Better late than never

The good news is that Warren Zevon finally has a hit album, a hit single and a couple of Grammys. The bad news is that my old buddy can’t really celebrate this belated recognition, on account of his being, well, dead.

Sam was pleased for Warren’s son and daughter, who seemed moved and happy as they collected the gongs on behalf of their da at the big industry love-in in LA. But outside of Zevon’s immediate family and friends, it’s hard to see how anybody comes out of this smelling of roses.
For those who don’t know, WZ was one of America’s greatest singer-songwriters of the last 25 years. Blackly humorous, razor sharp, and unashamedly intellectual, he numbered Bob Dylan, REM and Bruce Springsteen among his musical admirers, whilst his highly literate approach to rock ’n’ roll made him a natural collaborator for Hunter S. Thompson, Carl Hiassen and the Northern Ireland poet, Paul Muldoon.
For years, he was best known for the cult hit ‘Werewolves Of London’, and perhaps also for the fact that, once upon a time, Rolling Stone put him on their cover to tell his bruising but ultimately uplifting tale of alcoholism and recovery.

Song Noir
After a brief spell in the late ’70s – around the time of the Excitable Boy album and the ‘Werewolves’ hit – it looked as if Zevon was about to book himself a place on the gravy train, but ultimately he had to settle for a career that although full of innovation, flair and a unique take on what Jackson Browne dubbed ‘song noir’, failed to cause much of a splash in the mainstream.
Which is no big deal, I suppose. There are lots of great rock artists who end up filed under ‘cult’, and as lifestyles go, it ain’t so bad. Your records probably sell enough to keep the wolf from the door, you get to do a decent bit of traveling, your following is invariably of the “devoted” kind and, if you’re as accomplished with a guitar, piano and pen as Zevon was, you’re guaranteed the respect of your peers, the biggest buzz of all.
If Warren was still hale and hearty, it’s likely that his latest and last album The Wind would have received much the same kind of attention as the two albums which preceded it, Life’ll Kill You and My Ride’s Here – that is to say, a rave lead review in Uncut, and near total indifference everywhere else.
This was especially infuriating in the case of Life’ll Kill Ya, a brilliant, wicked, funny and moving meditation on aging, sickness and death, the bleak irony of which was that it was written and recorded a couple of years before Zevon learned he was suffering from incurable cancer of the lungs. It’s clear from interviews that Zevon couldn’t have seen it coming, yet from the title-track through to the brute self-examination of ‘My Shit’s Fucked Up’, the effect was as if the writer had been wrestling with the first draft of a final will and testament.
In the end, that dubious honour fell to The Wind, on which Zevon was helped out by various heavyweight friends – including Springsteen on the Grammy-grabbing ‘Disorder In The House – as he raced to cut a final album before the Reaper demanded the delivery of the master(s).
It’s a fine album too, and in the particular case of ‘Keep Me In Your Heart For A While’, just about as nakedly personal, lovely and poignant as art can be.

Brass Neck
But here’s the thing: Life’ll Kill Ya, by any objective standards, is much the better album, yet when it was released on a small label, ol’ Warren could barely get arrested. But now, pushing up the daisies, he finds a lesser album heaped with awards, a run of the mill rocker (but with Bruce onboard, of course) proclaimed one of the songs of the year, and the music industry generally behaving like some zealous 12-stepper determined to make amends (or at least, a few bucks).
Which shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, least of all Sam Snort. But just sometimes, the brass neck of the business they call show is so hard and shiny, that it takes even Sam’s breath away. It’s like that time Rolling Stone put Jim Morrison on the cover with the headline: ‘He’s hot, he’s sexy and dead’.
Ah well, it’s hardly an original observation to say that there ain’t no justice in this world – and as there is only this world, we’re just going to have to live, and die, with that state of affairs. I mean, as someone once pointed out, if there really was a law of natural justice, Elvis would be alive and all the Elvis impersonators would be dead.
Your Uncle Sam reckons that there’s a good song to be written about this called something like ‘Dying To Be A Star’. Only problem is that the one man capable of doing the theme justice, is no longer with us.
Your ever lovin’ Samuel J. Snort Esq