Another excellent aspect of the song is the backing harmonies from Zevon’s California friends Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, whose voices, on loan from Fleetwood Mac, blend perfectly.
It is the favourite song of The Wasp Factory author, Iain Banks, who said he was struck by the brilliance of Zevon’s dark lines “You know, the Sheriff’s got his problems too/He will surely take them out on you”. Zevon’s lyrics for Mohammed’s Radio seem hauntingly relevant in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, as he warns, “Everybody’s restless and they’ve got no place to go.” His complex song about angst and despair, which was produced by Jackson Browne for Zevon’s self-titled album from 1976, was about being preyed on by law enforcement, at a time when people were struggling to survive in a depressed economy. I started it, and he finished it.” The song appeared on 1978’s Excitable Boy album. “I passed out, because I don’t drink like that, but he kept going. Browne later said that he could not keep up with Zevon’s fearsome drinking. It is somehow typically Zevon that the song was composed after a wild, drunken night in which he pulled the banister off the stairwell in his house. which was co-written with Jackson Browne. Though Zevon was renowned for his black humour and savage wit, some of Warren Zevon’s best songs proved he was also capable of writing delicate songs about love, including Tenderness On The Block, a moving coming-of-age song about a young girl’s first love.
Listen to Warren Zevon’s greatest tracks here, and check out our best Warren Zevon songs, below. Here, then, are our 20 best Warren Zevon songs. Though Zevon said he found life “hard and baffling”, his insights and observations have inspired music fans and musicians alike. His friend and collaborator Bruce Springsteen said Zevon wrote beautifully about “the good, the bad and the ugly”, and described him as “a moralist in cynic’s clothing”.ĭeath and dying were among Zevon’s favourite topics, and the musician was only 56 when his life ended as a result of lung cancer, on 7 September 2003. Though Zevon was noted for his unsettling humour and satirical songs, there is also a vulnerability and longing in his finest ballads which is genuinely touching. His lasting legacy is not his wild life, though as the best Warren Zevon songs prove, it is as one of the most gifted songwriters in modern music. Born on 24 January 1947, he came to embody the dark side of the music industry’s drinking and drug excesses in the 70s. Warren Zevon was a restless, sardonic genius.
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