RVOW: 1978's Excitable Boy, by Warren Zevon

Random Vinyl of the Week is a new installment to the NewbLog that will look back at miscellaneous titles as they spin around my $99 dollar Newmark belt-drive turntable. The first album up for discussion has been stuck on said record player since I picked it up for $1.99 at Soundsations in Westchester a few weeks back...

Warren Zevon is probably most widely known for a track on the first side of this LP entitled “Werewolves of London,” with its catchy piano riff and some of the best lines in Rock-and-Roll history. These lines include, but are certainly not limited to: “Little old lady got mutilated late last night...” and “I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic’s... and his hair was perfect.” Other gems on Excitable Boy are the title track, “Roland, the Headless Thompson Gunner,” and “Lawyers, Guns, and Money.” The album also has some great rock ballads including the brilliant “Accidentally Like a Martyr,” where the songwriter laments that “The hurt gets worse and the heart gets harder...” Zevon writes touching ballads and slots them next to tales of the darkest characters in both serious and humorous fashion in his records, not unlike contemporary Tom Waits, but without purposefully destroying his voice for the sake of his characters. Instead Zevon often juxtaposes the seedy tales next to bouncy music and always retains the warm baritone colors of his vocal timbre. He is known as a brilliant song writer among music critics and buffs, but is still mainly a cult figure in popular music history. Whether this is due to his personal character or the sordid themes he consistently returns to is debatable, but it is probably a mixture of the two. I am but a young buck who has loved Zevon since studying “Carmelita,” in a songwriting class taught by Dr. Clark at Santa Barbara City College just before Zevon was diagnosed with cancer and had a resurgence at the beginning of this decade before sadly passing in 2003. So... for more on Zevon pick up “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead,” by Crystal Zevon or for a more in depth look at Excitable Boy and Zevon’s self titled release of two years prior see Eric’s Music Ramblings and Indie Musings...