The Wind marked the third and final release of Zevon’s mortality trilogy, and it became Zevon’s most successful album since Excitable Boy. Labels which shunned him in previous decades were offering their services and cash to him while old friends such as Springsteen, Young, Don Henley, Tom Petty and Dwight Yoakam were offering their services just to be able to jam with their friend one last time. With Life’ll Kill Ya released at the beginning of 2000 and his follow-up My Ride’s Here in 2002, many figured there’d be no more Zevon albums. In typical Zevon fashion, he said he hoped to live long enough to see that Fall’s James Bond movie which, well, turned out to be Die Another Day. When Zevon was diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma in fall 2002 doctors gave him three more months to live. Zevon has undoubtedly written his share of heartbreak songs in his career (“Carmelita”, “Reconsider Me”, “Nobody’s In Love This Year”) but even those didn’t carry the emotional heft that the final track on his final album did. “Fistful of Rain” contains what might be my favourite Zevon lyric ever: “In a heart there are windows and doors, you can let the light in, you can feel the wind blow.” In fact, it might just be one of my favourite song lyrics by anyone. Even so, whatever the meaning, it would still be a few more years before temptation would ensnare Zevon once again. Grab ahold of a “fistful of rain” could mean grabbing onto hope in a frightening and scary world or it could mean grabbing onto the nasty vices to help you get through the terror of it all. A more humorous-natured Zevon even played himself on a few episodes of the Brooke Shields NBC sitcom Suddenly Susan.Īs in good spirits as Zevon might have been, his music still carried that air of impending doom and Life’ll Kill Ya could be very well be considered the first of his mortality trilogy albums. Thompson and had gained a couple of new admirers from his appearances on Letterman and HBO’s The Larry Sanders Show. Recorded in April 1999, nearly five years since his 1995 album “Mutineer” sank without a trace, Zevon had befriended Hunter S. Werewolves of London (From Excitable Boy)īy the end of the ’90s, Zevon might have been clean of drugs, but this gospel-influenced tune about those old cravings sneaking its way inside us every now and again is one of Life’ll Kill Ya‘s best songs. Excitable boy indeed! Listen carefully and you’ll hear Jennifer Warnes and Linda Ronstadt “Wha-ooing” along to Jim Horn’s saxophone. After that display, Warren (along with co-writer LeRoy P. He then grabbed a fistful of the roast, hopped up on the counter, ripped open his shirt and proceeded to rub the roast over his chest. Warren, dressed in a white button-up dress shirt, walked into their kitchen one evening where the freshly cooked pot roast lay on the counter. According to Crystal Zevon in her book I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon, this song came about over the course of two evenings where a pot roast (Warren’s favourite dish) was served in the Zevon kitchen. Maybe the lyric “I’m all strung out on heroin on the outskirts of town,” just sounded nicer sung by her. “Carmelita” wasn’t a huge hit for Zevon but did become a hit for Linda Ronstadt in 1977. It’s the perfect song to pair with Bob Dylan’s “Romance In Durango ” which was released the same year. Not to mention this song, “Carmelita”, written by Zevon features Eagles member Glenn Frey on guitar. His 1976 release, Warren Zevon was a bit more refined and even featured some heavy-hitting backup from Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham who appear on the album. Except for one song, “She Quit Me” which wound up on the Midnight Cowboy soundtrack, Wanted made very little splash though it did feature a classic Zevon tune, “A Bullet For Ramona” which set the tone for the rest of his career. His first, Wanted Dead or Alive was released in 1969 but did very little in kick-starting the songwriter’s career. 1976’s Warren Zevon is not, in fact, Warren Zevon’s first album.
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