October 30, 2002 - It was close to the end when Warren Zevon made what everyone knew would be his final appearance on Late Night with David Letterman. The cancer had already taken a tremendous toll on him, and every small movement was an effort. Letterman loved Warren’s music, and had supported his career for years. I like to think that it was because Dave recognized that Warren was willing to cross a line that Dave could only approach before retreating. During the Q & A that night, Dave asked Warren what the one thing was that he wanted people to know. The dying songwriter famously replied, “enjoy every sandwich.” Less than a year later, he was gone.

Warren left us with a beautiful farewell album that he called The Wind, and he laid out his final wishes on the emotional closing track:

Shadows are falling and I’m running out of breath
Keep me in your heart for awhile
If I leave you that doesn’t mean I love you any less
Keep me in your heart for awhile

And so we have kept him in our hearts over these last five years. For many of us, hardly a day goes by that Warren doesn’t remain a presence. When his sandwich metaphor is applied to his music, Warren made sure that we would enjoy every sandwich. It’s not just about his music though, any more than our memories of Hunter S. Thompson, surely a kindred spirit to Warren, are just about his writing. In their too-short lives, both men managed to find a freedom that few of us will ever know. (more…)

The Eagles dogpiling continues.

First off, if you haven’t had a chance, read Scott Malchus’ great review of Don Felder’s “Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles (1974-2001).” Good stuff. But this writer is fond of anything that makes Glen Frey look like a hack and a douchebag, so there you go.

It’s a safe bet that Don Henley had no idea how dated his work would become. Even his best songs are sealed off from the rest of the world in an aerosol can hair spray-coated bubble. This owes less to his music’s production value – though that was certainly a factor with “Dirty Laundry” – than the fiery anti-Reagan rhetoric that punctuated every song that wasn’t aimed at some fork in the road or other. (Fans of the Eagles’ “Good Day in Hell” just chuckled, hopefully.) In the case of “All She Wants to Do Is Dance,” though, both its production and subject matter tie the song to the ground “General’s Daughter”-style, and leave it to die. Yahtzee!

Written by longtime collaborator and ‘70s session guitarist extraordinaire Danny “Kooch” Kortchmar, “All She Wants to Do Is Dance,” the second single from Henley’s triple-platinum Building the Perfect Beast, certainly has the spirit of a Henley song, wagging a finger at Americans for having little regard for the atrocities that go on outside its borders. And with a title like that, you may as well go whole hog and make the track as danceable as possible, right? Who knows, maybe Henley and Kooch deliberately went overboard with the keytars and fake horns in order to make a point – a soulless, plastic dance track about soulless, plastic people – and then laughed all the way to the bank when the song went Top Ten. Today, however, it’s the turd in Henley’s punch bowl. (more…)