Warren Zevon/vh1 special
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martinfoyle
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Warren Zevon/vh1 special
Anyone watch this? Hoping to get a tape of it soon, I'm curious to read people's impressions of it.
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noiseradio
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It was a wonderful tribute to Warren, I thought. Very touching. And I applaud VH1 for running it without any commercials. It was sometimes hard to watch, like in a scene where he's undr medication (morphine, and a bunch of other pills), and he's trying to lay down a vocal track, but he can't find the beat. And his voice is cracking. He's desperate to do this task, but he's just unable in that moment to do it. And his lifelong friend/producer is telling him to come in in the morning when he's fresh and try again. Warren says, "I'm dying. I don't have any fresh left."
but the next day, he nails it, and Bruce Springsteen comes in to lay down killer vocals and incendiary guitar. Nails it in a take, and Warren quips, "You really are him."
He takes his fans to task at one point. He had read online that he was being praised for not seeking treatment. Genuinely dismayed, he says that the only reason for no treatment is that he's wanting to finish the album first. As soon as he's done, he's getting chemo. He remarks, "So I'm a hero because I'm not seeking treatment? That really disturbs me. I think it's a sin not to want to live."
It was sobering and beautiful and hopeful and devastating.
but the next day, he nails it, and Bruce Springsteen comes in to lay down killer vocals and incendiary guitar. Nails it in a take, and Warren quips, "You really are him."
He takes his fans to task at one point. He had read online that he was being praised for not seeking treatment. Genuinely dismayed, he says that the only reason for no treatment is that he's wanting to finish the album first. As soon as he's done, he's getting chemo. He remarks, "So I'm a hero because I'm not seeking treatment? That really disturbs me. I think it's a sin not to want to live."
It was sobering and beautiful and hopeful and devastating.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
--William Shakespeare
--William Shakespeare
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bambooneedle
- Posts: 4533
- Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 4:02 pm
- Location: a few thousand miles south east of Zanzibar
There are some mentions of it in this story.
http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20 ... 049285.asp
On the WIND
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Diagnosed with inoperable cancer, Warren Zevon bids a musical farewell to family, friends and fans with new disc, VH-1 special
By JEFF MIERS
News Pop Music Critic
8/24/2003
Gallows humor.
It's something that Warren Zevon has employed consistently throughout his 30-year career as rock's most sadly overlooked songwriter.
Death has stalked Zevon's songs from the beginning. His 1969 debut album was called "Wanted Dead or Alive." His breakthrough effort, 1978's "Excitable Boy," boasted the classic "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner," about a mercenary offed by the CIA, whose headless ghost now hunts its murderer.
In 2000, Zevon released "Life'll Kill Ya," a brilliant song cycle whose thematic center is a sardonic exegesis on entropy, dissolution and death. He followed that record in 2002 with the equally acerbic "My Ride's Here," the ride in question being a hearse.
Zevon's characters are among the most compellingly sketched in American popular song. Drifters, desperados, criminals, lovelorn souls, disenfranchised average Joes, rugged and bullheaded individualists, they populate his songs with vigor and suggest a literary bent more akin to writers such as Norman Mailer, Tom Robbims and Hunter S. Thompson, than to anyone else in rock 'n' roll. Zevon, though he named a 1993 live album "Learning to Flinch," has dealt with death unflinchingly in his art.
It seemed the most bitter of ironies, then, when Zevon was diagnosed last August with mesothelioma, a rare and inoperable form of lung cancer, and given a mere matter of months to live.
The wind
Immediately upon receiving the diagnosis, Zevon began what appears to have been the most prolific period of his writing life. Hooking up with his oldest friend and most consistent creative partner, bassist and vocalist Jorge Calderon, Zevon decided to dedicate his remaining days to making an album. He did a brief round of press interviews, appeared on a special edition of old friend David Letterman's "The Late Show" dedicated solely to him, but beyond that, Zevon spent his time in the recording studio and with his two children, Jordan and Ariel.
On Tuesday, the fruits of that labor, the lovely, heart-rending and joyously irreverent "The Wind," hits the bins. At 10 tonight, VH-1 airs its documentary on the making-of the album, "(Inside) Out: Warren Zevon."
"The Wind" is Zevon's third album for Artemis, a label headed by industry veteran and anomaly Danny Goldberg, the last of a dying breed of executives seemingly in it for the music as much as the money. (Goldberg is the man responsible for releasing Steve Earle's riveting "Jerusalem" album last year, and according to Earle, was a catalyst in the creation of its blatant sociopolitical-critical core.)
"I got a call from Jackson Browne in the late '90s," recalls Goldberg by phone from his New York office. "He asked me to take a listen to Warren's new songs. I did, and I was floored. I thought, "This guy's a genius, and shouldn't be without a record deal.' Those songs I heard ended up being "Life'll Kill Ya,' his first record for Artemis.
"I remember meeting with Warren a few weeks before he got the diagnosis, and it was a very positive meeting. He felt good about where he was as an artist, and I felt good about having him. Then he called me and told me the news. I was devastated. But "The Wind' is more than we could've hoped for. Even though the sessions that produced it were really joyful and focused, listening to the album as a whole hits me really hard. Warren is an absolutely incredible talent. He's the real deal."
"The Wind," certainly one of Zevon's finest among the 16 records he's made, splits the difference between stark, angry rockers, haunting ballads and the astute celtic-folk blend Zevon has been perfecting since his "comeback" album, the 1987 masterpiece "Sentimental Hygiene." Zevon has been known for violent, confrontational lyrics since the release of "Excitable Boy," but what often has gone overlooked is his remarkably deft touch with romantic ballads, for which he has composed some beautiful, memorable melodies.
"The Wind" boasts some of his strongest entries in this category. But, despite the fact that he penned the Linda Rondstadt hit "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" a few decades back, there is nothing verging on self-pity or maudlin excess anywhere on "The Wind." Zevon meets death here as he met life: with a nod, a wink and a wicked pen.
Zevon, now in the advanced stages of illness and confined to bed, is not doing any interviews, but in an interview with VH1 posted on his Web site, http://www.warrenzevon.com he addresses the lyrical and spiritual themes explored on "The Wind" with characteristic straightforwardness.
"I don't think anyone knows what to do when they get the diagnosis," he told VH-1. "I picked up the guitar and found myself writing this kind of farewell. Instantly, I realized I'd found what to do with myself. On reflection, it might be a little bit of a "woe is me' song, but it made me realize what it was I was going to be doing with the rest of the time."
"The Wind's" last gasp is the elegaic farewell "Keep Me in Your Heart," a message to family and fans alike. It was the first song Zevon wrote for the project following the diagnosis. It's also the song that his son, Jordan Zevon, finds the most difficult to listen to.
"That one, I'm still having a tough time with," he said by phone from his home in Southern California. "It's a great song, but he's talking to my sister and me, you know, and it is really emotional."
Lean on me
Though he has never fared particularly well in the commercial sense, beyond the gold record he received for "Excitable Boy," Zevon has always been a hit with critics, writers and other songsmiths. He counts among his closest friends writers Hunter S. Thompson and Carl Hiaasen, and musicians Jackson Browne, Don Henley, Bruce Springsteen, David Lindley and Tom Petty. Most of them showed up to lend their love to "The Wind."
Dwight Yoakam duets with Zevon on the snarky opener "My Dirty Life and Times"; Eagles Don Henley and Timothy B. Schmit lend poignant harmonies to "She's Too Good For Me"; a soul-stirring take on Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" finds Tommy Shaw, Billy Bob Thornton and Jackson Browne, among others, lending backing vocals; Springsteen lends his voice and guitar to "Disorder in the House"; Ry Cooder's inimitable slide guitar snakes throughout the torrid "Prison Grove."
Still, it is Zevon who shines brightest here, even though the advancing stages of his illness thinned out his rich, sonorous voice and made it difficult for him to endure the taxing sessions much of the time. The ballads are heartbreaking. But in typical Zevon fashion, these introspective and deeply melodic pieces hit hard without ever stooping to self-importance. They are honest testaments of love and loss, penned by a man who has written plenty of good ones over the years, among them such timeless fare as "Accidentally Like a Martyr," "Desperados Under the Eaves," "The French Inhaler," "The Heartache," "Nobody's in Love This Year," "Mutineer," "Suzie Lightning," "Hostage-O" and "The Vast Indifference of Heaven." Now we can add to the list "The Wind" instant classics "El Amor de Mi Vida," "She's Too Good For Me" and "Keep Me in Your Heart."
A dignified exit
VH-1 trailed Zevon throughout the making of "The Wind," and the resulting documentary is often heart-rending, but just as often notable for the profound dignity and biting humor with which Zevon is preparing to die.
The program, a special episode in VH-1's "(Inside) Out" series, does a wonderful job of covering the passion that Zevon brought to the table for this, his last project. It also makes it quite clear just how much the man is loved by peers and family members.
One of the most touching moments in the film comes when Springsteen, who Zevon says decided to spend his Christmas break by chartering a plane from New Jersey to California to perform on "The Wind," stands next to the seated Zevon behind the mixing board, laying down guitar solo overdubs for "Disorder in the House." Springsteen rips out a passionate flurry of blues-based solos around Zevon's vocal, leaning into each note as if he's performing at one of his own shows. Zevon is visibly thrilled, and at the song's conclusion, looks at Springsteen and says, "So, you are him."
"He's everything you'd hope he would be," Zevon tells the VH-1 cameras, referring to Springsteen's "realness," an idea espoused by Calderon, who told the Associated Press, "What (Springsteen) brought emotionally into the room, the way he handled himself and gave of himself - well, to me, he's a national treasure."
Browne, who produced "Excitable Boy" and has been thanked in the liner notes on every one of Zevon's releases, lent his voice to the "choir" that fleshes out the delta- blues-like "Prison Grove," and was there to lend support for part of the sessions. He described his involvement as "a task, an enjoyable task that you stepped into in hopes of, for a minute, finding some joy and dealing with grief."
The VH-1 documentary is littered with excerpts from Zevon's personal diary during that time and they provide insight into the artist's state of mind, as do the interview segments woven into the piece.
Early in the program, Zevon's girlfriend, Kristen, arrives from New York and is present for the recording of "She's Too Good For Me," perhaps the album's centerpiece, and a song clearly dedicated to her. "I could hold my head up high/and say that I left first/or I can hang my head and cry/Tell me, which is worse?/If you go and ask her why/she might say she's not sure/Trust me when I tell you, I'm not good enough for her," sings Zevon.
As Henley and Schmit record their harmony vocals, the camera zooms in on Zevon, who sits with his head hung down over the mixing board, overcome with emotion, but doing his best to keep cool. As the singers finish, Zevon looks up, misty-eyed, and deadpans, "Well, it sounds pretty good to me. But then, what the hell do I know?"
The VH1 program - Goldberg calls it "a beautiful work of art" - avoids pusing emotional buttons, and focuses on Zevon's humor. The editing highlights Zevon's repeated jokes about his fate - at one point, when Calderon recommends that they quit for the evening and return in the morning "refreshed," Zevon shoots back, "Jorge, I'm dying; I'm never gonna feel refreshed!" - which Jordan Zevon feels "paints an accurate picture of my father; he was really inspired and up during the making of the record."
Some might have hoped for a maudlin farewell speech from the man, but Zevon never gives them one. In the end, we're left with a striking portrait of a brave individual who absolutely refuses to feel sorry for himself.
Zevon makes this clear when, near the end of the program, the VH-1 interviewer offers him the chance to write his own epitaph. Zevon doesn't take the bait.
"Anything you want to say to your fans now?" asks VH-1.
"I have never like the word "fans,' because it seems very self-aggrandizing," Zevon replies. "I prefer to call them the customers, although that sounds callous. But I don't have anything to say to them that I haven't already said. Writing songs is an act of love. You write songs 'cause you love the subject and want to pass that feeling on. I've always said that songwriting was designed for the inarticulate (laughs). Some songwriters might not agree with that idea, but that's how I feel about it. So I don't have any big farewell speech."
e-mail: jmiers@buffnews.com
http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20 ... 049285.asp
On the WIND
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Diagnosed with inoperable cancer, Warren Zevon bids a musical farewell to family, friends and fans with new disc, VH-1 special
By JEFF MIERS
News Pop Music Critic
8/24/2003
Gallows humor.
It's something that Warren Zevon has employed consistently throughout his 30-year career as rock's most sadly overlooked songwriter.
Death has stalked Zevon's songs from the beginning. His 1969 debut album was called "Wanted Dead or Alive." His breakthrough effort, 1978's "Excitable Boy," boasted the classic "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner," about a mercenary offed by the CIA, whose headless ghost now hunts its murderer.
In 2000, Zevon released "Life'll Kill Ya," a brilliant song cycle whose thematic center is a sardonic exegesis on entropy, dissolution and death. He followed that record in 2002 with the equally acerbic "My Ride's Here," the ride in question being a hearse.
Zevon's characters are among the most compellingly sketched in American popular song. Drifters, desperados, criminals, lovelorn souls, disenfranchised average Joes, rugged and bullheaded individualists, they populate his songs with vigor and suggest a literary bent more akin to writers such as Norman Mailer, Tom Robbims and Hunter S. Thompson, than to anyone else in rock 'n' roll. Zevon, though he named a 1993 live album "Learning to Flinch," has dealt with death unflinchingly in his art.
It seemed the most bitter of ironies, then, when Zevon was diagnosed last August with mesothelioma, a rare and inoperable form of lung cancer, and given a mere matter of months to live.
The wind
Immediately upon receiving the diagnosis, Zevon began what appears to have been the most prolific period of his writing life. Hooking up with his oldest friend and most consistent creative partner, bassist and vocalist Jorge Calderon, Zevon decided to dedicate his remaining days to making an album. He did a brief round of press interviews, appeared on a special edition of old friend David Letterman's "The Late Show" dedicated solely to him, but beyond that, Zevon spent his time in the recording studio and with his two children, Jordan and Ariel.
On Tuesday, the fruits of that labor, the lovely, heart-rending and joyously irreverent "The Wind," hits the bins. At 10 tonight, VH-1 airs its documentary on the making-of the album, "(Inside) Out: Warren Zevon."
"The Wind" is Zevon's third album for Artemis, a label headed by industry veteran and anomaly Danny Goldberg, the last of a dying breed of executives seemingly in it for the music as much as the money. (Goldberg is the man responsible for releasing Steve Earle's riveting "Jerusalem" album last year, and according to Earle, was a catalyst in the creation of its blatant sociopolitical-critical core.)
"I got a call from Jackson Browne in the late '90s," recalls Goldberg by phone from his New York office. "He asked me to take a listen to Warren's new songs. I did, and I was floored. I thought, "This guy's a genius, and shouldn't be without a record deal.' Those songs I heard ended up being "Life'll Kill Ya,' his first record for Artemis.
"I remember meeting with Warren a few weeks before he got the diagnosis, and it was a very positive meeting. He felt good about where he was as an artist, and I felt good about having him. Then he called me and told me the news. I was devastated. But "The Wind' is more than we could've hoped for. Even though the sessions that produced it were really joyful and focused, listening to the album as a whole hits me really hard. Warren is an absolutely incredible talent. He's the real deal."
"The Wind," certainly one of Zevon's finest among the 16 records he's made, splits the difference between stark, angry rockers, haunting ballads and the astute celtic-folk blend Zevon has been perfecting since his "comeback" album, the 1987 masterpiece "Sentimental Hygiene." Zevon has been known for violent, confrontational lyrics since the release of "Excitable Boy," but what often has gone overlooked is his remarkably deft touch with romantic ballads, for which he has composed some beautiful, memorable melodies.
"The Wind" boasts some of his strongest entries in this category. But, despite the fact that he penned the Linda Rondstadt hit "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" a few decades back, there is nothing verging on self-pity or maudlin excess anywhere on "The Wind." Zevon meets death here as he met life: with a nod, a wink and a wicked pen.
Zevon, now in the advanced stages of illness and confined to bed, is not doing any interviews, but in an interview with VH1 posted on his Web site, http://www.warrenzevon.com he addresses the lyrical and spiritual themes explored on "The Wind" with characteristic straightforwardness.
"I don't think anyone knows what to do when they get the diagnosis," he told VH-1. "I picked up the guitar and found myself writing this kind of farewell. Instantly, I realized I'd found what to do with myself. On reflection, it might be a little bit of a "woe is me' song, but it made me realize what it was I was going to be doing with the rest of the time."
"The Wind's" last gasp is the elegaic farewell "Keep Me in Your Heart," a message to family and fans alike. It was the first song Zevon wrote for the project following the diagnosis. It's also the song that his son, Jordan Zevon, finds the most difficult to listen to.
"That one, I'm still having a tough time with," he said by phone from his home in Southern California. "It's a great song, but he's talking to my sister and me, you know, and it is really emotional."
Lean on me
Though he has never fared particularly well in the commercial sense, beyond the gold record he received for "Excitable Boy," Zevon has always been a hit with critics, writers and other songsmiths. He counts among his closest friends writers Hunter S. Thompson and Carl Hiaasen, and musicians Jackson Browne, Don Henley, Bruce Springsteen, David Lindley and Tom Petty. Most of them showed up to lend their love to "The Wind."
Dwight Yoakam duets with Zevon on the snarky opener "My Dirty Life and Times"; Eagles Don Henley and Timothy B. Schmit lend poignant harmonies to "She's Too Good For Me"; a soul-stirring take on Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" finds Tommy Shaw, Billy Bob Thornton and Jackson Browne, among others, lending backing vocals; Springsteen lends his voice and guitar to "Disorder in the House"; Ry Cooder's inimitable slide guitar snakes throughout the torrid "Prison Grove."
Still, it is Zevon who shines brightest here, even though the advancing stages of his illness thinned out his rich, sonorous voice and made it difficult for him to endure the taxing sessions much of the time. The ballads are heartbreaking. But in typical Zevon fashion, these introspective and deeply melodic pieces hit hard without ever stooping to self-importance. They are honest testaments of love and loss, penned by a man who has written plenty of good ones over the years, among them such timeless fare as "Accidentally Like a Martyr," "Desperados Under the Eaves," "The French Inhaler," "The Heartache," "Nobody's in Love This Year," "Mutineer," "Suzie Lightning," "Hostage-O" and "The Vast Indifference of Heaven." Now we can add to the list "The Wind" instant classics "El Amor de Mi Vida," "She's Too Good For Me" and "Keep Me in Your Heart."
A dignified exit
VH-1 trailed Zevon throughout the making of "The Wind," and the resulting documentary is often heart-rending, but just as often notable for the profound dignity and biting humor with which Zevon is preparing to die.
The program, a special episode in VH-1's "(Inside) Out" series, does a wonderful job of covering the passion that Zevon brought to the table for this, his last project. It also makes it quite clear just how much the man is loved by peers and family members.
One of the most touching moments in the film comes when Springsteen, who Zevon says decided to spend his Christmas break by chartering a plane from New Jersey to California to perform on "The Wind," stands next to the seated Zevon behind the mixing board, laying down guitar solo overdubs for "Disorder in the House." Springsteen rips out a passionate flurry of blues-based solos around Zevon's vocal, leaning into each note as if he's performing at one of his own shows. Zevon is visibly thrilled, and at the song's conclusion, looks at Springsteen and says, "So, you are him."
"He's everything you'd hope he would be," Zevon tells the VH-1 cameras, referring to Springsteen's "realness," an idea espoused by Calderon, who told the Associated Press, "What (Springsteen) brought emotionally into the room, the way he handled himself and gave of himself - well, to me, he's a national treasure."
Browne, who produced "Excitable Boy" and has been thanked in the liner notes on every one of Zevon's releases, lent his voice to the "choir" that fleshes out the delta- blues-like "Prison Grove," and was there to lend support for part of the sessions. He described his involvement as "a task, an enjoyable task that you stepped into in hopes of, for a minute, finding some joy and dealing with grief."
The VH-1 documentary is littered with excerpts from Zevon's personal diary during that time and they provide insight into the artist's state of mind, as do the interview segments woven into the piece.
Early in the program, Zevon's girlfriend, Kristen, arrives from New York and is present for the recording of "She's Too Good For Me," perhaps the album's centerpiece, and a song clearly dedicated to her. "I could hold my head up high/and say that I left first/or I can hang my head and cry/Tell me, which is worse?/If you go and ask her why/she might say she's not sure/Trust me when I tell you, I'm not good enough for her," sings Zevon.
As Henley and Schmit record their harmony vocals, the camera zooms in on Zevon, who sits with his head hung down over the mixing board, overcome with emotion, but doing his best to keep cool. As the singers finish, Zevon looks up, misty-eyed, and deadpans, "Well, it sounds pretty good to me. But then, what the hell do I know?"
The VH1 program - Goldberg calls it "a beautiful work of art" - avoids pusing emotional buttons, and focuses on Zevon's humor. The editing highlights Zevon's repeated jokes about his fate - at one point, when Calderon recommends that they quit for the evening and return in the morning "refreshed," Zevon shoots back, "Jorge, I'm dying; I'm never gonna feel refreshed!" - which Jordan Zevon feels "paints an accurate picture of my father; he was really inspired and up during the making of the record."
Some might have hoped for a maudlin farewell speech from the man, but Zevon never gives them one. In the end, we're left with a striking portrait of a brave individual who absolutely refuses to feel sorry for himself.
Zevon makes this clear when, near the end of the program, the VH-1 interviewer offers him the chance to write his own epitaph. Zevon doesn't take the bait.
"Anything you want to say to your fans now?" asks VH-1.
"I have never like the word "fans,' because it seems very self-aggrandizing," Zevon replies. "I prefer to call them the customers, although that sounds callous. But I don't have anything to say to them that I haven't already said. Writing songs is an act of love. You write songs 'cause you love the subject and want to pass that feeling on. I've always said that songwriting was designed for the inarticulate (laughs). Some songwriters might not agree with that idea, but that's how I feel about it. So I don't have any big farewell speech."
e-mail: jmiers@buffnews.com
-
LessThanZero
- Posts: 1119
- Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2003 10:26 pm
- Location: Kalamazoo
- Contact:
My eyes were all watery the duration of the show!
I wish they'd show it again. My fiancee's step-mom's brother has that same kind of lung cancer. He was an electrician exposed to lots of formeldehyde over the years.
Does anyone know when it might air again?
I wish they'd show it again. My fiancee's step-mom's brother has that same kind of lung cancer. He was an electrician exposed to lots of formeldehyde over the years.
Does anyone know when it might air again?
Loving this board since before When I Was Cruel.