WARREN ZEVON - Mr. Bad Example (1991)

Much like with the previous record, I don't have any particular preconceptions going into Mr. Bad Example or any real sense of its reputation.  I think Zevon was by this point firmly a has-been who'd never be a megastar again, his former cast of millions reduced to longtime friends and collaborators like Waddy Wachtel, who produced and is all over the guitar work.  I think Zevon was also by this point firmly a critical darling who had a devoted cult audience that he probably didn't properly appreciate.  And of all of his albums, our 1991 effort here is firmly one of them.

Track One:  "Finishing Touches"

This is increasingly becoming the song to which I look forward to coming back whilst exploring the record.  True, I sometimes complain about one-riff songs.  All I can say is that I'll forgive a lot for a really, really good riff.  On that backdrop we have Zevon in articulate bitter mode, with yet another classic opening line ("I'm gettin' tired of you; you're gettin' tired of me) giving the bite one needs for song-lyrics synergy.  Look, I'm sure it's complicated to write an addictively catchy rock song, but the best songwriters make it sound simple while hitting just the right chord at the right time.  

Seriously, the drop into the tonic chord on the transition from the pre-chorus to the chorus - "thanks anyway."  *chef's kiss*

My biggest complaints would be, first, I detest the line "...and my cock is sore."  Crudeness has its place in the world of Zevon, but here it takes me out of the song, every time.  Second is that I hate ending on a fade-out (in general, but here too).  If there was ever a song designed to stop abruptly - point made, done - it's "Finishing Touches."  That's all, though.  These are nitpicks.  I feel like listening to "Finishing Touches" again now.  Instead, on we must move to...

Track Two:  "Suzie Lightning"

Mr. Bad Example is full of character sketches and frequently goes for a sentimental note.  "Suzie Lightning" tries for both of those, telling, I guess, a sad-sack languidly pining for a woman - perhaps a close friend, lover, or spouse, given that she sends postcards - with a peripatetic lifestyle?  Maybe?  And their lives are moving at different speeds, hence a slow song about a character called "Lightning?"  I feel like I'm doing a lot of work, because the lyrics are random details that don't give me much to work with.  "I need a girl from Earth?"  WTF, dude?

Biggest problem with "Suzie Lightning" is that in the realm of songs about (I think) failing relationships, the song is ultimately just a shameless and not particularly successful attempt to write "Hasten Down The Wind" again.  I know it, you know it, Zevon probably knew it.

Track Three:  "Model Citizen"

Oh, great, here's the requisite song that repeats the title after every line.  Meh.  Waste of a solid guitar line on this tuneless nothing of a vocal performance.  Lyrically, I guess it gets a little mileage out of "the white man's burden," but generally lacks bite; quite the simple, obvious, uninteresting character sketch.

 

Track Four:  "Angel Dressed In Black"

Now at least there's an attempt to do something more interesting, although I'm not sure it actually lands.  This narrative, set to a bit of a pulsating chord pattern, seems to be another one about a guy sitting at home pining after a lady with whom he might be involved.  Except that there are drugs, and she's possibly engaged in crime or sex work or something, and the song picks up intensity as the narrator starts freaking the fuck out.  That seems to be the idea, best as I can tell.  I wish the music actually did get more unhinged to capture the vibe better.  I wish the chorus were something other than "I don't wanna go out in the rain," x3.   I feel like ADIB is two or three rewrites away from being a classic.

Track Five:  "Mr. Bad Example"

Always been of two minds about this song.  On the one hand, Zevon finally busts out his gift for narrative, having one verse neatly lead to the next - "and then X," with wordplay aplenty.  Some bits give real "how will our antihero possibly get out of/profit from this one?!" energy, and then the song always has an answer.  Long wordy lines beget snappy rhymes that sound great in song:

Of course, I went to law school and took a law degree
And counseled all my clients to plead insanity

Setting it to a marching melody with the horns makes the song stand out. 

Having said that, I get tired of the character and the one-note melody by the end.  Kind of a lesser "Lawyers, Guns, And Money," when it all comes down to it.  And I don't even unabashedly adore LGAM.

Track Six:  "Renegade"

Sadly not a cover of the Styx song.  Instead, still another character sketch serves as the basis for one of a few vaguely country-adjacent numbers here.  We get a fair amount of piano, with keys of all sorts being used nicely.  I've gone back and forth on whether the narrator - a guy holding to a self-proclaimed rebel identity as a matter of principle/identity - is a literal Civil War era Confederate, or a modern schlub trying to evoke the mythos.  I think it's meant to be the former.  

 

Track Seven:  "Heartache Spoken Here"

You know when one annoying element threatens to derail a track?  In this case, those backup vocals.  They sound like a joke, threatening to turn the song into cosplay.  We know you're not a country singer, Warren; there should be no attempt to pretend otherwise.  

I will allow that maybe part of the problem is my total lack of familiarity with Dwight Yoakam's voice.  He's an actual country singer (if by way of Hollywood), right?  Maybe I just don't know the genre well enough to comment.  I don't think so, though.  Both of the two of Dwight's songs that I put on in the background for context while writing this sound, well, like normal country songs with a normal singer.  Whereas Dwight's part in "Heartache Spoken Here," all reverbed up so as to exaggerate any twang to the maximum, sounds like he's doing a bit.*  Just terrible.

It's such a shame because there's a great melody here.  The actual Zevon parts sound at home in the land of the country-adjacent, doing a sort of sentimental tune that has momentum in its gentle strummed guitars.  A nice little piece overall.  I personally wish he were casting his narrator more as a friendly bartender figure rather than as a rebound lover; there are all sorts of non-romantic heartbreak that could also be covered with the welcome of "well, heartbreak spoken here."  Ah, well.  

  

Track Eight:  "Quite Ugly One Morning"

Waddy supplies a guitar line that sounds like a bunch of other past Zevon guitar-based songs; I can't place exactly which song I'm reminded of, but we've heard riffs very similar to that one before.  And.. we have a tune that at least sounds like a lot of other good Zevon songs.  Here I like the way the lyric kinda alludes to what disaster has happened with no further explanation.

Quite ugly one morning
We all said goodnight
It came without a warning
But it was quite all right

I like QUOM pretty well.  It's a vibe.  

Track Nine:  "Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead"

Ever since hearing TTDIDWYD on the compilations, my brain has been trying to make it into a favorite, with limited success.  I like the hint of energy with that keyboard part being the main thing that elevates the song, gives it a bit of zip.  The slowdown at the end of the chorus is quite nice.  TTDIDWYD is not a hard rocker, however much I wish otherwise.  It's more of a story in which it constantly refuses to give me enough to understand the story being told.  What exactly are LeRoy and Waddy's roles other than being Warren's bros and collaborators?  The internet thinks that the nonsense line "you won't need a cab to find a priest" around which the chorus is built refers to the unusually high concentration of Catholic churches in Denver.  Okay, how was I supposed to know that, and also why do you need a priest at all?  Why Denver as the place to die or be dead in?  I'm going to have to chalk this up to yet another of Example's half-baked song ideas that isn't quite all the way there.

Track Ten:  "Searching For A Heart"

I'd heard SFAH before plenty of times too, but hadn't quite appreciated it until this listen.  Our man has tried various styles for his more nakedly sentimental efforts, some with more success than others.  I didn't really have "Zevon writes a Tom Petty song" on my bingo card, but Zevon's ramblings are a perfect match for faux-Petty.  Laid back and cool, hint of wistfulness.  That's the right vibe for what seems like an earnest meditation from a guy who never totally figured out how to make romantic love work but was determined to keep trying.  This is one of those where a choice of words absolutely lands even if they don't make intuitive sense - "they say love conquers all, you can't start it like a car, you can't stop it with a gun."  Huh?  But also, feels deep, sounds great.  10/10 song; no notes.

Overall thoughts

Transverse City, the last record before this one, I consider both a curiosity that doesn't totally work and a curiosity that's unique and feels vital, not quite sounding like anything else in the Zevon catalogue.  Mr. Bad Example, on the other hand, almost completely lacks that kind of vitality for me.  I really like "Searching For A Heart," and the opening track is tremendous fun too.  We start and end strong; they definitely picked the right singles.  But outside of SFAH, name me one thing that Example does that another Zevon record doesn't do better.  Example is thus, IMHO, a record for the collectors and die-hards only.

I really could have happily gone the rest of my life without knowing the specific nature of "the flag salute."

Favorite track:  "Searching For A Heart"

Runner up:  "Finishing Touches"

Least favorite track:  "Model Citizen"

Rating:  2.5/5

On to a post about the two official live records, Stand In The Fire and Learning To Flinch, whenever I get around to it!

 

 

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)  Transverse City 

5)  The Envoy

6)  Sentimental Hygiene 

7)  Wanted Dead Or Alive

8)  Mr. Bad Example

*Okay, here, look, YouTube just suggested "Streets Of Bakersfield," with Dwight Yoakam and Buck Owens, which features exactly the same kind of dueling vocals on the chorus as "Heartache Spoken Here," and that sounds good.  That element of HOH sounds fucking terrible.  I don't have the musical language for further descriptions, except that I am so mad!