He also had a paranoia of doctors and this killed him: he did not know he had cancer until doctors could not help him. He had a lot of problems in his life, including divorce, alcoholism, and suicide attempts. Letterman later sang with Zevon on "Hit Somebody! (The Hockey Song)" with Paul Shaffer and members of the CBS Orchestra.
He was often a guest on Late Night with David Letterman and the Late Show with David Letterman. He liked to sing Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" and Leonard Cohen's "First We Take Manhattan". Zevon sometimes recorded or sang cover songs. These include "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" (a top 40 hit by Linda Ronstadt), "Accidentally Like a Martyr," "Mohammed's Radio," "Carmelita", and "Hasten Down the Wind". Zevon has written many songs that were recorded by other artists. His most famous songs include "Werewolves of London", "Lawyers, Guns and Money", "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" and "Johnny Strikes Up The Band." All of these are from his third and most famous album: Excitable Boy (1978). Many famous musicians have said they liked Zevon's work, including Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and Neil Young. Zevon wrote many songs that were humorous and often political Warren William Zevon (Janu– September 7, 2003) was an American rock singer-songwriter and musician known for including his strange and somewhat critical opinions of life in his lyrics. So he set out for Biafra to join the bloody fray.Giant Records/ Reprise/ Warner Bros. The deal was made in Denmark on a dark and stormy day With a Thompson gun for hire, fighting to be done Roland was a warrior from the Land of the Midnight Sun It’s a great song, and it was the perfect way for Warren Zevon to hasten down the wind. Warren defiantly snarled his way through the performance, which would be his last, showing that the grit and honesty that made him such a unique songwriter were still intact. The song was a favorite of David Letterman, and, when an ailing Zevon made his last appearance on the show shortly before his death in 2003, Letterman insisted he perform it to close the show. Zevon ends the song with a laundry list of these bloody frays, and that list has only gotten innumerably longer since the song was recorded. Roland gets his revenge, of course, blowing his nemesis “from here to Johannesburg.” He ends the song as a headless apparition wandering from conflict to conflict, settling scores for those who don’t have the ability to do it themselves.
Note the subtle dig at the political whitewashing of these unofficial conflicts in the words of the backing vocalists, which include Zevon’s buddy Jackson Browne: “Time, time, time for another peaceful war/But time stands still for Roland ‘til he evens up the score.” Roland is a Norwegian mercenary whose motives are both altruistic and self-serving (“They killed to earn their living and to help out the Congolese.”) The awful truths of his occupation are clear (the men do their job “knee-deep in gore,”) but his unmatchable skill with his Thompson gun puts him in the sights of the CIA.Īlthough he is betrayed and murdered by his mercenary pal Van Owen, Roland’s war is not over. While Lindell likely deserves credit for providing crucial details about the mercenary life and the many conflicts in which they were embroiled, Zevon’s songwriting finesse turns the tale into something larger-than-life. He and I wrote this song at the bar one afternoon, over many jars.” The proprietor was a piratical ex-merc named David Lindell. Zevon described the creation of “Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner” in the liner notes to his Anthology collection: “In 1974 I ran off to Spain and got a job in an Irish bar called the Dubliner, in Sitges, on the Costa Brava. He had a way of romanticizing these characters with his gorgeous piano-driven melodies even as his lyrics refused to sugar-coat their exploits. It became his biggest hit, which is somehow fitting considering Zevon’s legacy as a no-BS chronicler of the darker corners of existence.
On 1978’s Excitable Boy, Warren Zevon crafted an album populated by werewolves, psychopaths, and mercenaries.
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