While sitting on the can the other day, I thought of Warren Zevon.
I thought of his East LA anthem “Carmelita”, a song where the lead character calmly admits to being “all strung out on heroin on the outskirts of town.” From there I moved onto Zevon’s more personal “Desperadoes Under the Eaves”. In this song also about Los Angeles, Zevon speaks of drinking up all the salty margaritas in the city and having difficulty finding a girl who understands him. My last Zevon thought came in the form of “The French Inhaler”, a song about a lazy actress and her even lazier boyfriend.”You said you were an actress, yes, I believed you,” Zevon sings. “I thought you’d be a star, so I drank up all the money. Yes, I drank up all the money with these phonies in this Hollywood bar. These friends of mine in this Hollywood bar.”
By the end of my Zevon mental assault, I thought, “Shit, there are so many sad, pathetic, heartbreaking and lonely songs about Los Angeles.” It’s not just Zevon who (more…)