Showing posts with label Warren Zevon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Warren Zevon. Show all posts
Monday, April 1, 2013
Don't Let Us Get Sick
Don't let us get sick
Don't let us get old
Don't let us get stupid, all right?
Just make us be brave
And make us play nice
And let us be together tonight
The sky was on fire
When I walked to the mill
To take up the slack in the line
I thought of my friends
And the troubles they've had
To keep me from thinking of mine
Don't let us get sick, etc.
The moon has a face
And it smiles on the lake
And causes the ripples in Time
I'm lucky to be here
With someone I like
Who maketh my spirit to shine
Don't let us get sick, etc.
- Warren Zevon, off of The Wind
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Rock n' Roll 3G
Warning: the following post contains a lot of pretentious over-simplification. But it was a lot of fun to write!
Recently, I've been listening a lot to what I call the “third generation” of rock n’ rollers. In my mind, the first generation were the creators – Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Bo Diddley, etc. The second generation consists of the “classic rawk” of the 60s bands like the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Who, Kinks, etc. All are great and deserve listening. But lately I've been listening to Tom Petty, John Cougar Mellencamp, Warren Zevon, and John Hiatt - rock n’ rollers that were roughly the same age as the 2G but came to maturity later, once the path was paved - but they ride on it oh so well.
Fom what I understand, Tom Petty was pretty much an instant classic rock n’ roller from his debut album, although I must admit I’m just not that big of a fan of his early work (his singing is too unrestrained and IMO doesn’t really do his limited vocal range any favors). As his career progressed, however, he really came into his own, peaking for me with the Full Moon Fever era in the early 1990s. Like how including synths focused the Who's chaos in WHo's Next, Jeff Lynne's production cleans up Petty's energy in a pop sheen that brings out the best of the pop and rock in Petty. Plus, Petty's quality band - the Heartbreakers - are incredibly dynamic, in particular the amazing Mike Campbell. The guitar solo that rides out “Running Down a Dream” is a pure rock n’ roll moment that you wish went on forever...
JCM certainly always had the rock n’ roll attitude down pat from the get go. The problem was that his lyrics range from “something to be desired” to “downright embarrassing.” Just listen to “Authority Song:” “Dying don’t sound to me like so much fun.” Not sure that dying sounds like much fun to anyone in their right mind there John. But his attitude and music pulls these songs past these awkward moments towards his strength: the choruses. God damn does the brother know how to write a chorus: “Authority Song," “Tumbling Down,” “Pink Houses,” the list goes on and on.
Warren Zevon is, to me, is in a league of his own. His good songs are good on a whole ‘nother level – lyrically, musically, and emotionally. For someone that leaned so heavily on irony, he put a lot of himself in his songs – it’s hard to listen to the primal screams of "Detox Mansion" without feeling his rage and frustration at his addiction and frustration at the boring life he describes as a condition for the detox. Its true that there are fewer moments of true musical catharsis in Zevon than there are in JCM or Petty, but to me he makes up for that with subtlety. The sublime guitar solo in "Looking for the Next Best Thing" that describes the yearning and giving up that’s the message of that song… The pounding backbeat emphasizing the pounding that the boxers take in “Boom Boom Mancini”, the kid piano that leads to the baby grand in the autobiographical “Piano Fighter.” I think that the only real thing holding WZ back from superstardom was his consistency – he never released an album that was classic from start to finish – and that the alcoholism that generated some really awful filler on his best selling albums caused some people to not take him so seriously (it killed him that many saw him as a one hit wonder).
John Hiatt peaked the mid-90s. My personal favorites of this period are all hardcore rock: “Something Wild”, “Paper Thin”, “Real Fine Love”. At these points, he sounded like Keef Richards with a good voice: a personification of rock. The big difference was the consistency – I haven’t heard everything he’s done and suspect there’s a reason for that – and the quality of the musicians around him. It’s not that they’re bad, it’s just that they’re perfectly adequate. Jim Keltner syndrome. The one example that comes to mind is in the great suburban father anthem “Slow Turning” where he sings “the kids are in the back seat banging like Charlie Watts” and the drummer tries to do a fun little fill, but it’s just not very exciting. However, he makes up for this with his inventive word play; hardly a song of his goes by without a fun turn of phrase that makes you smile: “Maybe some paper doll with a pasted on smile/Would let you write her number down” from “Paper Thin”, “If they’d know what we was up to they wouldn’t let us in/ And now we landed in Memphis like original sin” from “Tennessee Plates." Also check out "Thank You Girl": “My fate was sealed before I met you darling, I was halfway down a shallow grave” and also the fun southern culture celebration of “Memphis in the Meantime:” “And after we get good and greasy/ Baby we can come back home/ Put the cowhorns back on the Cadillac/ And change the message on the cord-a-phone”
Of course, this is simply my simplified notion of these folks, and if you’d like to argue the point, please do leave a comment! But there’s so much good music out there that people don’t always think about when they think of rock and roll that I hope this stuff doesn't get lost in the shuffle, embarrassing images of comeback albums, or buried under soda commercials.
Recently, I've been listening a lot to what I call the “third generation” of rock n’ rollers. In my mind, the first generation were the creators – Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Bo Diddley, etc. The second generation consists of the “classic rawk” of the 60s bands like the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Who, Kinks, etc. All are great and deserve listening. But lately I've been listening to Tom Petty, John Cougar Mellencamp, Warren Zevon, and John Hiatt - rock n’ rollers that were roughly the same age as the 2G but came to maturity later, once the path was paved - but they ride on it oh so well.
Fom what I understand, Tom Petty was pretty much an instant classic rock n’ roller from his debut album, although I must admit I’m just not that big of a fan of his early work (his singing is too unrestrained and IMO doesn’t really do his limited vocal range any favors). As his career progressed, however, he really came into his own, peaking for me with the Full Moon Fever era in the early 1990s. Like how including synths focused the Who's chaos in WHo's Next, Jeff Lynne's production cleans up Petty's energy in a pop sheen that brings out the best of the pop and rock in Petty. Plus, Petty's quality band - the Heartbreakers - are incredibly dynamic, in particular the amazing Mike Campbell. The guitar solo that rides out “Running Down a Dream” is a pure rock n’ roll moment that you wish went on forever...
JCM certainly always had the rock n’ roll attitude down pat from the get go. The problem was that his lyrics range from “something to be desired” to “downright embarrassing.” Just listen to “Authority Song:” “Dying don’t sound to me like so much fun.” Not sure that dying sounds like much fun to anyone in their right mind there John. But his attitude and music pulls these songs past these awkward moments towards his strength: the choruses. God damn does the brother know how to write a chorus: “Authority Song," “Tumbling Down,” “Pink Houses,” the list goes on and on.
Warren Zevon is, to me, is in a league of his own. His good songs are good on a whole ‘nother level – lyrically, musically, and emotionally. For someone that leaned so heavily on irony, he put a lot of himself in his songs – it’s hard to listen to the primal screams of "Detox Mansion" without feeling his rage and frustration at his addiction and frustration at the boring life he describes as a condition for the detox. Its true that there are fewer moments of true musical catharsis in Zevon than there are in JCM or Petty, but to me he makes up for that with subtlety. The sublime guitar solo in "Looking for the Next Best Thing" that describes the yearning and giving up that’s the message of that song… The pounding backbeat emphasizing the pounding that the boxers take in “Boom Boom Mancini”, the kid piano that leads to the baby grand in the autobiographical “Piano Fighter.” I think that the only real thing holding WZ back from superstardom was his consistency – he never released an album that was classic from start to finish – and that the alcoholism that generated some really awful filler on his best selling albums caused some people to not take him so seriously (it killed him that many saw him as a one hit wonder).
John Hiatt peaked the mid-90s. My personal favorites of this period are all hardcore rock: “Something Wild”, “Paper Thin”, “Real Fine Love”. At these points, he sounded like Keef Richards with a good voice: a personification of rock. The big difference was the consistency – I haven’t heard everything he’s done and suspect there’s a reason for that – and the quality of the musicians around him. It’s not that they’re bad, it’s just that they’re perfectly adequate. Jim Keltner syndrome. The one example that comes to mind is in the great suburban father anthem “Slow Turning” where he sings “the kids are in the back seat banging like Charlie Watts” and the drummer tries to do a fun little fill, but it’s just not very exciting. However, he makes up for this with his inventive word play; hardly a song of his goes by without a fun turn of phrase that makes you smile: “Maybe some paper doll with a pasted on smile/Would let you write her number down” from “Paper Thin”, “If they’d know what we was up to they wouldn’t let us in/ And now we landed in Memphis like original sin” from “Tennessee Plates." Also check out "Thank You Girl": “My fate was sealed before I met you darling, I was halfway down a shallow grave” and also the fun southern culture celebration of “Memphis in the Meantime:” “And after we get good and greasy/ Baby we can come back home/ Put the cowhorns back on the Cadillac/ And change the message on the cord-a-phone”
Of course, this is simply my simplified notion of these folks, and if you’d like to argue the point, please do leave a comment! But there’s so much good music out there that people don’t always think about when they think of rock and roll that I hope this stuff doesn't get lost in the shuffle, embarrassing images of comeback albums, or buried under soda commercials.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Our Shit's Fucked Up
Business Insider has a great primer on why the Occupy Wall Street movement really has something to complain about. The economic disparity in our country at the moment is truly disheartening.
Fun fact: Title a reference to both this instantly classic sign and the great Warren Zevon song.
Fun fact: Title a reference to both this instantly classic sign and the great Warren Zevon song.
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