This review originally appeared at Green Man Review.
“Will you stay with me to the end?
When there’s nothing left
But you and me and the wind…”
I don’t believe I’ve ever before cried when preparing a review, but Warren Zevon finally did it to me. With The Wind, his final album, he touches one raw nerve after another.
Zevon, who died at age 56 on Sept. 7, 2003, capped a long and respectable recording career with this album, made while he was dying of lung cancer. The man who once sang “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” spent his last months with friends and family gathered ’round, working when he could on one last sardonic but ultimately life-affirming record. It’s not his best record (that honor goes, in my opinion, to either The Envoy or Sentimental Hygiene), but it’s his most moving work.
In these 11 songs, Zevon sums up his life and his philosophy, which essentially is, “We’re all going to die some day, let’s have a blast while we can.” So here, there’s the darkly humorous Zevon on “Dirty Life and Times” and “The Rest of the Night.” And there’s the grungey blues singer of the Hindu Love Gods on “Rub Me Raw.” And the anthemic rocker of “Disorder in the House.” In “She’s Too Good For Me,” he plays a familiar role — that of the low-self-esteem lover — as he sings “I have everything she wants but nothing that she needs.”
Then, of course, there’s the dark Zevon, who never shied away from portraying people in the grips of their inner demons. “I’m gonna beg, borrow or steal some feelings from you…so I can have some feelings too,” he sings in “Numb as a Statue.” And when he sings “gonna carry me to where I’m bound/looking down on Prison Grove” in the spooky “Prison Grove,” you ask yourself: Which is the prison he means, life or death? He spells it out explicitly in the sole cover song on the album, Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.”
And although Zevon has always had a tender side, several songs on The Wind are almost painfully intimate.
In “El Amor de me Vida” (Love of My Life) he confesses to letting his great love slip away: “How could I ever let you go/How will I ever let you know/Tu eres el amor de mi vida.” It’s as beautiful a song as he’s ever written, and all the more effective for its romantic use of Spanish on the chorus. “Please Stay” is an unadorned appeal from a man who doesn’t want to die alone, and it supplies the album’s title: “Will you stay with me to the end?/When there’s nothing left/but you and me and the wind…” Emmylou Harris sings double-tracked harmony vocals that add to the song’s poignancy.
And the record closes with his last plea: “Keep Me in Your Heart.” With simple accompaniment of acoustic guitars, bass and drums, Zevon sings a heartbreaking song to a jaunty melody. How can anyone listen to these words and not be affected?
Shadows are falling and I’m running out of breath
Keep me in your heart for a while
If I leave you it doesn’t mean I love you any less
Keep me in your heart for a while …
Sometimes when you’re doing simple things around the house
maybe you’ll think of me and smile …
Keep me in your heart for a while.
Because he tried to include everyone who wanted to take part, sometimes the performances are a bit cluttered. But mostly, the music is simple and direct, with contributions from the likes of Ry Cooder, David Lindley, Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Tom Petty, Dwight Yoakam, T Bone Burnett and just about everybody who was ever in The Eagles (who once spent time, like Zevon, in Linda Ronstadt’s band). The core band, though, are those who worked with Zevon for many years: drummer Jim Keltner and Jorge Calderon on bass, percussion and backing vocals.
It’s not a masterpiece. Warren Zevon made a couple of those earlier in his career. But The Wind is a classy record, made by a guy who went out doing what he wanted to do. One last toast to Warren Zevon, who made sure that anyone who ever really heard him would keep him in their hearts.
(Artemis, 2003)
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