Did Warren Zevon Rock?
Warren Zevon wrote deceptively funny songs that revealed a deep understanding of suffering and the human experience.
Yeah, Warren Zevon rocked.
Mr. Zevon, a singer-songwriter who emerged in the 1970s and is best known for “Werewolves in London, “Poor Poor Pitiful Me,” “Carmelita” and “Lawyers, Guns and Money” (and for a favorite of mine, “Even a Dog Can Shake Hands”), is “one of the great under-appreciated talents in modern America1.”
For sure he was. When Mr. Zevon sang, it was worth listening to what he had to say. It still is. He was a musician’s musician (or more like a rock composer’s composer), and a storyteller. Among his admirers were people from Bob Dylan to Steven King, Dwight Yoakam to Hunter S. Thompson. And no wonder; Mr. Zevon wrote songs about serious subjects with a stinging, dry humor. Bruce Springsteen wrote of him, “[Warren] would write something that had real meaning, and it was funny, too2.”
He also lived the life of the self-destructive artist. He drank a lot and sometimes got violent. When he stopped drinking, obsessive-compulsive disorder emerged. Old temptations were a constant struggle, as were relationships with the people he loved. He died in 2003 at the age of 56. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2025.
Mr. Zevon left an incredible body of work. His lyrics were deceptively simple and funny. Once you jump into the pool with them, you discover you are swimming in the deep end. It’s worth staying there.
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Hadley Freeman, “Warren Zevon: The Man Behind the Demons,” The Guardian, Aug. 1, 2013.
Ibid.