WARREN ZEVON - Warren Zevon (1976)

In 1976, Warren Zevon (no longer just ZEVON) resurfaced with a record that is kind of a testament to the cult of personality and art.  This perpetually drunken yet literate guy wrote these weird songs, his more famous friends knew there was something there and were willing to push to get it made, and, backed here by an absolute rouge's gallery of Eagles, Fleetwoods, and Jacksons (Browne, that is), we got a record.

 

Track One:  "Frank And Jesse James"

The first thing one who's familiar with Zevon's greatest hits will notice is that, well, way more so than anything on Wanted Dead Or Alive, FAJJ sounds like a Zevon song.  Here's a prominent piano line.  Here's a a vaguely country-rock vibe.  The focus is always the deep-voiced guy who's, well, not quite talk-singing exactly, but sticking with a chatty vocal delivery that has way more words than it does notes.  Musically, it sounds like Zevon has arrived.  Maybe some excess instruments; not too bad on this particular tune.  I don't love the "riding, riding, riding" bits, which I find a little inert.  I do like the way the piano leads both into and out of the chorus, and I really like the piano solo, and, uh, I guess I just like piano music incorporated into rock, what can I say?  One thing that's common throughout Warren Zevon is the ear-pleasing way in which beats drop just where one hopes they would, epitomized here on the way the chorus delays "Frank aaaaaand..." (room for a two bars' of playing with the unresolved chord, dominated by piano, naturally) "...Jesse James."

Not my favorite story WZ has ever told, though.  I honestly don't know whether this desperado bullshit would have felt as played out to a listener in 1976 as it does to someone living in the twenty-first century.  What I can say about this paean to fighting against authority and murdering people in the name of the fucking Confederacy is that Zevon certainly was not alone, either in the '70s country-rock scene or in any era of American culture, in attaching mythological significance to the tales of the James Gang, so I'm not going to hold it against him.  Not too much, at least.

Track Two:  "Mama Couldn't Be Persuaded"

And just when I was ready to say Zevon had found a sound, we get... this.  "Mama Couldn't Be Persuaded" has a chorus built around a piano-pounding pattern with tripled vocals that you can't tell me isn't exactly the sort of thing that Jim Steinman would write for Meat Loaf.  I have a lot of fun with this, enough so that I wish it had a second act rather than basically being all chorus.  What's odd is that despite Zevon being in full storyteller mode, putting himself in the characters' heads before revealing "stuck in the middle, I was the kid," it didn't even occur to me at first that it might be quite literally about its author's actual parents - feels like a tall tale!  I do want to avoid underselling how fun the chorus is, especially since the song goes to all possible lengths to keep it from getting boring, varying where the backup vocals come in, varying the exact choice of words, varying the exact timing of those words...

Lots of lyrical gems here that totally passed me by until I looked up the lyrics."She was twenty-one or two..."  Heh, either a perfect hand or a bust.  It's a fine line.*

Track Three:  "Backs Turned Looking Down The Path"

So, this one is a favorite of the man himself, allegedly one of those that he always thought didn't get the love it deserved.  I... well, I don't really get it.  What path?  What's happening here?  I assume I'm supposed to get something out of the narrator's shift from singular to plural back to singular, but, what exactly?  What went right or wrong?  The song itself is more guitar driven than the others so far and is perfectly pleasant.  I like this fine.  Yeah, it's fine.  I can't get myself anywhere near the level of thinking it's a secret all-timer; sorry, Warren.

Track Four:  "Hasten Down The Wind"

I actually do think it's possible to have too many friends supporting one's endeavors, and, yeah, it's one of my bigger complaints about Zevon's eponymous record as a whole.  "Hasten Down The Wind" epitomizes what I'm talking about.  This is the kind of plaintive mournful melody that's Zevon's bread and butter.  Pair a straightforward tune with plainspoken couplets like

She tells him she thinks she needs to be free
He tells her he doesn't understand
She takes his hand
She tells him nothing's working out the way they planned

The manipulative woman who may not even be conscious of her deception fits in neatly with Warren Zevon's world of unreliable men and dangerous women who can't help but hurt each other.  I enjoy the third-party narration that clearly feels for this poor confused sap of a guy while still having sympathy for both characters.  

Good song!  How could a song like this be merely good rather than a timeless classic?  Well, you could bury it under layers of cheesy strings and thirteen vocalists singing over each other.  You could totally undercut the whole "plainspoken" thing by over-orchestrating a simple tune to within an inch of its life.  Something like HDTW needs room to breathe, and I wish this recording would let it do so.

Track Five:  "Poor Poor Pitiful Me"

Here's one of those instances in which I have to own up to the fact that as much as I pretend to seek intelligent lyrics, depth, etc, I'm actually just a sucker for the particular type of hook that I find appealing.  The moment the guitar line hits, I'm smiling.  PPPM is bascially a lark, best I can tell, a very irreverent lyric about this poor soul stuck in world of women who want to fuck him.**  Whatever, this song is delightful.  Being irreverent in a way that's musically appealing is a definite skill; most can't do it, whereas everyone involved here actually sounds like they're having a blast, totally unforced.  PPPM keeps me guessing which way the melody is going to go, has little wrinkles for even on thousandth listen like changing the rhythm on "woe is me" the third time.  One of the rare times I notice the drums on this record comes here, with Larry Zack always being ready with a fill for the occasion.  This is a song that, through greatest-hits-ization, I've heard a lot, and I still laugh at interrupting the last "verse" with "I don't wanna talk about it."  Love it.

I probably ought to spend some more time with Linda Ronstadt's cover of PPPM, just because that was the version that became a hit.  I generally favor the idea of putting a country-fied spin on a rock song, and I like her vocal performance quite a bit, but I can't get over the especially cheesy '70s production of Linda's recording, plus I'm just missing the wicked fun of the original.

 

Track Six:  "The French Inhaler"

For whatever it is or isn't worth, every single time I listen to "The French Inhaler" I have to go through the process of getting past the opening verse.  I don't particularly want to hear the narrator smarmily explaining the "you" are only fit to be a whore, and I don't want to sit through the lack of melody.  Inevitably, the song wins me over when Zevon goes big and guttural on "you said you were an actress" and the song goes big.  Yeah, I know I just said I think this record is too big, but this particular song needs it here, because Zevon's vocals then have real bite by the time we get to the title lyric and the "so long, Norman" part.  I do like where the song goes; just wish it weren't so tedious getting there.

Track Seven:  "Mohammed's Radio"

Don't get it.  What the hell is this, and why does it feel like it goes on forever?  No, it does not make me want to rock and roll all night long, especially with this overwrought arrangement full of sax.  I'm tempted to avoid looking up what any of it supposed to mean, just because I am not interested in whatever in-jokes no normal person could be expected to make sense of.  

Track Eight:  "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead"

The phrase "I'll sleep when I'm dead" feels like the sort of quip that's been around forever, so it's odd that it took a Zevon to coin it.  I suppose it's worth at least acknowledging that at this point in his life, Zevon was basically a total asshole whose most endearing quality was the fact that he was generally way too wasted to realize, or even remember, how much of an asshole he tended to get while wasted.  I'll admit to a limited amount of patience with romanticized stories of debauchery; it gets really old really quickly.  I love booze too, and you don't see me hitting any family members or crashing any vehicles, just saying.

Oh, yeah, the song.  I want to love "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" more.  The thumping bass heavy beat is nice and the "I'll sleep when I'm dead" hook is... good.  Another song that feels like it ought to be legendary and isn't quite there.***  I can't deny that as much as I try to get into ISWID, I get pretty bored by the end.  I just feel like, for a song that doesn't really have a chorus (or a 1b to its 1a, whatever), five verses' worth of "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" is too much "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead."  To its credit, the song is placed where it is on the record so as to segue into...

Track Nine:  "Carmelita"

And we come down from the high.  Sooner or later, you are going to end up sleeping, and potentially waking up in this state.  Although as far as I know heroin is one of the few drugs that Zevon wasn't (yet) indulging in, he certainly sounds like he understands the headspace that the character is in here, feeding everything he owns and loves to his habit.  Musically quite a pretty song in a way that underscores its subject matter, with pleasant Spanish guitar lines weaving throughout.  I very much like the way the chorus is constructed - big start punctuated by drum beats, then lapsing into a relaxed guitar-driven high or nadir as the narrator acknowledges that he's "sinking down."

Track Ten:  "Join Me In L.A."

I like this one too.  Nothing special to say about it, it just sounds good to me.  I like the bass groove and something about the tune.  That's pretty impressive for a sax-heavy song - that is not normally my jam.  Nor is a chorus of female ooh-ooh vocals (among others, both Bonnie Raitt and Stevie Nicks appear here, no idea who's doing what).  Nor is Angelinos' imagining that the rest of the world cares about their paens to their city.****  Somehow my favorite part of the whole thing is the whispered "wake up!" during the bridge, whereas I know I'd find it really annoying in a different song.

Track Eleven:  "Desperadoes Under The Eaves"

More "broken man is depressed" stuff, but pure autobiographical this time.  The verse on "Desperadoes" remind me (or foreshadows, I guess) later Zevon.  There's a sing-song timbre the way he pitches his voice whilst being accompanied mostly by piano.  Zevon the storyteller in rare form.  I wish the whole song leaned into that vibe, yet can't complain too much about a song so tightly composed.  When the sweeping strings come in, they soon lead to the closing "look away" part that almost dares the listener to somehow be neither moved nor depressed.

There are a few clever lyrics here that reflect the circumstances in which the song was written, but I'm going to say that my favorite line perhaps on the whole record just for its delivery is "I was listening to the air conditioner hum, it went hmm hmm [hums slowly along with the band]."  More so than any other line in the song, or than any song on the record, I see the exact picture that he's painting.

Overall thoughts

Depending on one's relationship with Zevon, there are a few ways to view Warren Zevon.  I've seen it treated as a debut album even though it, well, isn't.  The old chestnut about having a lifetime to write the first record and a year to write the second one doesn't take into account what happens when the artist flops, drifts in and out of the musician's lifestyle for six years, and then finally gets another shot.  These songs are the product of a huge chunk of the man's creative life.  To some, it's his most fully realized work, top-of-game stuff.

I'm not so sure.  Certainly, comparing Warren Zevon to Wanted Dead Or Alive, the strides are obvious.  The songs have a signature style rather than being a bunch of haphazard shit - this reimagined version of Mr. Zevon not only doesn't sound like anyone else, but sounds like an auteur.  

Best work, though?  I guess it comes down to what one likes about Zevon.  Maybe because I like chronologies, for pretty much any legacy artist, I'm often the one stanning for something they did late in their career.*****  And based on the fact that I've heard a smattering of both early and late period Zevon, I'm going to say right here that I'm pretty sure I'm a late-Zevon person.  The songs on Warren Zevon are generally solid enough that I can't help but like them, whilst finding them bombastic in a way that borders on cheese.  I feel like if we got this guy away from his ninety collaborators and slick studio production - c'mon, sit him in front of a piano and a notepad and step back - we'd get a rawer, better version of this unique voice.   As far as that voice goes, too, a lot of what people love about WZ's music is the lyrics.  Said lyrics on the self-titled certainly have a lot of allegedly regretful addict songs about being an addict.  At this point in his life, our man is a little too in love with the alleged romance of his attempts to drink himself to destitution, sounding very much like a young man cosplaying at being older and scarred-er.  I'd buy that stuff more from the mouth of someone who actually is older.   Long story short, I know for a fact that Zevon can do better than this (for my taste), because I've heard his best, and it's definitely yet to come.

Also, special demerits for having "Werewolves Of London" fully written and "Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner" at least sketched out, and not putting them on the record.  That is certainly a choice.

Favorite track:  "Poor Poor Pitiful Me"

Runner up:  "Desperadoes Under The Eaves"

Least favorite track:  "Mohammed's Radio"

Rating:  3.5/5

Definitive list of records by Warren Zevon profiled so far, in order of what I have decided is unambiguously their quality

1)  Warren Zevon

2)  Wanted Dead Or Alive

We continue with Excitable Boy whenever I get around to it!

*It's a fine line, innit, between "clever" and "stupid?"

**Allegedly based on some joke between Zevon and Jackson Browne that an average listener decades later is not going to get

***Maybe it is.  I dunno.  But for this blog, I decide what does and does not make it into the pantheon of legends.

****Was people from L.A. making art about L.A., often employing the phrase "the city is a character in [whatever]," already a tedious cliché in 1976?  I imagine probably.

*****An incomplete list of mid-to-late-period records that are nearly as good as, and occasionally better, than anything from an artist's alleged prime:

Beck - Guero

Fish - Raingods With Zippos

Jayhawks - Paging Mr. Proust

Jethro Tull - Roots To Branches

R.E.M. - New Adventures In Hi-Fi

Rush - Counterparts

Warren Zevon - [readacted; we'll get there eventually]