Warren Zevon

News Obituary Article

WARREN ZEVON, 1947-2003: Year after fatal diagnosis, 'Ride's Here'

By PHIL KLOER

Warren Zevon made it. Told more than a year ago that he had inoperable lung cancer and three months or less to live, the darkly witty singer-songwriter gathered fellow musicians to record a last CD, "The Wind." A year to the day after he got his death sentence, Aug. 26, the CD was released, and Zevon hung on long enough to glory in the good reviews.

And on Sunday afternoon, Zevon died in his sleep in his Los Angeles home, said his manager, Irving Azoff. He was 56.

An outlaw rock 'n' roller and all-around hell-raiser more respected by many of his peers than by the public at large, Zevon still wielded his morbid sense of humor in the face of his own mortality. In a VH1 documentary of his final months, he was shown exiting a limo to do his last live appearance, on "Late Show With David Letterman," and announcing as he hit the sidewalk, "Dead man walking."

Zevon was told in August 2002 that he had mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer (he had quit smoking in 1994, but admitted he had not been to a doctor in years).

"Sometimes I feel like my shadow's casting me/ Sometimes the sun don't shine," he sang in the first line of "My Dirty Life and Times," from his last CD, which might seem to have been inspired by his situation, except that it was exactly the kind of lyric he wrote when he was healthy.

For more than 25 years, Warren Zevon wrote dark and twisted songs; his logo, which appeared on albums and his backstage passes, was a grinning skull with a cigarette clamped in its teeth.

'The knowledge of death and fear of death informs my existence. It's a safe, kind of cheerful way of dealing with that issue,' he said in a 1980 interview.

Zevon's subversive songs dealt with desperadoes, outlaws, weirdos and losers, with the songwriter frequently casting himself as the ultimate loser. Songs on his penultimate CD, eerily titled "My Ride's Here," included "I Have to Leave" and "You're a Whole Different Person When You're Scared." He was a musicians' musician, and his fans included Bruce Springsteen (who sang backup on "The Wind"), Neil Young and the members of R.E.M., with whom he recorded briefly in the '80s.

Zevon was born Jan. 24, 1947, in Chicago (the son of a Russian gangster, he told people) and grew up in California, playing classical piano as a child. He released an early flop, "Wanted Dead or Alive," in 1970 and played piano for the Everly Brothers. In 1976, he got better notice with his album "Warren Zevon," which included the song "Poor Poor Pitiful Me." His high point of popularity came in 1978 with the album "Excitable Boy," which included "Werewolves of London" (his only Top 40 hit), the title track (about a psychopathic killer) and "Lawyers, Guns and Money."

Although Zevon's many later albums ("Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School," "Mr. Bad Example," and the two-CD retrospective "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead") never approached the popularity of "Excitable Boy," that album brought Zevon enough of a fan base that he was able to maintain a career as a club headline act.

But if Zevon never achieved multi-platinum stardom, he had a loyal following of the famous. Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt were among his early friends and supporters; on "My Ride's Here," gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, novelist Carl Hiaasen and Mitch Albom ("Tuesdays With Morrie") collaborated on lyrics; and humorist Dave Barry flew out to cheer him up in his final months.

Although widely seen as a cynic and satirist, Zevon, who recovered from alcoholism in the late '70s and stayed sober, differed with that assessment.

"I've always felt there was something redeeming about every experience, something affirmative," he once said, "and it's that quality I hope people will see in my work. . . someone who looks at life good-naturedly and has the ability to see the human side of things."

Divorced twice, Zevon is survived by his son Jordan, a musician, and daughter Ariel, who gave birth to Zevon's first grandchildren, twins Augustus Warren and Maximus Patrick Zevon-Powell, in June. Funeral arrangements are pending.

© 2003 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution