So long, Norman.
“Shadows are falling and I’m running out of breath/ Keep me in your heart for a while/ If I leave you it doesn’t mean I love you any less/Keep me in your heart for a while.”
Keep Me in your Heart
“I’m talking about the man.”
I’ve not heard a lot of this guy’s stuff, but I heard this song the other day, and knowing that he was on his way out, it kinda wrenched the heart strings a bit. Good song.
Crap.
I guess I should post an appropriate remembrance.
I saw WZ one night about four years ago at Smith’s Olde Bar in Atlanta - a small hall, very intimate. (It was an early show - 8:00 start, because there was a prize fight later that evening Warren wanted to watch on TV.) Some drunk was calling stuff out to him, and Warren said, “Hey! Give it a rest will ya?” The drunk called out, “But there’s so much more!” Warren replied, “But not from you, bird dick!” That shut the drunk up for the rest of the show!
Raising a glass is definitely in order. Mine will be filled with heartbreak motor oil and Bombay gin, while I sing “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead.”
Warren Zevon was suffering from mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer that is not usually associated with smoking, but asbestos exposure.
But I see jjimm has already addressed that.
Never mind.
Here’s hoping he sleeps well.
Being WZ, there is of course a reference to this in a song (“The Factory” off Sentimental Hygiene).
That’s rather ironic, considering that a dangling cigarette was practically a Warren trademark. Then again, it just seems right that if he had to die, he did so in a blaze of irony.
Dr. J
I’ve always been a big fan of Warren Zevon. When I was in the Boy Scouts years ago, we used to sing “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner” around the campfire. VH1 recently had a program about the making of “The Wind”. Hopefully, they’ll show it again. Sorry to see him go.
Usually I get up pretty slow in the morning when the clock radio goes off. But today they were playing “Lawyers Guns and Money”, and somehow I just knew. Jumped out of bed and ran to the computer to see and sure enough.
Played “Werewolves of London” for my first grade son as I drove him to school. Told him about how I remember that song from when I was his age. (He loved it too.)
56 is too young to go.
Few musicians convey the honesty that he did.
I’m at work listening to an old interview with him on the radio. Man he had a unique voice. He’s talking about why he wrote about mortality and similar topics, and this was recorded before he knew about his fate.
Again,
crap…
Poor poor pitiful us.
RIP, Warren 
I heard that song for the first time at MountainDope 2001 (also where I definitively heard Rush for the first time). Didn’t even know who it was by.
What DoctorJ said
I listen to primarily Classical music, but a friend of mind introduced me to Warren Zevon, and I immediately was smitten with his work. I loved his sense of humor–yeah, he was one in a million. I guess I’ll have to buy some of his work now. (Fire up the iTunes Music store and see what they’ve got.)
Damn. He was a cool guy.
God damn. I can’t believe how hard this is hitting me. Lennon’s death didn’t affect me this much.
I’ve never considered myself much of a fan of anybody (not since my teen years, anyway), and I discovered Zevon’s music only in the last four or five years. I basically stopped listening to rock music a quarter of a century ago for various reasons and have paid little or no attention to the rock for a long time. But with his sardonic humor and and his willingness to explore the dark side of human exisence, Zevon somehow managed to break through my indifference and make me take notice. Zevon will always be in my pantheon of rock gods, and * Mr. Bad Example * will always be one of the great rock albums to me. * Renegade * and * The Indifference of Heaven * will haunt me to the end of my days.
Warren, you will be in my heart for a long, long while.
God damn. * God damn. *
On the positive side, the bar scene in the afterlife just got a whole lot more interesting!
Our loss, however.
RIP, Warren… and thanks!