Favorite Warren Zevon song (1 Viewer)

[E Street Brat]

I just noticed watching some youtube videos.

WZ would have turned 67 today.

Would have been 70 today 

And still not in the RnR HOF.

 

[worrierking]

He was a pretty messed up guy. I enjoyed the book and I agree he was a pretty big **** head at times. I felt his thought process regarding artists having an easier time creating when they had horrible events in their life was really odd. I think it was Jackson Brown he was actually jealous of? I forget what it was that happened to J Brown that made him jealous but it was really Fd up.

Jackson's wife committed suicide and quite a bit of "The Pretender" was written in the immediate aftermath.  I'm guessing that was the source of the quote.  I think he also mentioned Neil Young who lost Danny Whitten (of Crazy Horse) to an OD and wrote "The Needle and the Damage Done" and other songs inspired by it.

My screen name "worrierking" is an obscure Zevon song only released on his live album "Learning to Flinch."

 

[Wrigley]

I'll sleep when I'm dead 

 

[wikkidpissah]

The only downside to my association w Little Feat in the 70s was the ensuing exposure to the LA music scene. What a callous, cynical & cruel bunch were hiding behind immense talent and hippie values there. And it not only became a code but a contest - if Don Felder lined up six virgins (and you can guess the age of virgins in Hollywood) on a dining table and gave em each their 1st poke with the same wet ****, then someone else had to ruin another label's most promising singer or give a shiner to a star for her to wear @ her Palladium date for all to see.

We begged Bonnie Raitt (i wasnt even with Avalon then but sent her a telegram that cost me $hundreds) not to move her tack out there but she did, had a hit with a cover - just like Linnie Ronstadt - within a year but was without a contract within two. #### scene, man, and it would have drawn the worst out of Zevon if he didnt have one and certainly fed his beasts. 

That said, the greatest book yet to be written is most certainly the story of the Canyons from 1950 on. Literally, the Paris of the '20s on acid.

 

[Da Guru]

Through '66 and 7
They fought the Congo War
With their fingers on their triggers
Knee-deep in gore
The days and nights they battled
The Bantu to their Knees
They killed to earn their living
And to help out the Congolese
Roland the Thompson Gunner
 
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-##### Van Owen
Blew off Roland's Head

 

[worrierking]

That's great stuff, Pissah (the part I understood, anyway).  Kenny Gradney and Richie Hayward played with Warren on tour in '87.  They left the tour because "The Feat" were getting back together.  Everybody you mentioned in your post- Linda, Bonnie, Felder- all played with Warren at one time or another.  He had an unbelievable list of stars appear on his albums.

 

[Buckna]

I would have liked to have known him, but I was just a kid... I think my first exposure I can remember was the episode of Tales from the Crypt where he wrote/directed and did the music. Tried for years to find the singles or albums used for that episode until I finally found out through the magic of the interwebs that it was composed just for that episode.

 

[saintfool]

woulda been "Roland" til the heart-wrenching circumstances made "Keep" so compelling. tears me up every time....

this. it's as tenderhearted a song as you'll find, imo. 

 

[Ilov80s]

Hey, no spotlighting