Zevon Song of the Week #5
haro...@yahoo.ca
My, how time flies.
The Wind was released more than 2-1/2 years ago. There was never an
album like it before and any future attempt by someone else will pale
in comparison. Fate dealt Warren a cruel blow, striking him down after
he had both achieved a renaissance of sorts as an artist and put many
of his subtance abuse problems to rest. His response to this adversity
was to channel the pain into art, and we're so much the richer for it.
There are 11 songs on The Wind. Two of them, Dirty Life And Times and
She's Too Good For Me, were written before the meso diagnosis was
handed down. (They can be distinguished by Warren's album credit as the
sole author). Knockin' On Heaven's Door was a spontaneous cover of
Dylan's classic that was featured, ironically, in a movie about a
couple of mythic western characters, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. The
remaining eight songs were co-written with Jorge. My feeling is that
Prison Grove is the most powerful of them, the most representative of
the album's overarching themes of sickness and death, love and
redemption.
Musically, it's a powerhouse: Ry Cooder on slide, David Lindley on
electric saz, Jorge on electric guitar, Reggie Hamilton on upright
bass, Jim Keltner on drums, and the haunting background vocals of Bruce
(dominating as usual), Jackson, Billy Bob, T Bone, and Jordan (no
surnames required for any of them).
The metaphor of prison for terminal illness may be obvious but it's no
less effective or moving. The part of the song that moves me the most
is the chanting, which evokes scenes from a prison movie of inmates
trudging along a dry, dusty road on their way through another hopeless
day. Even though Warren was fully occupied with the task of making his
final album, one must assume that this is how he often felt late in the
evening, alone in his bed, pondering his mortality and his legacy.
It's perhaps the most honest writing Warren ever produced and that's
saying something:
"Dug in, hunkered down,
Hours race without a sound,
Gonna carry me to where I'm bound,
Looking down on Prison Grove."
A song like this obliterates any and all tawdry recountings from the
Susan Jaffys of the world (in Last Days of Dead Celebrities). Warren
makes those second-hound accounts moot with his words and his music.
I'll probably never look at that chapter again, but I'll listen to
Prison Grove repeatedly. That's where the truth lies.
In fact, it's a song, one of many from The Wind, that can and should
give all of us courage and inspiration if we're ever in the same
position as Warren. He left us a great gift. It's in the music. No need
to look further afield than that.
jsj...@iserv.net
In the right setting this song really cooks. Ominous and mysterious;
great stuff.
Jim
Howard Roseman
> In the right setting this song really cooks. Ominous and mysterious;
> great stuff.
>
> Jim
>
I've always maintained that The Wind cannot and should not be judged the way
other Zevon albums are. It's a one-of-a-kind work, and by no means an easy
one. I suspect there are a lot of people out there who haven't listened to
it since it came out, and perhaps one or two who still haven't brought
themselves to play it at all.