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Subject: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: Hagbardr Date: 12 Sep 02 - 10:02 PM Sad news. L.A. Rock Musician Warren Zevon Terminally Ill Thu Sep 12, 2:43 PM ET LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Acerbic singer-songwriter Warren Zevon, best known for the hit song "Werewolves of London," has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, his publicist said on Thursday. "I'm OK with it, but it'll be a drag if I don't make it 'till the next James Bond movie comes out," Zevon, 55, joked in a statement, released by spokeswoman Diana Baron. (The next Bond film, titled "Die Another Day," comes out on Nov. 22.) Zevon is spending his remaining weeks with his two adult children, son Jordan and daughter Ariel. He will shortly head to a Los Angeles studio to record a batch of songs, some written after he received his diagnosis last month, Baron said. Although "Werewolves of London" was a top 10 hit in 1978, the Chicago-born Zevon spent his 33-year recording career as a cult artist, unleashing his sardonic hooks and observant lyrics on a series of acclaimed albums. He also worked with the likes of Jackson Browne, the Everly Brothers and members of R.E.M ( news - web sites). Less prolific in recent years, Zevon released a new album in 2001, "My Ride's Here," featuring musical contributions from Irish poet Paul Muldoon, Hunter S. Thompson and novelist Carl Hiaasen, Zevon's fishing buddy. He quit smoking about eight years ago, but his logo was a skull wearing sunglasses with a cigarette hanging out. Raised in Arizona and California, Zevon studied music briefly after meeting Igor Stravinsky at high school. He taught himself to play guitar, started writing songs and playing in school bands. His debut album, "Wanted -- Dead or Alive," came out in 1969. After it failed to make a splash, Zevon wrote jingles for wine ads and worked as a pianist and bandleader for the Everly Brothers, both together and separately. His career received a boost in the mid-1970s when Linda Ronstadt recorded some of his songs, including the 1978 hit "Poor Poor Pitiful Me." His friend Jackson Browne produced Zevon's 1976 self-titled release, which won critical raves. "Werewolves of London," about a "hairy-handed gent" with a taste for beef chow mein and pina coladas, appeared on his 1978 follow-up, "Excitable Boy." A bout with alcoholism stalled Zevon's career until he released two albums in 1980. Zevon addressed his rehabilitation experience in such songs as "Detox Mansion" and "Trouble Waiting to Happen" on the 1987 release "Sentimental Hygiene," on which three members of then-cult band R.E.M. appeared.
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: Little Hawk Date: 12 Sep 02 - 10:31 PM Zevon's songs are totally unique and very, very good. His reaction to the situation sounds quite characteristic. I admire his nerve. "Excitable Boy" is one of the few records made that I would call a masterpiece. Strange how many great songwriters have been chain smokers... - LH |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: wysiwyg Date: 12 Sep 02 - 10:42 PM Boy, it sounds like his shit's really fucked up. Crap! ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: Steve Latimer Date: 12 Sep 02 - 10:44 PM He'll be missed. Warren wrote some pretty powerful satirical songs. Prayers to him and his family. |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: Venthony Date: 13 Sep 02 - 12:35 AM Good on ya' Warren. You're a hell of a songwriter and a pretty good picker to boot. Miracles happen. All the love and respect I have, Tony |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: Wincing Devil Date: 13 Sep 02 - 01:01 AM All I can say is if Warren's OK with It, who are we to question it. Warren, give my regards to Roland, the Headless Thompson Gunner! |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: fat B****rd Date: 13 Sep 02 - 03:10 AM I'm sad to hear this. WZ has done some great songs and I believe has a new CD out right now, good luck to you Mr. Zevon. |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: gnu Date: 13 Sep 02 - 05:09 AM I'm with LH on "Excitable Boy". The range of every aspect of it was awsome. Truly a genious. And a hell of a nice guy to everyone, from the limited TV & radio interviews I have seen and heard him in. |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: SharonA Date: 13 Sep 02 - 10:18 AM "Send lawyers, guns and money Dad, get me out of this!" Sadly, that won't work in this case. All we can do is wish you well on your way, Mr. Zevon. |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: GUEST,Mr. Butts Date: 13 Sep 02 - 10:24 AM Chalk up another one. You smoke? You're on the list. Maybe next in line. We get half a million Americans every year. Osama ain't got nothing on us. |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: SharonA Date: 13 Sep 02 - 10:29 AM Life'll Kill Ya Warren Zevon, Zevon Music BMI (title track of his 2000 album) You've got an invalid haircut It hurts when you smile You'd better get out of town Before your nickname expires It's the kingdom of the spiders It's the empire of the ants You need a permit to walk around downtown You need a license to dance Life'll kill ya That's what I said Life'll kill ya Then you'll be dead Life'll find ya Wherever you go Requiescat in pace That's all she wrote From the President of the United States To the lowliest rock and roll star The doctor is in and he'll see you now He don't care who you are Some get the awful, awful diseases Some get the knife, some get the gun Some get to die in their sleep At the age of a hundred and one Life'll kill ya That's what I said Life'll kill ya Then you'll be dead Life'll find ya Wherever you go Requiescat in pace That's all she wrote Maybe you'll go to heaven See Uncle Al and Uncle Lou Maybe you'll be reincarnated Maybe that stuff's true If you were good Maybe you'll come back as someone nice And if you were bad Maybe you'll have to pay the price Life'll kill ya That's what I said Life'll kill ya Then you'll be dead Life'll find ya Wherever you go Requiescat in pace That's all she wrote |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: Mrrzy Date: 13 Sep 02 - 10:39 AM Man - remaining WEEKS? A sad, sad loss to lyric-dom. |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: Steve-o Date: 13 Sep 02 - 06:54 PM Ah yes, there's our favorite one-note singer, Mr. Butt(head), reminding us all about how those evil corporations kill us (it's his mission in life, you know). |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: GUEST,Mr. Butts Date: 13 Sep 02 - 08:48 PM Hey Steve-o, I thought it was you I saw puffin' and coughin' in front of that office building today. You're on the list! BTW, there is no irrefutable proof that smoking makes you stupid. However, it has been proven that people who continue to smoke are stupid. Tomorrow and Sunday, there will be more than 3,000 funerals in the USA for Americans who died premature deaths from smoking. More than died in the WTC. Every two days, smoking gets more than Osama got 367 days ago. |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: GUEST,Taliesn Date: 13 Sep 02 - 09:40 PM Buried one friend too soon already due to demon tobacco and another one just told me the tell-tale spots on the lungs showed up during his tests after a carpentry injury he recovered from just fine. The first never made 50. The other may or may not ,but he said he can't afford to take the time for surgery and will just leave it up to the Lord. ( He's also been a die-hard Viginian smoker of that other weed that he'll no doubt get a perscription for anyway now.) He's a very unique profile in that he's been both a born-again Christian and converted to Judaism and was accepted by his wife's more orthodox wing of her familyt. Maintians them simultaneously and because of his religeous-philosophical alacrity we've spent many a long discussion about world events and signs. His marriage crashed on the rocks because ,in part, he married a New Yawker whom is not ,at all, of her faith. Yeah ,you could say a complex convergence of philosophical crossroads that he alone played traffic cop. A fine carpenter/contractor and friend , but we've locked horns over his conservative politics as much as his health habits. . It's saddest for the almost grown kids of his whom don't know & won't be told so that one can finish highschool and the other , university. All I can do is pray for him while I pray for the wisdom to convince him otherwise and actively addressing his condition. He *is* as stubborn as I can be as mutable as stuborn in equal measures . This is going to be a tough test for me as I've already lost one friend ,but that was because he as so adept at fooling everyone in our New York gathering of friends as to the degree of his terminality. Vince knows the news he's been given , yet his indulging in the that other weed which dulls his natural clarity. That's one battle of intellectual jujitsu I know is coming. Next comes the spiritual main event that I can't begin to predict how I will ultimately approach. That path I'm leaving to as pure a disciplined line of attention to my *intuition* as I can for the right moments to engage in the right words. I do know that one strategy is I'm going to convince him to allow me to DV-tape him leaving any of the words he wants to pass on to his children and he knows I will make sure his kids will get the best of it. But I am going to make them dialogues between us as old friends and , luckily , I have that credability with him. Making *no* apologies to any Virginians; "Damn that demon tobacco" |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: GUEST,Bman Date: 14 Sep 02 - 03:25 AM "They rode against the railroads And they rode against the banks And they rode against the government Never did they ask for a word of thanks" Magnificently submental lyric. |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: Little Hawk Date: 14 Sep 02 - 12:25 PM There is a truly manic edge to Warren's lyrics, a marvelous sense of dramatic effect, and a terrific punch of dark humour sometimes. He's written several songs around which one could write a whole movie, and he has a great sense of history. Some like it, some don't. The only other writer I know who has as tough and unpredictable an edge as Warren is Dylan, but even Bob couldn't have written those songs Warren did. Mind you, Warren probably couldn't have written a lot of Bob's either... - LH |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: Lonesome EJ Date: 14 Sep 02 - 02:43 PM WZ played it hard and fast for a long time. Guess he's too old to die young and too old to die young now, which is a quandary in which he may find some sardonic amusement.
I'm drinking Heart-attack Motor Oil and Bombay Gin |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: Lonesome EJ Date: 14 Sep 02 - 02:46 PM Oop. Should have been "too young to die old and too old to die young." Awlays roofpread! |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: Amos Date: 14 Sep 02 - 02:55 PM Awlays roofpread How high is that roof? About 80. Wow! Pretty high roof! A |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: gnu Date: 14 Sep 02 - 03:19 PM Darn ! Ever since I saw this thread I've been looking for that album and I CAN'T FIND IT !!! AND, the backup tape sounds completely garbled ! My mind is like a broken record.... "I heard Woodrow Wilson's guns, I hearrrrd them in the Harrrrbourrrrrrr...." I gotta find it.... "Take the servants and head west, hold the.... " aggghhhh ! I'm getting "excited". |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: Little Hawk Date: 14 Sep 02 - 04:36 PM gnu - Well, keep looking. If you really can't find it, I can make you a tape of it. It's an incredible album. - LH |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: GUEST,Gern Date: 15 Sep 02 - 12:00 PM Boy, I've bummed all weekend about this one. Never has rock music found a more ironic voice, a lyrical Hunter Thompson eye for the raw deals of life. He goes out as he lives, "Mr. Bad Example" to us all. Think of the many lines he has written that have given us a sense of dark humor and disgust with the clarity of a novelist: "I've been down in Detox Mansion, out on Last Chance Farm/ I've been raking leaves with Liza/ Me and Liz clean up the yard" "Little old lady got mutilated late last night..." "Michael Jackson in Disneyland.../ Lock the gates, Goofy, take my hand" "Grandpa pissed his pants again/ He don't give a damn" "In our old colonial home/ we drank our bitters while the empire fell" Even the hum of an old air conditioner was music to him. Draw blood, Warren... we're gonna miss you. |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: Sibelius Date: 15 Sep 02 - 01:24 PM "I lay my head on the railroad track, waitin' on the double-E/ But the train don't run by here no more, poor poor pitiful me...." Guess they've re-opened the line. |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: Katlinel Date: 15 Sep 02 - 06:21 PM I was deeply saddened to hear of this. :( Warren, I guess you'll be our next Envoy...travel well and be sure to have Roland along to ease the path. I know I'll miss you. |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: mkebenn Date: 06 Nov 02 - 07:31 AM I missed this thread. I've always loved this man since the first time I heard "Roland".I play that song with just my Martin, and it NEVER fails to get a reaction. I sometimes follow with "Hasten down the wind", with one of the greatest refrains ever She's so many women he can't find the one who was his friend. He's hangin' on to half her heart, but he can't have the restless part. So he tells her to hasten down the wind. Never met a woman who liked that song, too close to home, I guess. Mike God speed |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: mike the knife Date: 06 Nov 02 - 08:26 AM Heard about this a while back. Don't know what to say. "Excitable Boy" has been one of the "go to" albums for me for years when I'm either really ticked with the world or wallowing in existential dread. Think I still even have it on 8-Track. |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: SharonA Date: 06 Nov 02 - 04:19 PM On a couple of Warren Zevon sites, there's an email address for sending messages to him. The address is: zevon@artemisrecords.com |
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Subject: RE: Warren Zevon Terminally Ill From: bflat Date: 06 Nov 02 - 10:33 PM Warren Zevon was on Letterman a few days ago. He spoke of his lung cancer quite openly and comfortably. He amazed me. Then, he performed a few songs. I could not believe his professionalism and for lack of a better explanation, resignation to the facts. He gave a heck of a performance. Ellen |
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