How does a songwriter say a truly final goodbye, capturing the essence of what made said songwriter memorable in the first place while also offering a fresh perspective from near the other side of the mortal coil?
A highly respected musician, Warren Zevon’s greatest mainstream success came with 1978’s semi-novelty hit “Werewolves In London.” Zevon faced the challenge of saying goodbye in August 2002, when he was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a terminal form of lung cancer. The doctors gave him three months to live.
Rather than beginning exhausting chemotherapy treatments, Zevon decided to make a record. A songwriter whose tone has always alternated between achingly personal revelation and humorous cynicism, Zevon had perhaps the best creative weapons for attempting to reckon with death and dying ? and living.
That statement, The Wind (Artemis Records), is a mature and complicated look at mankind’s greatest fear — a look that neither minimizes nor overly romanticizes the fate that one day awaits us all.
Luckily, he didn’t have to go it alone. Highly admired and respected by his peers, Zevon got a bevy of comrades to lend their voices and instruments to his farewell party. Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Dwight Yoakam, Emmylou Harris, Jackson Browne, three Eagles (Don Henley, Timothy B. Schmit, Joe Walsh) and Billy Bob Thornton are among the famous guests that populate The Wind, and are joined by absolutely top-shelf instrumentalists (Ry Cooder, David Lindley, and Jim Keltner among them).
The guest stars serve the proceedings tastefully and memorably; whether it’s Springsteen ripping into an amp-wrecking guitar solo on the rocking “Disorder In The House,” Yoakam adding his distinctive soul-whine to “My Dirty Life And Times,” Emmylou Harris’ typically heartbreaking harmony on “Please Stay,” or Cooder and Lindley’s population of the album with signature brilliance, Zevon’s friends come not merely to say goodbye, but also to join him in the fight. These are not charity calls; they are arms interlocked in the fight, voices joined in harmony as the reaper gets closer.
Despite this, the show belongs, appropriately, to Zevon. An immensely talented songwriter, Zevon wrings all the emotion, anxiety, irony and dark humor from the topic in fresh and memorable ways. Never one to fester in self-pity or indulge in excessive reflection, Zevon populates the album with songs that rock and roll as hard as anything he’s ever written while also illuminating the issue at hand with clarity and freshness.
“My Dirty Life And Times” marches with a raconteur’s honesty. “The Rest Of The Night” would serve perfectly well in another context as a simple party anthem, but is in actuality an astonishingly acute description of the desperate quality of numbered days. “Numb As A Statue,” driven by Lindley’s fuzz-drenched steel guitar, finds our hero trying as hard as possible to hold on for a little longer; not just physically but ? more important ? spiritually.
“Prison Grove” and “Rub Me Raw” are both deep blues, and Zevon digs into his condition with bracing frankness. “Rub Me Raw” also benefits from Joe Walsh’s grits-and-guts slide guitar. Even a cover of “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” is more insistent than sad, thanks in no small part to Zevon’s shouts of, “Open up! Open up!” during the song’s fade-out.
The album’s slower numbers, for the most part, are poignantly simple. Driven by thoughts of love, Zevon sends several numbers to his closest associates. “She’s Too Good For Me” (on which Henley and Schmit provide sweet harmonies) and the utterly beautiful “Please Stay” are clearly both directed towards a woman, probably a composite of lovers — past, present and symbolic.
“El Amor De Mi Vida” is similarly focused, although its use of Spanish lyrics suggest that it’s also a way of paying tribute to long-time Zevon associate Jorge Calderon, the man who played on, co-wrote and co-produced this album.
The closing song, “Keep Me In Your Heart,” is a benediction, a final farewell from Zevon on which all hint of previous wit or cynicism, qualities on which he based much of his fame, are erased for good. (The entire album is basically bereft of a smirk, which is welcome.)
Anyone who’s ever loved and lost (in whatever manner) will surely appreciate lyrics like “Hold me in your thoughts, take me in your dreams/Touch me as I fall into view/When the winter comes, keep the fires lit/And I will be right next to you.” “Keep Me In Your Heart” is an infinitely satisfying finale, a catharsis that assures that all tears shed will soon lead to something else, a new morning beyond the darkness.
Zevon’s illness has been documented brilliantly in a recent VH1 documentary (also titled Keep Me In Your Heart), and can be heard on occasion, weakening his voice and causing it to lose steadiness, but the fragility of Zevon’s voice merely adds to the effect, making lyrics even more poignant, and arrangements even more affecting.
“I need you here with me/Will you stay with me to the end/When there’s nothing left but you and me and the wind?” is merely one example of the album’s devastatingly simple poetry). In addition, he uses his voice’s newfound tremulousness to great effect (listen to the spoken “oh darling” in “Please Stay” for the best example).
Like Johnny Cash, of whose recent work The Wind is clearly reminiscent, Warren Zevon is facing down the impending twilight with fierce, unrepentant emotion, rubbing the jagged grain of his existence (to borrow a phrase from the great Ralph Ellison) and allowing listeners to join him. It’s a beautiful and compelling ride. This is a fitting close to a remarkable career.
As of this writing, Warren Zevon’s still alive. He lived to hold his grandchildren, born last month, and to see his final masterpiece released to the world. He deserves all the days he’s gotten and every day he’ll get.
