Warren Zevon

Warren Zevon ( January 27th, 1947 - September 7th, 2003)

EXCITABLE BOY
Warren Zevon Keeps His Edge -- and His Wits -- On His Latest, An Album to Die For
He's been branded a cynic and a misanthrope, but in reality Warren Zevon is one of the few rock songwriters who's consistently tried to divine the punch lines of life's cosmic joke. Back in the '70s, that impulse prompted him to tweak the counterculture with songs like "Lawyers, Guns, and Money" and twist pop sentiment into the aural equivalent of balloon animals on the tongue-in-cheek "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me." His sardonic wit lost none of its edge in the intervening years: In fact, he's grown into a wizened -- and, yes, sometimes curmudgeonly -- persona with aplomb. That persona is in ample evidence on LIFE'LL KILL YA, Zevon's first album since 1995's MUTINEER and one of his most revealing to date. Yes, he doles out more than his share of witticisms, but listen between the lines and you'll find that they nestle in tales as poignant and honest as any you're likely to hear. Talking with bn.com's David Sprague, Zevon discusses the art of the one-liner and his life as a preeminent songsmith.

barnesandnoble.com: Five years is a long time between albums, even by your standards. Were you itching to return to the trenches, as it were?

Warren Zevon: Actually, it was the furthest thing from my mind. I was studying the flute and trying to learn Russian because I considered myself semi-retired. I knew that my standards of making records were in conflict with my traditionally abysmal record sales, so I had no intention of making a record until it became more practical to do so -- at home, under my own control.

bn.com: Are you one of those artists who has to push in order to write a song, or do things come fairly easily?

WZ: If I were just writing instrumental music, I could wake up at eight every morning and not have any problems. But when I start to add bad poetry to the equation, it takes a lot longer. That's the grotesque part.

bn.com: Are you drastically different from the snotty guy who wrote "Lawyers, Guns, and Money" way back when?

WZ: Not at all. I haven't grown in the slightest as a person [laughs]. At 53, maybe I can just express what I desire somewhat differently. As a songwriter, I'm pretty much drawing on the same ghastly hybrid of Stravinsky and the Rolling Stones as I always have.

bn.com: You were, to use a clichéd phrase, something of a classical prodigy as a youth. What was the catalyst that shifted your attention to rock?

WZ: Puberty, most likely. Also, at a fairly early age, I developed the suspicion that the 20th century was not really about classical music.

bn.com: It seems as if much of LIFE'LL KILL YA is about aging -- but isn't that something we're all doing, even folks in their twenties?

WZ: No! [Laughs] In your twenties or thirties you're not really aware that the hearse is at the curb and they're going to shovel you out of the way to make room for the new idiots. Everyone who I talk to who's my age has some recognition of that, particularly famous people who have that second persona -- the false intimacy. It's like "Warren, you used to be a drunk and my wife drinks too much. What do you think?" Or, "So you've finally turned the corner [of 50]...doesn't it suck?"

bn.com: Well, does it?

WZ: If you don't think that life sucks, you're not paying attention to 75 percent of what goes on around you. But I think this is an optimistic album. The Tao says that the wise man enjoys being old and sick as much as he does being young and healthy. If you look at it that way, life is pretty extravagantly delightful.