by Geno Thackara
Warren Zevon was a seasoned pro by the ripe age of 29. He’d made one album several years before (and it’s best left alone, honestly; we’d be well advised to consider this his real debut). That time in between was well-spent further honing a wicked sense of humor and way with words, working as a director or session man, touring with the Everly Brothers and finding great collaborators throughout the music world. As a result his second/first album showed a brilliance and sophistication that anyone else would have been proud to manage by their tenth.
Okay, so he also spent that time as a wild party man half-killing himself with drugs and booze, but that’s also a vital part of the picture. A sober person wouldn’t have come up with the crazy/goofy “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead,” and a clean responsible adult couldn’t write so convincingly about flirting with heroin or sneaking out a hotel window to avoid weeks of bills. Since this album was his most directly autobiographical and centered mostly around life in Hollywood at the time, it was inevitable these stories would be absurd, heartbreaking and hilarious – often at the same time, like life itself. They were also matched by a musical & lyrical sensibility just as wonderfully odd. Consider “The French Inhaler”:
“Loneliness and frustration
We both came down with an acute case
Then the lights came up at two
I caught a glimpse of you
And your face looked like something Death brought with him in his suitcase.”
What can I say – I’m a sucker for an unromantic tune, and that one may be the most strange and eloquent post-breakup poem you’ll ever hear. It’s a tour-de-force in itself that’s structured more like a concerto than a simple verse/chorus piece (classical intro and all).
Elsewhere, “Hasten Down the Wind” is sad and beautiful without any nasty barbs. “Backs Turned Looking Down the Path” is a positive love song (a true rarity in his catalogue, go figure) that’s perfectly charming with no hint of irony. “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” gives a sunny catchiness to thoughts of masochism and attempted suicide, while “Desperadoes Under the Eaves” closes things out with a magnificent wall of strings and voices, like a score just waiting for the right movie. It all adds up to a masterpiece of an album that somehow never gets stale. Its followup Excitable Boy had the well-known hits and the most popular success, but for my money Warren Zevon is the man’s most unfairly overlooked accomplishment.
“If I have a philosophy,” Warren once said, “it’s that life is a very rough deal, a very unforgiving game, but people kind of do the best they can.” If it helps to find ways to laugh at the darkness, well, that’s not such a bad way to handle it after all.
