Warren Zevon

I have to admit I really didn’t get the greatness of Warren Zevon at first. In 2003 when he passed away I read in Mojo that a genius was lost and I felt tempted to look him up. There was something in the music but I wasn’t sold straight away. It might have been a bit too much cowbell in Johnny Strikes Up The Band or something wrong with the guitar sound in Lawyers, Guns and Money. But after listening to the songs a few times I found some favourites like Backs Turned Looking Down The Path, Frank  and Jesse James or The French Inhaler.

I realised that even though I wasn’t sure about the genius part yet he was for sure a great songwriter in the old fashioned story telling kind of way. After a few weeks I was hooked and now I just love Warren Zevon. Later on came Hank Moody in the brilliant series Californication where they quite frequently played Warren Zevon and it was getting even more difficult not to love him.

Warren Zevon might have been a notorious drunk and a wife beater, but he still left with an amazing sortie. First he did some remarkable TV appearances, like the ones with his good friend David Letterman where he talked about the fact that he was going to die, then came his last album The Wind. It’s a pretty impressive final album, not all of it is good but there are a few absolutely amazing tracks on it like She’s Too Good for Me, Please Stay or my favouriteKeep Me in Your Heart. If I knew I was going to die, that’s the song I would have liked to have written when I hang up my hat and say goodbye.

My Warren Zevon playlist