WARREN ZEVON - Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School (1980)

Still on the tail end of the peak commercial era that really only lasted three records.  Again with big noisy production, again with five thousand guest musicians from the bigger L.A. scene that Zevon moved through.  Depending on perspective, Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School is either a minor commercial success befitting a niche artist who's carved out his place, or it's a fall from the highs of the massive third album that basically cemented Zevon as a flash in the pan about to be left behind, mainstream-wise, with the rest of the '70s.

Divorced from that context, how does it sound now?

Track One:  "Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School"

Sometimes it's just how something sounds, a principle that applies to lyric writing just like anything else.  I don't care and, until recently, didn't know what the neologism "bad luck streak in dancing school" is supposed to mean.*  But how great does it sound rolling off its singer's tongue like it means something?  Especially with deceptively simple sounding rock riff with particularly nice production?  If there's ever been a Zevon song that got away with really only having one "part," one note that it hits over and over.... well, he's actually done a bunch of good songs that meet that description.  This is one of them.

It should be noted that apropos of nothing BLSIDS opens with a violin figure that I guess is supposed to evoke Stravinsky.  It never comes back, although there're a few violin-based "interlude" tracks that I guess are also supposed to somehow tie the room record together.  They really don't.

Track Two:  "A Certain Girl"

A full decade after the last time Zevon released a cover on a studio record - not his known niche at this point - he scored his second and final trip to the Hot 100 with a cover.  Go figure!  Look, I don't understand pop music alchemy well enough to explain why this works.  Because clearly it does.  Catchiness is undeniable; one can tell instantly why "A Certain Girl" was chosen as a single and why it took off to the extent it did.  The song itself I hadn't previously heard anywhere else, but it was written by "Naomi Neville" (Allen Toussaint), was a minor hit for Ernie K-Doe in 1961, and I'm guessing the country rock scene kinda knew about it because the Yardbirds' 1964 version was one of that band's first releases.**  Zevon absolutely makes it his own, though, despite making the surprising choice to ditch the piano from the original arrangement; casting the grooves as big rock guitar of course makes my ears happy, since I'm a rock guy.  The big impact of having WZ on board really comes in the vocals.  Zevon manages to make the song chatty, introducing extra syllables when necessary (e.g. "still we're introduced [as nothing but friends]" in place of the original "we end up") in a way that suits his delivery.  The backup vocalists' "awww" is just inspired, coming after their insistent demands of "what's her name?" overall turning the most annoying part of the Ernie K-Doe version into the most fun part of the Zevon version.  Maybe his version isn't as, uh, fly as an R&B song performed by an actual R&B singer, but it's undeniably cool in a quirky, Zevon-y way.   

Track Three:  "Jungle Work"

Speaking of big rock songs, I'm really surprised at how much I'm enjoying Zevon going with the bass-heavy rock sound, something I never thought of his strength.  "Jungle Work" is supposed to sound primal and rugged, and it is.  The lyrics aren't anything special - Zevon gives us another tribute to mercenaries*** - the real trick of JW is to throw in tasteful keyboard parts while the guitars go nuts in the background to the point that one doesn't care what he's singing about.  And then one might get some delayed amusement out of "we parachute in, we parachute out."  I don't think the latter is really a thing.

I'd heard "Jungle Work" before, but this is my first time really sitting with it sat with it having listened to Wanted Dead Or Alive.  So my mind immediately locked on to the idea that this is a rewrite of "Gorilla" from that record.  Having played them back to back, it's not actually the same riff, but since it's built on the same two chords with basically the same tuning, the two songs sound very similar.  I'm the weirdo who called "Gorilla" the best track on the debut, and, well, I do still enjoy the frenetic piano of the older song.  Still, "Jungle Work" sounds like an actual song where "Gorilla" sounds like a little novelty piece.

Track Four:  "Empty Handed Heart"

When one talks about songwriting there's a lot of emphasis on the actual lyrics.  An underappreciated trick is arranging the instrumentation and vocal melody to support or undercut the lyrics on a line by line level.   "Will I find another love?  I pray to God I will!" and "will I fall in love again?  It's a possibility!" both get delivered with a burst of loud chords over the second half, immediately conveying a narrator desperately trying to hide how desperate he is.  And how mournfully can you deliver the line "girl, we had some good times" to make us wonder whether the narrator thinks that's even a good thing?  Guy is really not sure whether this change of heart**** is for the best. 

Heart jinxed condition, never sure how I feel
Trying to separate the real thing from the wishful thinking
Sometimes I wonder if I'll make it without you
I'm determined to, I'll make my stand

Really like this one, especially the way Linda Ronstadt takes over the exposition on the "diamonds into the sand" part.  Also, finally some piano!

Track Five:  "Interlude No. 1"

I have little to say.  At least its violins will slide right into the off-kilter fiddle part from...

Track Six:  "Play It All Night Long"

I know "A Certain Girl" was the hit, but is it fair to say that PIANL is the one that people remember?  Apparently a reaction to some of the romanticization of country living that was happening around the time, this is just brutal, starting with "grandpa pissed his pants again" and getting worse from there - poverty, incest, cancer - with the only levity coming from the joy of a pop-rock song mentioning brucellosis.  The violin line here provides a steady stream of dissonance, setting up one of the most timeless choruses of all time, raucous whilst being just "off" enough to expose its raucousness as totally hollow:

"Sweet home Alabama"

Play that dead band's song*****

Turn those speakers up full blast

Play it all night long

I don't think the characters narrating this are being mocked, though; they're just trying to, as the lyrics say, get through somehow.  Stone-cold classic.

Track Seven:  "Jeannie Needs A Shooter"

Either just inspired by a single line from, or >50% written by, Bruce Springsteen, with the exact details lost to time.  I don't have as much to say here; old west style story-song, pretty straightforward.  Three things, I guess.  One: the song does rock, simple unpretentious chord structure does what it needs to.  Two:  The title phrase without the rest of the chorus at the end is clever.  Three: the ending is foreshadowed a little bit with the line "And when I leaned down to kiss her, she did not turn away."  Not quite a ringing endorsement.  Maybe don't go to that clandestine meeting?  The lyrics are a little vague about what exactly Jeannie's role in the whole story is.

Track Eight:  "Interlude No. 2"

Twice as long as the first one, twice as pointless.

Track Nine:  "Bill Lee"

A tribute to a fellow eccentric from the world of baseball, I guess it makes sense to make it a quirky piano-voice-harmonica oddity.  I don't know if it quite lands.  I gotta say, I kind of hate the "sometimes I say things I shouldn't, like [harmonica part]" - too precious by half.  At least it only does it twice and then you just have the actual harmonica part, which is pretty good.

Track Ten:  "Gorilla, You're A Desperado"

More conga-style drums under a vaguely calypso-sounding tune that's driven by either accordion or slide guitar, I can't even tell... amazingly, this isn't the one on the record that apes******* (ha) "Gorilla."  And another Jackson Browne guitar contribution.  Just a fun little tune that hints at an acerbic worldview in an easily digestible form.  I know it's not deep, but the lyrics take a few twists I got a kick out of.  We somehow work Zevon's iconic glasses into a song.  There's the unexpected word choice as all too soon, the imagined gorilla's life leads to "I hear he's getting divorced" (we didn't even know he was married!).  The fact that our gorilla protagonist ends up in "transactional analysis" is just, so, well, this world.  One can't even get that upset about life being absurd, because it's too absurd.  I get why this was the a late (third) single - it was worth a try - and I also get why it didn't do anything.  I like it, though.

Track Eleven:  "Bed Of Coals"

As Bad Luck Streak winds down, despite being such a short record it does show signs of running out of steam.  Gotta say, I don't get this one at all.  Sometimes there's nothing more tedious than seeing the self-destructive guy wallowing in self-pity.  "Bed Of Coals" is somehow over five minutes long but it's not because it's brimming with words or musical ideas - they're just presented very, very slowly.  I haven't had occasion to bust out my favorite adjective for a slow song, "inert," yet on this record, a streak that definitively ends here.  Even the chorus is just two lines over and over, delivered as slowly and cheesily as possible.  Meh.

Although a bit trite, I do like the line "I'm too old to die young, and too old to die now."

Track Twelve:  "Wild Age"

Not a bad chorus.  Not a bad conceit, with the idea of a "wild age" that some age out of while others live-fast-and-die out of, staying the wild age in a sense.  Finally Bad Luck Streak gets multiple Eagles on the same track, after their individual guest appearances.  The song isn't really anything special, more a nice pleasant way to wind down. 

Overall thoughts:

As I hope was clear, enjoyed this one a lot, and more with each listen.  My lukewarm take (I'm sure this isn't that much of a minority view):  Bad Luck Streak is Zevon's best record so far in our chronology.  Better than the good but often self-indulgent self-titled.  Better than the mostly great but too skewed towards wacky Excitable Boy.  If given the prompt "explain this whole 'Warren Zevon' thing in barely thirty minutes," one could do worse than doing it by playing the questioner this batch of strong tunes that're by turns caustic, fun and absurd, and heartfelt and heartbroken, all with a unified songwriting approach that leaves room for plenty of sonic variety.

Favorite track:  "Play It All Night Long"

Runner up:  "Empty Handed Heart"

Least favorite:  "Bed Of Coals"

Rating:  4.5/5

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

1)  Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School

2)  Excitable Boy

3)  Warren Zevon

4)  Wanted Dead Or Alive

If I have a lot to say about Stand In The Fire, it'll get its own entry, but I'm thinking I'll more likely save my words and just do a single post on the two live albums.  Ergo, we probably continue with The Envoy, whenever I get around to it!

 

*For the record, apparently a "dancing school" was an old-fashioned euphemism for what today we might winkingly call a "massage parlor."  So the song's narrator is either so seriously down on his luck that he can't get laid in an establishment meant for it (generally accepted interpretation), or is citing this particular educational entity as the venue for a series of poor decisions that he's made.

**I do like the Ernie K-Doe recording.  Whereas the Yardbirds version is an absolute mess, sonically - hard pass from me.  But if you get renowned enough, your early efforts survive.

***At least these mercenaries keep their heads.

****That's all it is, that's all it is, that is all it is.

*****Skynyrd aren't really my taste, but I know enough to feel like the "dead band" line still hits.  I know enough to say that although there is still a band called "Lynyrd Skynyrd," that Ronnie Van Zant was one of a kind, completely irreplaceable.******  

******FWIW, when Drive-By Truckers cover "Play It All Night Long" live, they render the lyric as "play that dead man's song," which works quite well.   

*******By the way, I appreciate a rock singer who, in his songs about primates so far, has yet to call an ape a monkey, or vice versa.  A low bar, maybe, but such a high proportion of the population doesn't know the difference between apes and monkeys; props to those who get it right!