Zevon Song of the Week #22
haro...@yahoo.ca
Category: Love-Gone-Wrong
I'm running late this week, so I've chosen a song I haven't got
that much to say about.
If you haven't heard of Outside Chance, it was an unreleased demo
included on The First Sessions disc released a few years ago. The bulk
of that album was devoted to the tracks that Warren recorded back in
1966 with high school classmate Violet Santangelo. They chose the stage
names Lyme and Cybelle. I'm not sure if Warren chose a play on
"lime" as a reflection of his mood back then (producer Bones Howe
is quoted in the liner notes recalling that Warren chose the name from
a cologne), but the lyrics to Outside Chance tend to buttress that
argument.
Sure, he was just a kid, not yet even 20, but what are we to make of
lines such as:
"You can try to please me
But it won't be easy
Stone walls surround me"
and
"I know you think you can get me
I'm only flesh and bone
But you may as well forget me
Because my heart is made of stone
You better leave me alone"
Yikes, the word "stone" in two different verses. Warren must not
have been exactly a barrel of laughs in those days. I don't know
about you, but lyrics such as these help me understand his later
problems with alcohol and relationships, not necessarily in that order.
I've only listened to The First Sessions a couple of times. Frankly,
Zevon or no, I find most of it uninteresting. I was a teenager myself
in the late '60s, and enjoyed the likes of the Mamas and Papas as
much as the next guy, but that sound hasn't aged particularly well
(although I'll still listen to California Dreaming straight through).
But I quite like Outside Chance. It doesn't exactly sound like the
Zevon we know and love-the voice is higher, more innocent, much less
seasoned. But the song is certainly musical, easy enough to listen to,
and, as with last week's song, She Quit Me, the songwriter is
expressing his pain loudly and clearly and with utter honesty.
Examining the lyrics, I noticed an interesting factoid: Warren so liked
the construct of "You bring me down, hang me up, or even hang
around" that he used a variant of it years later on MBE for the song
Suzie Lightning: "Can't you see I'm burning up, burning down,
burning up?" I've always really liked the latter phrase, and can
see now that Warren was playing with it 25 years earlier.
I also know the song better than the others on The First Sessions
because the hit CBS show CSI decided to feature it to good effect on an
episode in May 2005. The producers chose to use the cover version
performed by The Turtles, which was a smart choice because, given the
group's more advanced age (in their twenties!) and their catchy
harmonies, it was probably better than Warren's.
That hardly disparages Warren's effort. He was experimenting, trying
different things, still years away from discovering his adult voice.
But even in 1966, he was still Warren Zevon.
Categories to date
--------------------------
Addiction and Recovery: 2
Cover: 2
Family: 1
Geopolitical: 1
Law and Order: 1
Love-Gone-Wrong: 5
Mortality: 2
Satire: 2
Social Commentary: 5
Sports: 1
Peter Huish
Also covered by The Bangles ...
Howard Roseman
> Also covered by The Bangles ...
You may have already covered this in your prior post, but I'm too lazy to
look it up. How was the Bangles' version?
Peter Huish
> > Also covered by The Bangles ...
>
>
> You may have already covered this in your prior post, but I'm too lazy to
> look it up. How was the Bangles' version?
It's not too bad. Power pop