Music
25 May 15

Warren Zevon On David Letterman

It was the end of an era with the great David Letterman signing off for the last time on his signature show last week. One of the most striking performances of the many great ones on the show over the years came from Warren Zevon. It had an Irish twist in the tail, writes Dermot Stokes...

So, there I was, idly checking through some of the memorable musical moments from David Letterman's chat show, like that of the late Godfather of Soul, James Brown, whose performance was positively incendiary. But Warren Zevon was there too and was great for other reasons.
Warren knew he was dying at the time, and Letterman knew it too, as did the house band whom Zevon had led for a time when Paul Schaffer was otherwise engaged. Zevon talked about his illness like he sang his songs. He said that what he was learning was the importance of really enjoying that sandwich.
He sang three songs on the show that night. The third of them was 'Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner’, from Warren’s third album Excitable Boy. You know the one. The song’s unique hero set out from Norway in '66 and ’6, to fight in Biafra.
"His comrades fought beside him, Van Owen and the rest,” the lyrics explain, "But of all the Thompson gunners, Roland was the best."
So good was he that the CIA wanted him dead. And guess what happened? He was betrayed by one of his colleagues: "That son-of-a-bitch Van Owen blew off Roland's head." It sounded good as he croaked it out. But even though one knew the song and how it ends, it still came as a bit of a jolt when the last verse came around...
"Now it's ten years later,” Zevon sang, "but he still keeps up the fight/ In Ireland, in Lebanon, in Palestine and Berkeley…"
What?!? Ireland? This green and equal island?!?
And then you remember. When Zevon wrote that song (in 1977, while in Spain), Ireland featured regularly in despatches. Shootings, bombings, murders, outrages like the assassination of Mountbatten and 18 British soldiers followed, massacres by Protestant and Catholic murder squads and so on in a litany that continued to lengthen for more than the next decade...
Looking at the photos of Gerry Adams shaking hands with Prince Charles last week, and likewise watching the celebrations of the result of the referendum on same sex marriage in Dublin Castle and elsewhere and elsewhere over the weekend, and even as the Northern Ireland Assembly wobbles on its foundations, you have to admit we've all come a long way since then. Thankfully.
I wonder how Warren would have sung it...