But the only ones that score are the jokes: Ernie K-Doe's sly, shy "A Certain Girl," and "Gorilla, You're a Desperado," a satire of the Eagles, not to mention Warren Zevon. In fact, just about every song boasts a good line or three. I don't know why the title tune's the title tune, except maybe to contextualize the classical interludes he composed all by himself, and Lord help us he's been hanging out with the Eagles, just like Randy Newman, who could teach him something about slandering the South-even Neil Young could do better than incest and Lynyrd Skynyrd, though the brucellosis is a nice touch. After all, is she going to cover the one about the headless gunner? A-īad Luck Streak in Dancing School But no one has yet been able to explain to me what "accidentally like a martyr" might mean-answers dependent on the term "Dylanesque" are not acceptable-and I have no doubt that that's the image Linda will home in on. The four that exorcise male psychoses by mock celebration are positively addictive, the two uncomplicated rockers do the job, and two of the purely "serious" songs get by. The further these songs get from Ronstadtland, the more I like them. I am suspicious of singer-songwriters who draw attention to phrases like "hasten down the wind," and I would suggest a moratorium on songs about the James Brothers that don't also rhyme "pollution" and "solution." But I like the way Zevon resists pigeonholes like "country-rock" while avoiding both the banal and the mystagogical, and I like quatrains like: "And if California slides into the ocean/Like the mystics and statistics say it will/I predict this motel will be standing/Until I pay my bill." B+ I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (An Anthology) A.
A Quiet Normal Life: The Best of Warren Zevon A.
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