Each week, SPIN digs into the catalogs of great artists and highlights songs you might not know for our Deep Cut Friday series. Warren Zevon kicked around The oft-covered standout from Zevon’s self-titled 1976 album.
Each week, SPIN digs into the catalogs of great artists and highlights songs you might not know for our Deep Cut Friday series. Warren Zevon kicked around the music industry for a decade before becoming a star.
He wrote commercial jingles and songs for the Turtles and Murray McLauchlan, played in Phil Everly’s band, and released one unnoticed solo album in 1970. By the time Zevon released his self-titled second album six years later however, he had a lot of stars in his corner, including producer Jackson Browne and cameos from members of Fleetwood Mac, the Beach Boys, and the Eagles. Glenn Frey played guitar and sang harmony on “Carmelita,” a country ballad written by Zevon that had first been recorded by McLauchlin in 1972.have been covered by countless artists, most notably Linda Ronstadt. “Hasten Down the Wind” became the title track of Ronstadt’s 1976 album, and she turned “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” into a Top 40 hit in 1978. She also covered “Carmelita,” which has a beautiful melody but a lyric that’s not exactly radio-ready: “I’m all strung out on heroin on the outskirts of town.” “Carmelita” has enjoyed a long life, including more covers by Dwight Yoakam and Adam Duritz, and appearances in the films. In addition to producing some of Zevon’s best work, Jackson Browne has frequently covered his old friend’s songs, particularly since mesothelioma took Zevon’s life in 2003. I saw Browne in Baltimore in 2014, and he covered three Zevon songs in a row, beginning with “Carmelita.” Jordan Zevon sorted through a storage space full of his father’s demos and early work after his death, assembling them into a posthumous collection. 2007’sfeatured some previously unknown songs as well as the earliest versions of many of Warren Zevon’s greatest songs, including “Carmelita.”Zevon’s most successful album, 1977’s, ends with the incredible one-two punch of “Tenderness on the Block” and “Lawyers, Guns and Money,” both featuring great lead guitar work by Danny Kortchmar.Zevon was born in Chicago and lived most of his life in Southern California, and always wrote cutting, perceptive songs about show business with an outsider’s perspective. One of his best, “Even a Dog Can Shake Hands,” was co-written with Bill Berry, Peter Buck, and Mike Mills of R.E.M., Zevon’s backing band on 1987’sIn his final years, Zevon wrote about aging and illness with both profundity and profanity, sometimes both at the same time, as on “My Shit’s Fucked Up” from 2000’s
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