Here's a different take on Zevon.
From the blog
www.fraterslibertas.com: ***************************************************************************
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I??ve been reading quite a bit in the last few days about the death of Warren Zevon and What His Music Meant.
As we all know, he was diagnosed with cancer last summer and told he had two months to live. Knowing his time was almost up, he made a memorable appearance on Late Night where Letterman gave him the entire hour. He then gathered his friends and made one last record, finishing it just months ago. Now he??s dead, proving that doctors don??t really always know what??s going on.
To be sure, he was a gifted musician and songwriter, but I don??t like what is says about our culture when someone this dark, this nihilistic is hailed as a musical saint.
But Doubtless, you say, how can you write such things about such a great man? Hey, I Iike the guy too, but this idea of Artist As Suffering Soul has to be defeated and I??m just the guy to do it.
Writing in this morning??s WSJ, Jim Fusilli jumps right on the Dark Genius bandwagon:
Mr. Zevon??s songs paid tribute to murderers, mercenaries, drug dealers, werewolves and assorted other miscreants. Violence, death and suicide were frequent themes, as was love among the desperate and downtrodden.
Sounds great, don??t it? I??m afraid Zevon suffered from one of the great conceits of his generation; the assumption that there are two groups of people in the world--the squares: suburban, gainfully employed, happy-go-lucky, and the realists: artists, drunks, people that would rather feel pain than what they thought the squares were feeling (nothing). And they felt it was their job as the feeling artists to let the squares know How It REALLY Was.
Zevon says as much in the song Aint That Pretty At All:
Well, I've seen all there is to see
And I've heard all they have to say
I've done everything I wanted to do . . .
I've done that too
And it ain't that pretty at all
Ain't that pretty at all
So I'm going to hurl myself against the wall
Cause I'd rather feel bad than not feel anything at all
Fusilli goes on to make the point about dark music I??ve heard dozens of times but I still don??t understand:
Like one of his literary heroes, Ross Macdonald, Mr. Zevon saw the dark side of life on the outskirts of Los Angeles and, chronicling it, revealed universal themes that transcend time and geography.
How? This is never explained. How. How does writing about murder, suicide and wretchedness reveal universal themes? Does jumping into a latrine help one to understand shit? Does sleeping with the homeless help you understand alcoholism and mental illness? And what are the universal themes? Original sin? Hatred?
To me, there??s way more than enough darkness in the world. I don??t need it in my pop records, books, movies or personalities. Declaring those who toiled their entire lives in this darkness to be geniuses steers our culture off track.
