Warren Zevon, In "The Wind"

His bold final album was released 20 years ago.

I try not to pay much attention to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominating process or debates. I was never insider enough even to get the long-form critic nominating form, except for two years in the 1990s. I did write-in votes for doo-wop groups like Vito & the Salutations. But when I heard that Warren Zevon was nominated as one of the finalists last week, I found it bewildering that 1. He wasn't already in, and 2. This was the first time he was a finalist. Seems crazy to me: He had a long, productive career, and he was legendary for burning the candle at all three ends, including the middle. The Wind, his final release, on Danny Goldberg's Artemis Records, was recorded after his terminal cancer diagnosis and released just before he died in 2003 at age 56. The review was never published other than on my old school Blogger blog, Wayne’s Words.

The logo on the back of the CD sleeve shows a bald skull with sunglasses and a cigarette in his mouth. I wrote this review when it came out; I've updated it slightly after a fresh listen. The producers are Zevon, the perpetually underappreciated Jorge Calderón, and engineer Noah Scott Snyder. Calderón is on almost every track, as he was on almost every Zevon album. (My vinyl copy of Calderón's 1975 solo album, City Music is a keeper.) It has the mood a a big farewell party, with guest appearances by Zevon's friends from all over: Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty, Joe Walsh and Emmylou Harris, Tommy Shaw from Styx and Don Henley.

Zevon with the Hindu Love Gods cover Prince on the Letterman show

Warren Zevon
"The Wind"
(Artemis).

You are going to die.

Not just in the abstract sense, like the fat guy wearing the t-shirt that says, "life sucks then you die." Not in some midlife crisis kind of way, like the Botox-brained bozo screaming at his mistress on the cellphone all the way to East Hampton, who has no clue that the t-shirt he is wearing ("the one who dies with the most toys wins") may be God's little bit of whimsy at his expense.

On August 28, 2002, the singer-songwriter Warren Zevon got the word that he had a terminal lung cancer, and had maybe three months to live. Which reminds me of Henny Youngman's second oldest joke (right after "take my wife...please.") It is, of course, about the man who goes to the doctor, doctor tells him he's got six months to live. "Doctor," the man says, "I don't have enough money to pay the bill." So the doctor says, "all right, I'll give you another six months."

Warren Zevon died Sunday, Sept. 7, 2003, a year and ten days after getting the fatal diagnosis. Though privately he may have had a few "poor poor pitiful me" moments, Zevon's public face was brave beyond compare. He did what any great artist would do with the time: Gather kindred spirits, his musical peers, friends, and admirers, and kick the music up a notch for a final fanfare. His final album, The Wind, (Artemis) was completed against the wind. Reflective but not without the occasional smirk, a sturdy reminder of why Warren will be missed.

"Dirty Life and Times" strikes exactly the right tone of rueful defiance, Zevon sounding a little like Billy Joe Shaver, the Texas musician who knows more than a little about life's downs and ups. Don Henley on drums, Ry Cooder on guitar, and Billy Bob Thornton and Dwight Yoakam on background vocals underscore the southwest freight-hopping feel; Zevon's voice sounds parched by dusty roads. Or maybe cigarettes and chemo. For most of the album, Jim Keltner keeps the beat.

The wonderfully raucous "Disorder in the House," written with gifted compadre Jorge Calderón, features more sterling support from Keltner on drums and Springsteen on electric guitar and vocals. The hallucinatory lyrics contain vivid images of "zombies on the lawn staggering around," but also, perhaps, conmingle the personal and the political: "The big guns have spoken/And we've fallen for the ruse" could well be about what is turning out to be the bad gag in Baghdad. This was in the fallout from the U.S. invasion of Iraq. But 20 years later, it sounds like an eyewitness account of what's going on in Congress: "There's a flaw in the system/And the fly in the ointment's gonna bring the whole thing down." I have mentioned that George Santos is my elected representative in the House, have I not?

The Wind also has some ballads that are even more poignantly affecting now than they were a few days ago, like the finale "Keep Me in Your Heart," in which the transition between life and death seems to be recorded in real time. ("Shadows are falling and I'm running out of breath"). "Please Stay" would be maudlin in anyone else's hands: When Zevon sings, "Will you stay with me to the end," he touches on the raw fear of mortality that the rest of us get to keep repressed most of the time.

And you've got to love "Numb as a Statue," in which, perhaps fortified by morphine, he sings somewhat sardonically, "I'm pale as a ghost": Zevonesque humor as wry as it gets. Similarly, on party-rockin' "The Rest of the Night," he sings, almost as an aside to his companion who wants him to get home for his health: "Me tired? Well boo-hoo!"

You might think "Knocking On Heaven's Door" an obvious choice. One of the guitarists from the large cast is Tommy Shaw. No doubt they were friends or acquaintances, but was Warren enjoying a little cosmic joke featuring on 12-string a guy from the band Styx on a song about heaven? Anyway, this is the most believable version of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" you'll ever hear, unless Neil Young performs it in good health.