WARREN ZEVON - The live records

Stand In The Fire [1980; although I'm using the 2007 reissue] tracklist

1)  Stand In The Fire

2)  Jeannie Needs A Shooter

3)  Excitable Boy

4)  Mohammed's Radio

5)  Werewolves Of London

6)  Lawyers, Guns, And Money

7)  The Sin

8)  Poor Poor Pitiful Me

9)  I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

10)  Bo Diddley's A Gunslinger/Bo Diddley [cover of Bo Diddley songs, mostly "Gunslinger"]

B1)  Johnny Strikes Up The Band

B2)  Play It All Night Long

B3)  Frank And Jesse James (solo piano version)

B4)  Hasten Down The Wind (solo piano version)

Learning To Flinch [1993] tracklist

1)  Splendid Isolation

2)  Lawyers, Guns, And Money

3)  Mr. Bad Example

4)  Excitable Boy

5)  Hasten Down The Wind

6)  The French Inhaler

7)  Worrier King

8)  Roland Chorale

9)  Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner

10)  Searching For A Heart

11)  Boom Boom Mancini

12)  Jungle Work

13)  Piano Fighter

14)  Werewolves Of London

15)  The Indifference Of Heaven

16)  Poor Poor Pitiful Me (with "Rose Of Alabama" bridge)

17)  Play It All Night Long

I'd hoped it'd be interesting to listen to Stand In The Fire and Learning To Flinch together given how little content per word I usually manage when talking about live records.  Sure enough, it was.  Now, obviously one was recorded with a huge cast of characters at the immediate tail end of Zevon's commercial peak and one was a stripped down mostly acoustic arrangement put together in the veteran-troubadour phase of his career, and the performances are thus different.  Duh.  But I think it's worth talking more about what kind of statement you get from listening to each as a whole.

Stand In The Fire is a raucous party for a group of Hollywood insiders.  Opening with the tripled vocals on the chorus of "Stand In The Fire," the song, it's like Zevon's invited everyone he's ever met to join him on stage.  As the set goes on, though, the cheesy '70s of it all is gradually undercut by the fact the singer is, well, unhinged.  I think I mentioned it in my The Envoy post, but this live collection makes a case for Zevon's persona as the guy who's barely holding it together at any given moment.  "Werewolves Of London" is probably the beating heart here, awash with "huhs!"s, ad-libs, scripted lyric changes and extra lines, scripted faux ad-libs like his shout-out to Jackson Browne... this performance seems to constantly hang out on the edge of going off the rails.  It never quite does, though.  Zevon's vocals dance around the correct key only to always land on it at the end, keeping the tune going.  Same way the extended vamping at the end of "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" flows into a somehow even more intense start to "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead."  I think there was always a method to Zevon's madness.

Other than the near-criminal snubbing of Bad Luck Streak, represented only by "Jeannie Needs A Shooter" on the main set (and "Play It All Night Long" on the additional tracks), it's hard to find much fault with how Zevon chose to represent himself within the limits of what would fit on an LP.  That being said, I'm probably most excited about the last few extra tracks included on later-years releases, which give us just him and a piano, voice ragged but heartfelt, going back to the "beginning" and doing songs from the "first" record.*  "Hasten Down The Wind" is introduced with a little speech suggesting that Linda Ronstandt taking a shine to his little song may have literally saved his life and that that's in mind as he enjoys every proverbial sandwich.  It's like we're getting a brief window into the sensitive singer-songwriter struggling to get out from behind the drunken bellowing.  That ending enhances the record, making it a complete artistic statement rather thatn the somewhat one-note original.

 

 

Of course, nobody could have known at that point that a decade and change later, we'd get a record where the whole thing is solo Zevon.  Learning To Flinch sets out with an agenda to prove that the lyrics and vocal tunes are strong enough to stand on their own.  Well, "we" already knew that from the teaser above, but if there was any doubt, Learning To Flinch certainly accomplishes that.  Very few of the songs seem "empty" or even particularly diminished from this presentation.  The fact that the main chords are a little repetitious does little to diminish the quality of these songs.  The tunes, for better or for worse, don't even sound reinvented; they sound very much like themselves.  Mostly logical choices as to which songs will get guitar (usually acoustic but played close enough to the mic to be loud) and which will get piano; the latter generally seems like the more obvious way to go because of the way that instrument allows for such variation in volume and for playing multiple parts together.  Surprising he doesn't go to the harmonica well more often on the guitar songs, like he does on the first track.  I generally enjoy the way Zevon shows off his virtuoso hat, especially on piano, so that lets him throw in plenty of flourishes to enhance songs like "The French Inhaler" and PPPM, and to enjoyably outright hijack the show to play other parts before and during "Roland."

Learning To Flinch does firmly cement our man's legacy act status.  A near-plurality of the set is drawn from two records, and one can guess which two.  He's finding a way to keep peddling the old hits while keeping it interesting for himself.  It's probably been clear that I have an affinity for Zevon in wizened singer-songwriter mode, have been revelling in seeing it gradually come through.  I think we may have arrived.  Part of the reason it's such a great set is the song choices beyond the hits.  In particular, "Splendid Isolation" works incredibly well as an opener.  "Jungle Work" is probably the biggest pleasant surprise, both because I'd kinda forgotten about that one, and because with the whole catalogue translating so easily to this acoustic mood, it's like he picked the one that seemed to be the biggest challenge to work out an arrangement - and yeah, it does resort to some pre-taped stuff, but the live parts of the performance do stand out.  With the way he goes nuts on the guitar - "strumming" doesn't do justice to describe it - it's like a throwback to the crazier days, the unhinged side threatening to come out, not quite happening.

Breakdown of tracks on Flinch is four from Excitable Boy, three from Warren Zevon, two each from the post-peak record (Bad Luck Streak) and the then-newest record (Example), three new complete songs plus other doodles and pieces, and then just a single song each from the others... except The Envoy.**  Seems about as expected.

I don't feel the need to compare or declare a winner, since these two live collections have different agendas.  What I'll say is that I can't disagree with the writer of the blurb on my streaming service that describes Flinch as a worthy career overview.

Stray thoughts:

- Both live records include Zevon originals that weren't (or in some cases, just weren't yet) on the records.  "Stand In The Fire" (the song) is pretty nothing, just a chorus that's a few words repeated over and over.  I do quite enjoy "The Sin" - it builds a picture whilst rocking.  That one feels unfinished, but only a little bit, like one rewrite away from being there.  Moving on to the later live album, I don't love all the weird distortion on "Worrier Kind," but at core it's an appealing little rock song with an appealing little conceit.

- I should probably wait to delve into "Piano Fighter" and "The Indifference Of Heaven" - they're new to me because I haven't gotten to Mutineer yet.  The former doesn't do much for me - I'm not interested in musicians talking about being musicians - but at least there's a little fun in figuring out how much the Piano Fighter is a character and how much is just Zevon; this set, like I think most of the actual gigs, mischievously puts this one with its line about cutting a single and playing the part of a rock star right before "Werewolves Of London" closes the main set.  "The Indifference Of Heaven," on the other hand, is the kind of plainspoken melancholy that Zevon is so good at.  I don't know quite how to feel about the narrator being sprinkled with gentle rain; I just know that I feel things.   It'll be interesting to see how much these two, especially TIOH, are hurt or helped by a studio-produced take.  

- The Yokohama verse is fine, I guess, but on some level I'm angry that live versions of "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" don't end the way the song does on the record.

 

On to Mutineer, whenever I get around to it! 

*In those days, we didn't talk about the actual first record.

 

**And the first record.  But we don't talk about the first record.