Warren Zevon - The Wind

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Free Music Notes for The Wind

Free Music Review: This is rich
Hit: 5 Stars

David Lindley might be a little more famous on VH-1now, for being in the recording studio for the TV documentary when Zevon said "I like to see the blood drain from Dave's face" just before the song "Numb as a Statue." David Lindley is playing lapsteel guitar on that song in 2002. Then Bruce Springsteen came into the studio around Christmas to do electric guitar & background vocals for "Disorder in the House." Way in the background, I think Springsteen was saying "I was wondering why in hell myself about the Lhasa Apso." I don't buy as many CDs as I used to, but the Lhasa Apso thing convinced me that I spent my money wisely when I bought "The Wind." I can't think of a more brilliant line than:

"Even the Lhasa Apso seems to be ashamed."

I needed to have the CD liner notes to figure out how to spell it so I could look Lhasa Apso up in the dictionary to see if Americans even had that kind of pet the year I bought my dictionary and headed for college. I don't think so, unless there were a few rich people that thought having some exotic creature from Tibet as a pet would give them more comfort than the typical dog or cat. Maybe my problem is that I didn't buy a dictionary the last time I was in California, if that makes any difference. Anyway, it's in a short verse:

"Disorder in the house
It's a fate worse than fame
Even the Lhasa Apso seems to be ashamed"

For a song about a state of mind, the few items it contains about wealth, like "I just got my paycheck," seem to be swallowed up by being in "the land of the free Where the less you know the better off you'll be." I'll call this a great song.

The first song on the CD, "Dirty Life And Times," is another "living in a four-letter world" song. With Warren Zevon taking the lead, it sounds just like him, singing about the kind of troubles that even rich people can have. His shadow's casting him into lonely times winding down, and having spent twenty years of his life fighting a drinking addiction only to lose it to the self-destructive smoker's habit is about like "Now they'll hunt me down and hang me for my crimes If I tell about my dirty life and times."

Bob Dylan's "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" has some beautifully melodic instrumental parts. It was a wonderful choice for this album. The rest of the album provides a variety of songs that work well with the people that help out. Seven people are doing background vocals on "Prison Grove," along with five instruments, for a group sound. Jorge Calderon does Spanish vocals on "El Amor De Mi Vida" and co-wrote seven of the album's songs with Warren Zevon. The VH-1 special documentary showed Jorge doing a lot to get the album recorded. Once the basic instrumental parts of "Disorder In The House" were recorded, he is seen patting Warren Zevon three times on the knee just before the lead vocal part is supposed to come in. The problem of precisely when certain things are supposed to happen are as important in music as in other aspects of life, and drummers who are on a different beat keep showing up in odd places to say the least. Knowing when to start is part of getting to down to the verse where "The big guns have spoken And we've fallen for the ruse."

The fun party on "The Wind" CD is with the help of Tom Petty and Mike Campbell on the song, "The Rest of the Night." This CD is not all sad songs, but one of the saddest sounding voices in popular music, Emmylou Harris, was there for the song, "Please Stay." I'm glad she is on the album, since she has a voice that I like listening for in duets, the Trio, and gospel blends in the country music mode. She still sounds like she cares. The instrumental solo that sets the mood for "Please Stay" is by Gil Bernal on saxophone, which was not what I was expecting when I bought a Warren Zevon CD, but it grabs the song like it has its own kind of music to play, and every note sounds like he knows what he is doing.

Joe Walsh gets to play slide guitar on "Rub Me Raw." This is the kind of blues that I have been expecting from Warren Zevon since I bought a Hindu Love Gods CD on which he was singing, "wang-dang-doodle" and "Tied down with battleship chains Fifty foot long with a two ton anchor." The guitar part on "Rub Me Raw" sounds just like Joe Walsh, as I hope anyone who remembers "Rocky Mountain Way" will agree.

"Keep Me in Your Heart" is a simple little song that ought to stay in the mind of anyone who hears the whole album and remembers it as an event. Smile is the (one) rhyme for awhile.

The Wind Poster

If the lyrics generally lack the literary precision of Zevon?s best work, the songs take on greater weight given the circumstance under which they were recorded. Heard in 1983, a party-hearty anthem like "The Rest of the Night" would?ve sounded like yet another dumb argument for hedonism, and "Numb as a Statue" might have come off as the self-lacerating joke of an alcoholic unable to deal with his emotions directly. However, on The Wind, these songs are genuinely touching, the work of a guy deadened by meds but unwilling to surrender to The Big Sleep just yet. A cover of Dylan?s "Knockin? on Heaven?s Door" is the album?s most direct comment on Zevon?s fragile health, but the most touching song is the album-closing acoustic ballad "Keep Me in Your Heart," recorded by Zevon at home after the star-studded studio work was complete. Clearly, Zevon survived one hell of a farewell party last night, but now it's morning again and there?s no telling what the rest of the day might bring. --Keith Moerer

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