Warren Zevon- Amercian Singer Songwriter, Friend & Me

This is a story of life, death, everything in between and what comes after. It is the story of Warren Zevon, American singer song writer, death expert and me.  

I was studying for my arts degree at Newcastle University in2005. I had just begun the subject “the sociology of death dying and human mortality” when I suffered a loss. It wasn’t the death of a loved one but the death of a significant relationship.

I had fallen in love with a gifted psychic. As well as my partner, he was my teacher in all things supernatural. And he was a great teacher and soon I experienced my first clear physic vision. Sadly, he not such a great boyfriend, as my vision was of him in bed with another woman. Our short but intense love affair was over, dead. Have you ever felt your heart ripped out of your chest and stomped on?

Death, Dying & Human Mortality
Well it was in this state I dragged myself to my “Death, Dying and Human Mortality” class, grieving for every bit of my frail human mortality. My class was to pursue individual major studies on some aspect of death dying and human mortality… Fellow classmates were enthusiastically picking their topics; suicide poetry, roadside memorials and death rites were a few. I however, was concentrating on getting out of bed and trying to eat.

Then I met the late great Warren Zevon.  My brother-in-law Jack, gave me a cd, Warren Zevon’s “The Wind”. I played it…and I played it and played it. Here was a musician who understood loss. Warren Zevon wrote and recorded The Wind, his 15th cd as he was dying.

Warren wrote and sang songs of goodbye, of regrets, and of his thoughts on impending death. The songs touched a chord deep within, they gave me comfort. I remember after every song, shutting my eyes and taking a moment to say “thank you Warren”. Not only did I find comfort… but a subject for my major study; Warren Zevon.

Werewolves of London
Now I don’t imagine too of you would be familiar with the name Warren Zevon, but you might remember his hit song “Werewolves of London”, and he wrote hits recorded by many other artists. Warren was credited by his peers as one of America’s greatest ever singer song writers.

With a renewed sense of purpose, I set about researching the life, times and death of Warren Zevon.  I listened to his songs, all 15 albums over and over, day in day out, much to the dismay of my children who despaired at my taste of music and state of mind. As I researched, I realised that it wasn’t just his last cd that was an exposition on death but in fact more than half the songs in his 15-album career concerned death. On every album cover and every poster Warren had the picture of a cigarette smoking skull. Irreverent, sardonic, poignant and thought provoking, Warren explored every manner of death, dying and human mortality through his songs.

Warren grew up with death. One of the first stories his grandmother told him was how his birth had almost killed his mother. Warren’s father was a Russian gangster with a history of violence, who courted death daily. And hanging on the lounge room wall was a portrait of Warren’s uncle and name sake, a dead war hero.

Poor Poor Pitiful Me
Warren, a classically trained musician, embraced rock and roll music and the rock and roll lifestyle of excess. Warren attempted to emulate his uncle by dying a young hero, a young rock and roll hero. Besides drugs and booze, Warren also played Russian roulette with real bullets. At this stage of my break up I could empathise with his death wish, “Poor, poor pitiful me. Poor, poor pitiful me, poor, poor pitiful me!” - that song particularly resonated with my post break up mood.

After a few albums and some years, of exploring violence, excess and death, Warren didn’t die, he went to rehab. Warren’s songs then reflected his ongoing fight with alcohol and drugs while I battled my own post relationship demons, with songs like “Accidently like a Martyr. The hurt gets worse and the heart gets harder”

Themes of death and dying continued to inform Warren Zevon’s songs. As the reckless years of his youth and addiction passed warren’s songs began to reflect his concern in broader social issues such as death by war, pollution, domestic violence and the breakdown of society. At this time of my post breakup blues the song the song that resonated was “Splendid isolation, I don’t need no-one, Splendid Isolation”


Life'll Kill Ya
When Warren turned fifty his thoughts turned to sickness, decrepitude and decay. His 14th album “Life’ll Kill Ya” was a hilarious, slightly scary and somewhat disturbing look at old age and dying. Out of all the ways to die, Warren said it was sickness and doctors that scared him the most.

Ironically it was Warren’s song “My Shit’s Fuck Up” about a belated trip to the doctor, which proved prophetically and fatally correct.

"Well, I went to the doctor
I said, "I'm feeling kind of rough"
"Let me break it to you, son"
Your shit's fucked up."
I said, "my shit's fucked up?"
Well, I don't see how-"
He said, "The shit that used to work-
It won't work now."

At warren’s first visit to a doctor in twenty years he was given the diagnosis, inoperable lung cancer, three months to live. Well and truly fucked, with a death sentence hanging over his head Warren set out to write and record his last album to say a few goodbyes and share his final thoughts on death and dying.

Home alone one night, I sat on the wooden floor in front of the TV and watched the documentary of the making of Warren Zevon’s final album The Wind. It follows Warren’s struggles to write and record the album as the cancer ravaged his body. The first song he wrote for the album “Keep me in your heart for a while” was the last one he recorded. Too sick to record in the studio, he recorded it at home on the lounge surrounded by his family and the paraphernalia of death.   

Shadows are fallin' and I'm runnin' out of breath
Keep me in your heart for a while
If I leave you it doesn't mean I love you any less
Keep me in your heart for a while
When you get up in the mornin' and you see that crazy sun
Keep me in your heart for a while
There's a train leavin' nightly called "When All is Said and Done"
Keep me in your heart for a while
Sometimes when you're doin' simple things around the house
Maybe you'll think of me and smile
You know I'm tied to you like the buttons on your blouse
Keep me in your heart for a while
Hold me in your thoughts
Take me to your dreams
Touch me as I fall into view
When the winter comes
Keep the fires lit
And I will be right next to you
Engine driver's headed north up to Pleasant Stream
Keep me in your heart for a while
These wheels keep turnin' but they're runnin' out of steam
Keep me in your heart for a while
 
My tears flowed, and as they did, several shells sitting on the TV flew off then landed in my lap, then some ethereal fingers caressed my cheek …. Warren.

The weeks passed in Death Dying and human mortality, I continued listening to his songs, researching, writing and discussing my project in class, all the time comforted by his presence.

As I handed in my finished project, Warren Zevon. Songs of Finitude, I thought it only right to acknowledge Warren’s presence and influence throughout the entire project. So, with some trepidation I raised the spectre of supernatural with my lecturer “Warren Zevon has been helping me” I said, to which my lecturer replied “Oh yes, he was standing by your left shoulder every class.”

Sometime later I received MY grade, a high distinction, but it wasn’t about the grade because it wasn’t just an academic study, it wasn’t even a study about dying. Warren sung me from grief and loss, to love and life. And he taught me, death isn’t the end, there are no ends, just verses in the exquisite, eternal, song of life… and that song is love.

​And my project, well that was a collaboration of love between Warren Zevon, American singer song writer, friend and me.        

​Songs By Warren Zevon.