he was just another sensitive (albeit unusually tough) singer songwriter or a Magnum-cum-laude rock & roller who ate gunpowder for breakfast..."

"...An intuitive artist, he's often both smart and crazy enough to shoot first at the most explosive subjects, then figure out the ramifications of whatever the hell he's bloodied later ("Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner," "Excitable Boy," "Werewolves of London," "Lawyers, Guns and Money"). This is a dangerous way to work—it isn't nice, and not everybody gets it—but you can claim some spectacular trophies when you're sufficiently reckless to risk safari on the dark side of the moon, where the gleam of the lion may look like the leer of the lamb..."

"...Almost without exception, Zevon's rock & roll songs command and demand your attention through the sheer strength of their creator's personality; they're not necessarily profound (though they can be), but they hit with such primary impact you don't have to think twice about them..."

Great, great stuff.

"Warren Zevon"

It’s a Zevon festival today, on the fourth anniversary of his untimely death.

This is the Rolling Stone review of his debut album (I know it wasn’t really the first, but for all intents and purposes it might as well have been), by Stephen Holden. Probably needless to say, the album got a good review, but Holden’s writing doesn’t knock my socks off. But the intro is good:

Warren Zevon’s first Asylum album is a contemporary comedy-western about Los Angeles. In images that are often mordantly funny and detailed right down to specific place-names, Zevon compiles a surrealistic vision of Hollywood that is one part Howard Hawks to three parts Nathanael West. Albums with a Hollywood-western theme aren’t new. But all the others have been made by die-hard romantics—the Eagles, Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell. In refreshing contrast, Zevon works almost exclusively with irony and satire. The appearance of an L.A. singer/songwriter who dares to puncture the seriousness of the romantics but who is also musically sophisticated enough to work in their idiom is long overdue. A competent pianist and guitarist and a fine composer, Zevon’s songs run the gamut from acoustic folk to hard rock. His best tunes even manage to use the romantic harmonies of Browne’s and the Eagles’ ballads to evoke pathos and humor simultaneously.

I especially like the contrast Holden draws between Zevon and the other major West Coast stars of the time. Of course, we know he got along well with Jackson, a close friend and mentor; he appears to have gotten on with the Eagles all right; but I don't think Joni Mitchell could stand him (if memory serves, there's a piece to that effect in I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, but I can't remember all the details). But he definitely carved out his own niche.

Finishing Touches

Warren Zevon died four years ago on September 7, a little more than a year after learning that he had terminal mesothelioma. Upon learning the news, the great rock critic Greil Marcus commented, "From 1976, when he went public with "Desperadoes Under the Eaves" on the album "Warren Zevon," it has been more than a quarter century of gunplay and bravado, not for a moment concealing Zevon's loathing for his own betrayals and those of the world around him."

Marcus nailed it perfectly, and never did those betrayals (and anger) seem more evident than they did in this song. I think it's one of his best, and this performance from the Letterman show is a great one. He looks great, and almost sneers the key lyrics, "You tried to put...the finishing touches on me..." After having read "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead," it's easy to imagine that Zevon had just broken up with someone; someone who had tried to change him. For the better, almost certainly. But he was what he was.

Warren Zevon and Elvis

The manner of Elvis' demise bugged Warren Zevon; enough so that he wrote a song about it. From "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead," longtime friend and collaborator Jorge Calderon tells the story:

Jorge Calderon:

Another day, I took an old notebook out. I had glued this postcard from Graceland on it and it had a picture of Elvis' TV room, and it had like three TVs. And on the coffee table there was this white, weird-looking monkey with black eyes. He said, "What is that?" I said, "Look, it's a porcelain monkey." And, he just wrote it down and underlined it and said, "That's the next song."

I had seen this movie about the Memphis Mafia guys talking about how they couldn't do anything to help Elvis because they would lose their jobs. So, after he dies, these guys are doing a documentary about how they couldn't help him, but they do a movie about his death, and Warren loved that concept. At one point, I said, "He was an accident waiting to happen..." He wrote that down and then he added, "Some accidents happen at home." Then he wrote, "He should've gone out more often. Maybe he should have answered the phone." Then, later I said - I thought this would be too much - "Hip shaking..." Then, the second verse, which is my favorite, we wrote in front of each other at his house.

He was an accident waiting to happen
Most accidents happen at home
Maybe he should've gone out more often
Maybe he should've answered the phone

Hip-shakin' shoutin' in gold lame'
That's how he earned his regal sobriquet
Then he threw it all away
For a porcelain monkey
He threw it away for a porcelain monkey
Gave it all up for a figurine
He traded it in for a night in Las Vegas
And his face on velveteen

From a shotgun shack singing Pentecostal hymns
Through the wrought iron gates to the TV room
He had a little world, it was smaller than your hand
It's a rockabilly ride from the glitter to the gloom
Left behind by the latest trends
Eating fried chicken with his regicidal friends
That's how the story ends
With a porcelain monkey

He threw it away for a porcelain monkey
Gave it all up for a figurine
He traded it in for a night in Las Vegas
And his face on velveteen

Hip-shakin' shoutin' in gold lame'
That's how he earned his regal sobriquet
Then he threw it all away
For a porcelain monkey

He threw it away for a porcelain monkey
Gave it all up for a figurine
He traded it in for a night in Las Vegas
And his face on velveteen

- Porcelain Monkey, Warren Zevon and Jorge Calderon

Warren Zevon: "Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money"

Burt Stein (friend, "babysitter," companion for Warren while on tour):

Joe Smith [chair of Asylum Records] came to me and said, "We think Warren needs a little break. He's talking about Hawaii. How would you like to go with him?" Warren and I were pretty close, and if anybody from the record company was going anywhere with him, it was usually me.

We settled in and our pattern was that I would go to sleep at a normal time. Warren would sit on the balcony 'til all hours of the morning reading Raymond Chandler novels, sipping Stolichnaya. I'd get up in the morning and invariably he was ready to carry on. It would be time for breakfast, and Warren would stop at the refrigerator, and he'd say, "I can't eat on an empty stomach." He'd down a little more vodka and we'd go have breakfast.

Of course, every afternoon we spent hours in the cocktail lounge - to the point where Warren got friendly with the waitress. One day he says, "A friend of the waitress has a cabin up in the mountains. She's off tomorrow and she'll take us there. We can get a little mountain experience." The three of us get in my rental car. We're going to spend the night up in the mountains and come back the next day. So, we're driving through a sugarcane field and Warren's sitting next to me. The girl is in the backseat. I ask how long before we get up there. She says, "Oh, ninety minutes." She goes on to say, "I'm sure my friend won't mind if we break in." I say, "Oh, shit. Warren, I can see it now. A telegram to Joe Smith: "Dear Joe, please send lawyers and money." And, Warren says, "Joe, send lawyers, guns and money." And then I say, "Warren, we're not going up there." He says, "You're right. Back to the bar." So, we went back to the cocktail lounge. On two cocktail napkins, he wrote "Lawyers, Guns and Money."

Lawyers, Guns and Money

Well, I went home with the waitress
The way I always do
How was I to know
She was with the Russians, too

I was gambling in Havana
I took a little risk
Send lawyers, guns and money
Dad, get me out of this

I'm the innocent bystander
Somehow I got stuck
Between the rock and the hard place
And I'm down on my luck
And I'm down on my luck
And I'm down on my luck

Now I'm hiding in Honduras
I'm a desperate man
Send lawyers, guns and money
The shit has hit the fan

- Warren Zevon

Warren Zevon: "A Limited Instrument As A Singer"

Jackson Browne:

"...There's a vast catalog of great songs that bear the stamp of Warren's writing voice and his point of view and his personality and the depth of his character that don't have to be done the way he did them. He had a limited instrument as a singer. But if you love those songs, they're inseparable from the guy who wrote them no matter who sings them. And yet, I always bore allegiance to hearing the writer sing his songs. That kind of flies in the face of the music business."

Warren Zevon: "Happy Together"

An overnight success Warren Zevon was not. By the time his major label debut was released in 1976, he had been around the L.A. songwriting scene for over a decade, garnering respect from his peers and colleagues for his body of work, but falling far short of fame.

The degree to which that respect manifested itself is evident in this remembrance from Howard Kaylan of The Turtles, who were on the brink of releasing "Happy Together" and knew that it was their ticket to the big time:

"When we went into the studio at the beginning of 1967, we absolutely knew it was going to be a #1 record. The owners of the record company said, 'This is going to be a #1 record, so think carefully about what you want to put on the B-side because it's all gravy money.' We were so naive, and were so decent, that we said, 'Let's use Warren's song on the B-side of this one, too.' 'What? You've already used it as a B-side' [for a
previously released single]. 'I know, but that wasn't a hit. We want to give this guy every break that we can...'"

"...Believe me, we were not always that selfless...But, in Warren's case, he was a very, very special person. We wanted him to share our good fortune. So, 'Happy Together' wound up with Warren's song 'Like the Seasons' as the B-side internationally, and of course it sold millions and millions and millions of records."

Such regard for Zevon as an artist is prevalent throughout I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, and one of the great tragedies of his life was that he was unable (or unwilling, or some combination of the two) to accept that kind of largesse with dignity and grace.

Reconsider Me - The Great Warren Zevon

I bought my first Warren Zevon album, Excitable Boy, shortly after it was released in the winter of 1978. Back in those days, I was a slave to the Rolling Stone records review section, a fact that really isn’t as bad as it sounds – in the seventies, under the stewardship of such critical luminaries as Greil Marcus, Jon Landau, Dave Marsh, and Paul Nelson, the RS review section was the best around and a place that you could count on to be honest about the value of a record, even if it was from one of Jann Wenner’s favorites (the pans given to the Stones’ Some Girls and Dylan’s Street-Legal being the most obvious examples).

So when I read the beginning of this review of Excitable Boy (written by the late Paul Nelson), it was a certainty that a trip to Tower Records would soon be in the offing:

Warren Zevon’s Excitable Boy is the best American rock & roll album since Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run (1975), Neil Young’s Zuma (1976) and Jackson Browne’s The Pretender (1976). If there’s not enough firepower in that statement, let’s cock the hammer on another. Thus far, the Seventies have introduced three major American rock & roll artists—Browne in 1972, Springsteen in 1973 and Zevon—and I have every confidence the music of all three will be even better in the future.

At the time, I agreed completely with Nelson’s assessment of the album, though with time it became clear that it was a flawed masterpiece (if there is such a thing). In fact, “flawed masterpiece” could be applied to nearly all of Zevon’s works – he never made a perfect album, though he came tantalizingly close on several occasions, and the body of his work can stand proudly alongside any that of any artist of the past 30 years.

As his career progressed, it became evident over time that Zevon was not leading a storybook existence – he was an alcoholic, a heavy drug user, and his relationships – well, let’s just say that there was mention of a new significant other in his life in just about every magazine article written about him; probably not a sign of someone capable of having stable relationships in his life. Zevon never achieved the stardom that Nelson so boldly predicted in 1978; his one major hit was the near-novelty “Werewolves of London.” He cut two excellent albums after Excitable Boy and one great live album, and then virtually dropped off the face of the earth (at least publicly) for five years, when Sentimental Hygiene (recorded with the members of R.E.M. as the backing band) represented a magnificent return to form. After that, sporadic releases for over a decade – all good, all inconsistent, all containing at least a couple of gems.

Then, in the early years of the new millennium, a wonderful renaissance, with the release of what are arguably – along with his 1976 major label debut and his finale – his two best albums: Life’ll Kill Ya and My Ride’s Here (the latter recorded with Paul Shaffer’s Late Show band). He showed up more in public, including a couple of stints as Paul Shaffer’s stand-in on Letterman (who had always been a huge fan).

And then, just as it appeared he might be poised for the greatest success of his career, the Grim Reaper came calling, in the form of mesothelioma – inoperable, and inevitably fatal. Ironically, that made him more famous than ever – one night he was the sole guest on Letterman (when he uttered the immortal phrase, “enjoy every sandwich,” when Dave asked him was he was learning from the knowledge of his impending death), a VH1 documentary, and the recording of one final album (The Wind), with every A-list star in the vicinity coming out of the woodwork to lend a hand. Against all odds, the final product was wonderful, certainly the most consistent and well-produced album of his career. Less than two weeks after its release, Zevon died.

And now, nearly four years later, we have I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, an oral biography organized and written by his former wife, Crystal, at Warren’s own request. I’m a little more than halfway through it, and it is an amazing account of an amazing life – and not always in the good sense. As Warren himself said, “I got to be Jim Morrison a lot longer than he did.” The book is unflinching in its portrayal of Zevon’s follies and idiosyncrasies, but at the same time it provides remarkable insight into what made him one of the great songwriters of the rock era. The book has been controversial, and many of the comments on Amazon.com reflect a strong aversion to what is interpreted by many as an attempt by Crystal to “take revenge” upon Warren for the many sins he inflicted upon her during their marriage, and after.

I don’t see it that way. Unlike Exile on Main Street, Robert Greenfield’s account of the making of the Rolling Stones’ greatest album (and the debauchery which occurred during the process), Crystal’s book helps to define Warren’s work, and give it meaning. It’s not always a pretty picture, but I don’t think any less of Warren as an artist (or as a person, not that I knew him) after reading these accounts, many of which describe painful episodes and awful behavior.

In the days to come, I’ll be posting several excerpts.