After some monumental releases in the proceeding years, by the mid-70s it was hard to imagine anyone entering the L.A. based singer-songwriter fraternity with something more original to say, or tackling subject matter more diverse than a series of consummate albums had already done.
Indeed, from the likes of Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Carole King and Jackson Browne, had come songcraft so accomplished this cabal had effectively become a closed shop, such was the scope of their talent.
To pull up a chair in such company, or perhaps in this case drink from same bottle of rarified elixir, would take a songsmith of considerable authenticity, writing perhaps from a standpoint of Los Angeles lower quarters rather than creative vibe of Laurel Canyon. Or, just as importantly, come to the notice of an established artisan, in other words it taking a great songwriter to know one.
Hardly surprising then Jackson Browne would show great persistence in bringing the name Warren Zevon to prominence.
Such was his altruism toward Zevon, Browne remained a staunch supporter even when the artist himself appeared to have given up on achieving widespread recognition. After making an erratic, long-forgotten album for Liberty records in 1970 (‘Wanted Dead or Alive‘), which contained parts greater than the sum, Zevon, after a brief stint as bandleader for the Everly Brothers, decamped to the coastal town of Sitges in Northern Spain.
In between drinking copious amounts of vodka he performed in a local bar owned by former mercenary David Lindell – whose eventful past would be soon be embellished into a compelling composition.
On persuading Warren he should return to Los Angeles, Browne became a patron of the songs 28-year-old, Chicago-born Zevon had stockpiled, bringing them to the attention of golden-voiced songstress Linda Ronstadt, none of which she turned down.
On the strength of her memorable renditions of his work, David Geffen, head of Asylum Records and by now home to Ronstadt, Browne and the Eagles, was persuaded to offer Zevon a recording contract.
In taking the role of producer on the album aimed at relaunching Zevon’s career, Browne assembled a crew of frontline L.A. session players, while also enlisting support from Bonnie Raitt, Phil Everly, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks from Fleetwood Mac along with Eagle duo Don Henley and Glenn Frey.
But this was no superstar gathering merely to create momentum for a friend. From the outset it was clear Zevon was a writer apart – tougher in his descriptive passages than Browne, sharper even than Newman when it came to drawing dubious, downtrodden figures.
Far removed from the decadence of ‘Life in the Fast Lane,’ on his return to the record making arena Zevon depicted Los Angeles as a city of pitiful junkies, deluded starlets and loser bars – the sunshine and palm trees no consolation to lives heading for the drain or already there.
All through Zevon makes his observations with a keen eye and even if he had not been frequenting the worst dives the city had to offer, lines such as ‘When the lights came on at two/I caught a glimpse of you/And your face looked like something death brought with him in a suitcase‘ convinced you he had – this an L.A. closer to the novels of James Ellroy than songs of James Taylor.
Superior to ‘Hotel California‘ and better by a whisker than ‘The Pretender‘ (Jackson Browne), ‘Warren Zevon‘ is a magnificent record and as such the most compelling album to be made on Asylum – or anywhere else for that matter – in 1976.
In a highly readable biography of her ex-husband (published in 2007, four years after his death), Crystal Zevon reveals how badly he dealt with his first brush with success (‘Warren Zevon‘ returned modest sales but gained rave notices), Zevon becoming prone to all manner of erratic behaviour. His alcohol fuelled outbursts, both verbal and physical, eventually resulted in divorce from Crystal – the two, however, would remain friends until he succumbed to cancer at the age of 56 in September 2003.
Back in 1978 Browne once more emerged through the chaos to take control of sessions that would result in the next Zevon L.P. (Browne co-producing with guitarist Waddy Wachtel). The resultant ‘EXCITABLE BOY‘ (January 1978), includes his best-known song and proved the most commercially successful album he would ever make – although the dip in quality on side two makes its predecessor the overall career high of Warren Zevon.
In the context of what follows on side one, opening cut ‘When Johnny Strikes Up the Band‘ comes across as slight but serves purpose as an overture. Warren leads his troupe, that throughout consist largely of Zevon (keyboards), Wachtel (guitars), Russ Kunkel (drums) and Kenny Edwards (bass), through a mid-paced rocker that does exactly what the title states, Warren striking up the band who he assures us are ‘ready‘ and ‘rock steady.’
But if ‘Johnny‘ is agreeable but no more, then ‘Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner‘ goes deep – deep into the world of a killer for hire, this soldier of fortune plying his trade in the killing grounds of Africa, the nitty-gritty presented over ominous piano chords:
‘Through sixty-six and seven they fought the Congo war/With their fingers on their triggers/Knee-deep in gore/For days and nights they battled the Bantu to their knees/They killed to earn their living and to help out the Congolese.’
Based loosely on the experiences of fellow Sitges barfly Lindell, who receives a co-write credit – the main protagonist here is actually Norwegian (‘Roland was a warrior from the Land of the Midnight Sun’) – Zevon gives the tale a twist by having the U.S. Intelligence Service put a contract on his character creation, who employ the double-crossing Van Owen, a former brother-in-arms, to carry out the slaying:
‘His comrades fought beside him/Van Owen and the rest/But of all the Thompson gunners/Roland was the best/So the CIA decided they wanted Roland dead/That son-of-a-bitch Van Owen/Blew off Roland’s head.‘
But not only does Roland rise from the dead as a phantom, he takes revenge on his assailant who is found in a Mombasa barroom, ‘Roland aimed his Thompson gun/He didn’t say a word/But he blew Van Owen’s body/From there to Johannesburg‘ the notion of mercenaries fighting on behalf of the highest bidder brought to bear in the closing lines – an apparition of Roland found in trouble spots around the globe:
‘The eternal Thompson gunner/Still wandering through the night/Now it’s ten years later/But he still keeps up the fight/In Ireland, in Lebanon, in Palestine and Berkeley.‘
The climax, created primarily by piano and drums, represents staccato blasts from a machine gun, Zevon emphasising his point by stating:
‘Patty Hurst/Heard the burst of Roland’s Thompson Gun – and bought it.’
On any number of levels it is a remarkable rock song, the detail, deadpan humour and sense of macabre placing it in a unique category. Suffice to say Ronstadt has never covered it, although she does appear singing harmony on the next up title track – which in many ways is equally chilling, the ‘Excitable Boy‘ in question an abominable child, whose psychotic behaviour eventually leads to murder and rape:
‘He took little Suzie to the Junior Prom/Excitable boy, they all said/And he raped her and killed her/Then he took her home/Excitable boy, they all said/Well, he’s just an excitable boy.’
This litany of horror and disgrace is played out over a ragtime melody and breezy saxophone solo that creates a curious juxtaposition between the words and music – forming the effect of a Stephen King novelette being set to a Scott Joplin melody.
There remains no let-up in the violence through ‘Werewolves of London‘, his only hit single and most recognized song. Often wrongly described as a novelty number (such songs as a rule do not contain words such as ‘amok’), it is far too witty for that – the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde connotations given full rein in references to the English capital and a wolverine figure with impeccable dress sense.
‘He’s the hairy handed gent who ran amok in Kent/Lately he’s been overheard in Mayfair/You better stay away from him/He’ll rip your lungs out, Jim/Huh, I’d like to meet his tailor.’
Toward the end of song, for which friend LeRoy Marinell and guitarist Wachtel also receive writing credit, (Fleetwood Mac rhythm section Mick Fleetwood and John McVie doing the drum and bass honours), the backdrop changes to Los Angeles where the werewolf is seen ‘Drinkin’ a piña colada at Trader Vic’s‘. By the time of his dynamic live album ‘Stand in the Fire’ (1980), Zevon affirms his own, new found sobriety by replacing the cocktail with ‘Perrier‘.
From the posthumously released collection of previously unheard material and alternate versions gathered together on ‘Preludes‘ (2007), it becomes apparent ‘Werewolves’ was available to use on ‘Warren Zevon‘ although in a slightly different form. It was omitted at the suggestion of Browne who, correctly, sensed it did not fit the overall theme of that record. Also heard on ‘Preludes’ is an early reading of the affecting piano ballad ‘Accidentally Like A Martyr‘ that now fully-developed is sequenced at the end of side one.
Two melancholy verses reflect on a relationship sliding from turmoil to tatters (‘The days slide by/Should have done, should have done, we all sigh/Never thought I’d ever be so lonely/After such a long, long time’), as Zevon takes an unflinching approach to matters of the heart. All this time later it is still hard to fathom what the title actually means, although that has not prevented Bob Dylan, among others, from performing a rendition.
After such an altogether outstanding first side things take a backward step when the record is turned over. Opening track ‘Nighttime in the Switching Yard‘ is little more than a workout for the band and opportunity for Zevon to show he can utitilize a synthesiser, observations on the movement of trains amounting to the most underwhelming lyric of his career.
Conjuring images of the United States 1914 occupation of a Mexican province, (‘I heard Woodrow Wilson’s guns/I heard Maria crying), ‘Veracruz‘ is not without merit, the background harp and verse sang in Spanish providing effective decoration. Yet it ends with the sense a superior song should have emerged. ‘Tenderness on the Block’ meanwhile (co-written with Browne) also lacks substance with little to distinguish it from many other L.A. soft rock songs of the time, Zevon viewed with high regard because his writing was normally so far removed from such.
Based upon a father contemplating his daughter leaving home for a night out, ‘Daddy, don’t you ask her when she’s coming in/And when she’s home/Don’t ask her where she’s been/She’s going out/She has a young man waiting,’ it is smartly played and arranged, but even then it is unlikely Browne, at the time, would have used what is a fairly pedestrian piece.
As these are three relatively short songs (barely 12 minutes in total), there was room for another before the closer, ‘Preludes’ revealing what could have been used. Why he failed to re-record the simply superb ‘Empty Hearted Town‘ for the album will remain a mystery – and just as mystifying is how this striking ballad never found its way to Sinatra. Just imagine the emotive Nelson Riddle string arrangement behind Frank as he sang lines such as ‘Cigarettes make the sun come up/Whiskey makes the sun go down/And in between/We do a lot of standing around.‘
But even without the fifth song it warrants, side two is redeemed by the tough-rocking work of genius that is ‘Lawyers, Guns and Money.‘
Up to this point we could be forgiven in thinking that in ‘Werewolves of London‘ (‘I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand/Walking through the streets of Soho in the rain’), Zevon had come up with the most evocative opening line ever heard in a song – but he surpasses even that with:
‘I went home with the waitress/The way I always do/How was I to know/She was with the Russians, too?’
Author Lee Child would kill to put a sentence that pithy into the mouth of his fictional character Jack Reacher. He would also be hard pressed to come up with a better narrative than the one Zevon has unfolding, the protagonist found in tricky situations first in Havana and then Honduras.
The hapless American abroad is heard claiming, ‘I’m the innocent bystander/Somehow I got stuck/Between the rock and a hard place/And I’m down on my luck’, his predicament also bringing the plea:
‘Send lawyers, guns and money/Dad, get me out of this.‘
The song is another masterpiece of wise-cracking, sharp-eyed storytelling, that rightly drew comparisons with legendary crime writer Raymond Chandler. As exciting as it is, this version is actually bettered by the one recorded for ‘Stand in the Fire‘ when Zevon and his touring band cut loose with four minutes of unrelenting flak.
While the critics were not so rapturous toward ‘Excitable Boy‘ as they had been over ‘Warren Zevon‘ 18 months before – Rolling Stone giving it a four-star review rather than 5/5 – on the back of ‘Werewolves of London‘ becoming a hit single, its parent album climbed steadily up the U.S. charts.
Despite never threatening to better what the Eagles or Fleetwood Mac were currently selling, it peaked at number eight, his one and only top ten listing.
The downside of such a successful release was that it triggered another round of self-destruction, Zevon in and out of rehab until reappearing with the reflective, somewhat disjointed ‘Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School‘ (1980).
After his live set and generally impressive ‘The Envoy‘ (1982) he was dropped by Asylum (who had now been absorbed into Warner Bros), Zevon spending the rest of his career flitting from label to label.
Making a succession of excellent albums for a dwindling audience, Zevon effectively wrote his own epitaph, doing so with wit and hard-earned wisdom on the magnificent ‘The Wind‘ released just days before he died. Those who had remained fascinated by his work greeted each record joyously, aware few songwriters were capable of presenting such poignant ruminations on the up and down sides of personal relationships.
Fewer still found inspiration among idiosyncratic figures populating the worlds of boxing, international diplomacy, ice hockey, finance, suburbia and the factory floor. Each one like him, like us all to an extent, a flawed example of the human condition.
Revered by Dylan, Browne, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young and REM, none of them wrote from the same perspective as Warren Zevon, which is probably a blessing. Somebody else with the same disconcerting worldview as him would have made the planet seem an even more troubled place.
All we needed was Warren pointing out the absurdities and anomalies of it all, the field of songwriting greatly diminished without him. Sadly we can only guess at the delight he would have provided with his perceptions of fake news, Donald Trump, social media, AI and the like.
An ‘Excitable Boy’ he might have been, but in a world where lawyers, guns and money are rarely out of the headlines, how we could do with Warren Zevon to get us out of this.
WARREN ZEVON – EXCITABLE BOY (Released January 18 1978):
When Johnny Strikes Up the Band/Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner/Excitable Boy/Werewolves of London/Accidentally Like a Martyr/Nighttime in the Switching Yard/Veracruz/Tenderness on the Block/Lawyers, Guns and Money;
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