"THIS IS A SONG THAT I WROTE WITH A VERY GOOD FRIEND OF MINE NAMED MITCH ALBOM ... THERE'S AN AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION ASPECT TO THIS SONG": Ten years ago this month, Warren Zevon performed around the corner at Philadelphia's Theatre of the Living Arts, and thanks to the glory of the Internet it's all downloadable and streamable for free at archive.org. It's got all the hits you'd want to hear, and the recording quality is so pristine that if you listen real carefully during "Hit Somebody," you can pretend to make out my voice among the throng.
(The other great thing about that particular track is that this was before the song was available in any format, so we were all hearing it and responding to Buddy's story for the first time. FWIW, Kevin Smith's film adaptation of the song is now set to film next summer, with Nicholas Braun replacing Seann William Scott in the lead. No, I can't think of a successful film that was based on a song -- what, "Alice's Restaurant"?)
"Ode to Billy Joe" grossed $27M on a $1.1M budget in 1976.
ReplyDelete"Harper Valley PTA" was successful enough as a 1978 movie that they made a TV series out of it.
And of course, there's "9 to 5."
"9 to 5" was written for the movie.
ReplyDelete(a) I couldn't be more jealous you were at that show - the last time I saw Warren was for my 20th birthday at the Chestnut Cabaret, so that would have been 20 years ago this month (oy!). Well whaddya know - it's at archive.org too! Totally forgot about that Raspberry Beret cover!
ReplyDelete(b) it depends what you mean by "successful," but if that definition ignores "box office returns" and instead includes "really quite good, even though practically no one saw it," then give it up for The Indian Runner: Sean Penn's directorial (and screenwriting) debut, based on Springsteen's "Highway Patrolman," and featuring Viggo Mortensen and David Morse as the brothers Roberts.
<span>I used to lovelovelove this song, among many others in Zevon's discography, but when I found out Albom co-wrote it... Well, it went from being a sadder version of Slap Shot to a hockey version of <span>The Five People You Meet in Heaven. And who wants to listen to that?</span></span>
ReplyDeleteChrist. I love my sister to death, but she got me a copy of Five People for Christmas that year. I actually read the damn thing just to be that guy.
ReplyDeleteGod, do I miss him. One of the six times I saw him was in 1982 in St. Louis, playing a solo show in an old church. The Envoy came out that year, and he did a few songs from it, but the highlight was an amazing version of "The French Inhaler," which caught all the irony, anger and sadness that infuses that song. I was 20 years old, alone and living in a city I didn't like, and it was like being visited by an old friend. I actually stood outside the exit and sent him a note saying how much the show meant to me. It was goofy of me, and who knows if he ever got the note, but it felt important to me at the time.
ReplyDeleteGreil Marcus from 2002:
<span>1) Press release, D.Baron media relations (Sept. 12)</span>
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<p>"Los Angeles, CA -- Celebrated recording artist composer Warren Zevon, one of rock music's wittiest and most original songwriters, has been diagnosed with lung cancer which has advanced to an untreatable stage." Playing: "Mohammed's Radio," the churchy live version from the 1982 "Stand in the Fire" ("Even Jimmy Carter's got the highway blues"); the delirious rising in the 1978 "Johnny Strikes Up the Band"; the regret in the melody of "Looking for the Next Best Thing" in 1982; the shared dread of "Run Straight Down" in 1989; the delicacy of "Suzie Lightning" in 1991 and "Mutineer" in 1995. From 1976, when he went public with "Desperadoes Under the Eaves" on the album "Warren Zevon," it has been more than a quarter century of gunplay and bravado, not for a moment concealing Zevon's loathing for his own betrayals and those of the world around him. "I was in the house when the house burned down," he sang in 2000. From afar he has been a good friend.
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My mother tried to foist Tuesdays With Morrie on me for a half-decade. So far I've managed to avoid reading him, which is why I felt betrayed when Zevon snuck him in on me.
ReplyDeleteWarren Zevon fans should track down a copy of the obscure "Hindu Love Gods," where Warren Zevon and the three non-Stipe members of REM cover some great blues and rock songs, including "Raspberry Beret." It's actually my favorite Zevon album.
ReplyDeleteI have a (gulp) cassette of that. I will not give it up.
ReplyDeleteThat was me.
ReplyDeleteIf we're going to have a Warren Zevon song turned movie, let's go for Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner, shall we?
ReplyDeleteIn retrospect, the 1990 tour was probably (to some degree) in support of that album.
ReplyDelete