Crystal ZevonNew York: Ecco Publishers, 2007.
480 Pages ~ $26.95/Hardcover, 15.95/Trade Paperback
You hear him howling around your kitchen door
Better not let him in
Little old lady got mutilated late last night
Werewolves of London again.
“Werewolves of London”
-Warren Zevon
As much as it pains the music geek in me to say so, I have to face the occasionally disheartening fact that more people are familiar with the music of Fall Out Boy than the brilliant work of Warren Zevon, left behind in a career of incredible highs and near-crippling lows that exemplified rock and roll and the staggering potential of the American songwriter in popular music, but that was tragically cut short by lung cancer in 2003. It is just one of those things that anyone who gives a damn about music beyond the flavor-of-the-moment that MTV/Rolling Stone demands has to deal with. Each of us has to put up with this kind of popular music saturation at the expense of idiosyncratic genius, but the experience is different for everybody. For me, though the list occasionally shuffles a little, Zevon has always been right there at the top or damn close to it. Despite the fact that he wrote some of the most brutally optimistic, sharply humorous, and darkly comedic songs of troubled, literary-inspired heroes and misfits, his name is still forever attached to a single hit. In this case, far more often than not, the hit is more popular than the man who put it together.
For someone whose friends and fans (many of whom covered his songs to great commercial success) include Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Martin Scorcesse, Billy Bob Thornton, David Letterman, Clint Eastwood, Hunter S. Thompson, Stephen King, Bonnie Rait, Linda Rondstadt, Dave Barry, Bob Dylan, and countless others, it is something of a mystery (and a minor tragedy) that his career would forever be associated with one fluke of a hit. As good a song as that fluke hit might be, “Werewolves of London” is far from the best in Zevon’s canon. Roll through one of his greatest hits collections. The two disc I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead anthology (1996) is probably the strongest of the bunch, but the single-disc Genius (2002) is also pretty damn good. Listen closely and count the number of songs that manage to reach, with stark and unrelenting clarity, that elusive realm of being everything a great song should be, from the lyrics and accompanying music to infectious energy.
Until the very end, with The Wind (2003), Warren Zevon was to music what Hunter S. Thompson was to journalism. Both men possessed a remarkable ability to look into the endless darkness of strange characters, comically absurd corruption, and the troubling times lingering over America’s cities of blinding neon and world-weary concrete. Both men were able to report effortlessly—and with a great combination of wry humor and constant honesty—on the things they saw and the dark days that inevitably did them in. We were all a little luckier for having had the chance to witness the “highs” and “lows.”
Zevon deserves a place in music history far more encompassing than the singular success of “Werewolves of London.”
That is the great thing about I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon. Though not a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (which he deserves a whole lot more than U2), it is surely as a good step in the right direction.
On the surface, his turbulent story is reminiscent of those irritating VH1 Behind the Music episodes. A lot of the elements are there, especially the sex-drug-alcohol abuse and the standard rock and roll decadence, the endless near-death experiences, and the rise from the ashes that buried the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison. It is all there if taken at face value. However, to make it as simple as that is to really do his story a terrible injustice. Going back to the beginning, to his childhood as the son of a Russian gangster and his meeting with legendary composer Igor Stravinsky at a young age, the story of Warren Zevon is anything but the standard rock star mythology. I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead was obviously put together with the archetypes and prototypes in mind, but the deviations from the norm are what matters here. Instead of a standard biography, we get something that more closely resembles oral history. Compiled and narrated by Zevon’s former wife Crystal, the book tells its story through some eighty interviews consisting of family, including his two children, his many lovers, and numerous friends and colleagues (many of whom have already been mentioned).
The book still reads like a biography. The story moves chronologically through Zevon’s remarkable life and covers everything in perfect, absorbing detail. From his explosive rise in the Seventies to the battle with drug and alcohol abuse that nearly destroyed him, to his career-long struggle to escape from the shadow of his most successful composition, everything is examined with significant attention. But what makes I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead so much more interesting is those interviews, that individual testimony. Most biographies are written with the narrator in the driver’s seat and the people around the subject’s life being brought in only to emphasize whatever the narrator might be saying. I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead takes the opposite approach by letting the people in Zevon’s life tell the story, using the narrative only as a means to bridge those stories from one to the other or link the excerpts from Zevon’s personal journals. The man himself apparently gave the okay on the book before his death and the journal entries almost make it feel as though he was there for the whole process. Though others tell most of the significant stories in the book, the excerpts are a welcome addition and give the story an added sense of depth.
There is a fine line between the sleazy tell-all, the ugly attempt at a quick buck on the death of a name and the sort of brutal confessional that we generally expect from a good biography or autobiography. More often than not, too many books go the first route. Knowing that Warren Zevon approved of the project before he died gives this one an early advantage. He knew the good and bad of his life better than anybody else, but the candid quality of the book lets out his ghosts. Rest assured, I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead lets some pretty ugly skeletons out of the closet. Everyone interviewed is quick to point out Zevon’s brilliance, his dedication to his craft, his infectious sense of humor, and the moments of his life when he was as noble and great as any human being can hope to be. The flipside of that coin can be pretty unpleasant to read, at times. No one, especially Crystal Zevon, holds back when it comes to the darker moments of death-defying binge drinking (one can only think of the Nicolas Cage film Leaving Las Vegas [1995] as a suitable comparison), spousal abuse, conscious moments of unflinching cruelty towards the people he loved, and acts of selfishness so staggering that they occasionally boggle the mind. The book might even change your perspective on the man if you are a fan going before reading. But all of it is essential in the end.
Despite this, the book never once becomes overwhelmingly downbeat or negative. Crystal Zevon sought to paint a complete picture here, and she succeeds admirably and on every level. Every bad story is almost always followed by a fond, sometimes hilarious memory. One can almost see the smiles on the faces of the people Warren knew and worked with as they recount stories of touring, his stint substituting for Paul Shaffer as band leader for Late Night with David Letterman, his friendship with Hunter S. Thompson, his comparing OCD tics with Billy Bob Thornton, or the thousand other strange and compelling adventures in between. It is a strange testament of character that a man given to such excess and times of terrible abuse was almost always just as easily the man in the room that everyone else wanted to talk to and be around. One of the constants in his life seems to be that his “good side” was so powerfully compelling that he was repeatedly able to forgive a mixed multitude of sins, small and great. It is also interesting to note that the more one reads through, the more one begin to notice the nature of his relationships with other people. The way he acted around authors like Stephen King and Mitch Albom is different from the way he acted around Bruce Springsteen or Jackson Browne, and much different from the way he treated a casual lover or a serious girlfriend. What put an interesting perspective on the book for me was eventually realizing how entirely possible it was that many of the interview subjects reading this book for themselves would be getting a clearer overall picture of their friend than what they had pieced together during his life. Whether or not that was Zevon’s ultimate intention is unknown. Digressions aside, these revelations create an overall effect in one of the most impressive and fascinating rock and roll biographies ever written.
With those rare individuals who meant so much to so many people, the most important thing that can be done in the wake of their passing is to continue to preserve their memory and their work. A lot has been done since Zevon’s death in 2003. Several albums have been re-released with bonus tracks. A collection of rarities was put out in 2007. A tribute album featuring everyone from Dylan to opening-act and friend Jill Sobule to Adam Sandler (who throws down one of the best covers of “Werewolves of London” ever performed) came out in 2004. Even now, his songs continue to be utilized in films and television shows, most notably popping up in the hit Showtime series Californication (2007).
There will never be another singer-songwriter like Warren Zevon. Hopefully, I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead will enable more people to see that. Maybe even bring in a new generation of fans to appreciate his music.
