![]() Waddy was on a mission to make it the album that would break him through, Excitable Boy. Waddy Wachtel, great studio guitarist on countless classics, took on production of what would be Zevon’s second album, Excitable Boy. He even spelled it for them.īut Zevon remained a well-kept secret from the world at first. Jackson started singing “Werewolves in London” in shows before Warren even recorded it, a reggae-tinged take as far back as 1975, and told people to remember the name of the songwriter. Linda recorded his song “Poor, Poor Pitiful Me,” which became a hit, though it sheds the dimension of irony that’s there when he sings it. It’s why both of them started singing and recording his songs. His brilliance was already well-known among his peers like Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt. For him it was just one card from his expsnsive deck, and an easy one. ![]() A theme others picked up after he did, and built entire careers around it. Not to mention the disturbingly fiendish glee cooked into the lyrics of the title song, laughing like few before him, except Charles Addams, at the darkest aspects of humanity. That this and “Werewolves” were on the same album made it pretty evident that this guy had quite a big pallette, and was using colors nobody considered. Or the brilliantly historic “Veracruz,” the first one written with Jorge Calderon, a beautifully poetic cinematic excursion into the American past. Because who else would write that world into a song, and a great song ? It’s one reason Letterman was thrilled when Warren agreed to do it on his show. But always in service of the song.įor example, his infamously great “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner,” also on Excitable Boy, is amazing in its detail and rich global intrigue. Whether writing alone, or with his best friend and most reliable collaborator, Jorge Calderon, Zevon was always about expanding song content. He was a guy who could write those previously unwritten, unimagined songs all the time. The man who wrote the brilliantly funny, ingenious song “Genius” was a songwriting genius. Warren Zevon is the epitome of this dynamic. ![]() Warren Zevon, “Werewolves of London,” official version.
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