Mike Campbell’s guitar and Mark Isham’s horn add just the right touches to this country-tinged weeper. The overbearing synths and the overdone concept hampered 1989’s Transverse City somewhat, but individual songs rose to the fore nonetheless. But the sensibility is pure Zevon, beset on all sides by rough circumstances and his own bad reputation. He invites a boatload of guest stars to this crystalline rocker, with Souther as co-writer, Don Henley on backing vocals, and Brian Setzer on guitar. When he returned with Sentimental Hygiene, he seemed re-energized. Zevon took a five-year recording hiatus from 1982 to 1987, which, in the midst of a decade where many ‘70s stars seemed at sea, might have been a wise career move. Regardless of what the division of labor might have been, this song is so fine one wishes the two hadn’t waited till Zevon’s final album to come together again. The girl’s name in the title and the theme of lovers on the run sound like The Boss, but the darker twists and turns in the song seem more like the creation of Zevon. Zevon found a kindred songwriting spirit in Bruce Springsteen on this ringing rocker from Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School. The narrator essentially offers sobering advice to the girl’s saddened parents that, while she may return, she’ll never really come home again. Browne collaborated with him often, co-producing his first couple albums and even co-writing this perfectly-pitched character sketch about a girl headed to womanhood. Zevon was never shy about availing himself of the finest talent on the West Coast rock scene, and they seemed to love working with him. This closing track sums it all up: A drunken wretch waits for his bill to come due and for the whole state to sink, only to be redeemed by a stirring string arrangement and some of the finest voices within a stone’s throw Carl Wilson, JD Souther and Jackson Browne all join in the ironic refrain of “Look away down Gower Avenue.” 2. It wasn’t quite his debut album - 1969’s largely forgotten Wanted Dead or Alive holds that distinction - but Zevon’s self-titled LP in 1976 is the one that cemented his reputation as an unparalleled chronicler of West Coast beauty and excess. His catalog took many intriguing twists and turns following his late 70s peak, leaving room for many hidden gems just waiting to be found by casual fans. Most impressive of all was the way that his songwriting could incorporate his famously hard-living ways into tunes that were funny, sad, topical, and even morbid, yet always original and relatable. He could melt your heart with a love song, rock convincingly and acerbically, and pretty much handle everything in between - with ease. Of all the great artists to come out of the West Coast scene in the late ‘60s and ‘70s, Warren Zevon may have been the most versatile.
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