The book is “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: The Dirty Life And Times Of Warren Zevon”. Written by his wife Crystal with quotes and insight from a wide variety of friends, family, colleagues, and more. For those who already know that Warren was a master songwriter and artist, this book provides insight into his tormented life and his struggles with alcoholism and other self-destructive behaviors. And it’s also a great guide to the songs and the albums that are still too often overlooked. (learn more)
If you don’t know Warren’s work, or only know “Werewolves Of London”, then you will see there was a lot more to this man.
Some of it is not pretty. His demons were real and unrelenting. But his work stands alone. Bruce Springsteen looked up to him, as did many others. The book deals with his life, including the ugly parts he made Crystal promise that she would include. But his struggle to a better, stronger man and his outstanding song-writing are clear throughout. The story culminates with his cancer diagnosis and his being given only a few months to live. He fell off the wagon and things turned ugly at times but he worked unrelentingly hard to finish “The Wind”, his final album.
He had so many great songs. His album “Warren Zevon” is amazingly good all the way through. Excitable Boy made him deservedly famous, for better or worse. Later songs like “For My Next Trick”, “Keep Me In Your Heart”, “Hostage-O”, “Searching For A Heart”, “Suzie Lightning”, “She’s Too Good For Me”, I could go on and on. I won’t even try to list from the first few albums. You should already own those!
A few of the albums were a little uneven and some are dearer to me than others. But all have their treasures. A lot of excellent songs live in those record grooves on those CDs. Buy the first couple, buy a “best-of” (the 2-CD version if possible), then go from there. I don’t think you’ll be sorry. Too bad you can’t see him live (well, there’s always YouTube). I saw him live just once, opening a show for Jackson Browne. Warren played solo, just him and a piano, mostly songs from his brilliant self-titled album. What a great song-writer. I miss his talent and his weirdness and his quirky style.
Here’s what Publishers Weekly said about the book:
For those who know them, the brilliant, dark songs of Warren Zevon (1947-2003) inspire nothing short of adoration; for those who don’t, this stunning biography of the irrepressible rock ‘n’ roll singer/songwriter should send them sprinting to the nearest record store. By taking an unexpurgated, oral-history approach to Warren’s life, his former wife and lifelong friend Crystal has crafted a sharp, funny, jaw-dropping rock biography that’s among the best of the sub-genre. Provocative and unflinching, her account distills Warren’s journal entries and the author’s exhaustive interviews with 87 family members, business associates, band mates, fellow musicians and former lovers into a chronology ranging from Warren’s ancestry to his death, at age 56, from lung cancer. The impetus for the book was Warren himself-he implored Crystal to tell his story and to “promise you’ll tell ’em the whole truth, even the awful, ugly parts.” The awful, ugly parts turn up often: Warren’s addictions (to alcohol, drugs and sex), personal demons (intense obsessive-compulsion and commitment-phobia) and paternal shortcomings (to him, kids were nuisances) all get plenty of play here. But so does Warren’s music, for which peers like Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen and Paul Schaffer offer plenty of insight. This top-notch biography is a must-read for fans, and a highly rewarding read for anyone interested in a close look at the life of a modern rock icon.
And here’s what Booklist said:
Warren Zevon was greatly admired for writing some of the most intelligent and literate songs in rock. Probably best known are the darkly humorous “Werewolves of London” and “Excitable Boy.” He was a rock ‘n’ roll wild man, whose unconventional life his ex-wife Crystal’s oral-history-style biography makes as iconoclastic in the telling as it was in the living. Among the tellers are members of Zevon’s family, and friends and colleagues including Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bob Thornton, Dave Barry, and Stephen King. They comment on his often dissolute lifestyle, his drinking and subsequent sobriety, his off-the-wall humor, the diagnosis of the inoperable lung cancer of which he ultimately died in September 2003, and, of course, his remarkable songs. His behavior was not always laudable–for example, he was a notorious womanizer–but he remained true to himself. This often searing, humorous, and brutally honest book captures him at his best and his worst. Another appropriate friend, crime novelist Carl Hiaasen, contributes a foreword.
Anyway, if you have (or haven’t) read the book, leave me a comment!
