I’ve just discovered Warren Zevon. Well not quite 'discovered, I’ve had the album he did with most of REM for years, but bought my first solo album of his on Saturday.
Anyway, my question is straightforward, but I can’t find an answer to it. What’ s Warren’s song “Mohammed’s Radio” about? Who is Mohammed?
Apart from that; I bought “A Quiet Normal Life” which is a “best of” from the mid 80s. What would you recommend to buy next?
Interpretations for “Mohammed’s Radio” range from a stream-of-consciousness musing on life in the 70s inspired in part by listening to his neighbor Mohammed’s radio playing in the next apartment, to a geo-political statement about the plight of poor Muslims or Palestinians, to a metaphor about drugs indigenous to the Near East (hash, opiates, etc.) As far as I can tell, WZ never provided an explanation.
As for your next disc, I’d recommend I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, a later two-disc compilation that includes just about all the songs on the disc you already have (albeit some in alternate or live versions), but also includes 31 other songs, including some of my favorites (“Carmelita”, “Boom Boom Mancini”, “Detox Mansion”, and “The Indifference of Heaven”).
Alternatively, pick up his last disc, The Wind. Some heart rending stuff there, when you know the context in which it was recorded.
The Essential Zevon albums, in order of importance (and in my opinion):
*Warren Zevon
Excitable Boy
Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School
The Wind
Sentimental Hygiene
*
Those are his best albums, and all (except for The Wind) come from Zevon’s earlier period, before and during and immediately after his trouble with drugs and alcohol.
Zevon mellowed out then, cleaned up, became a good father, and started penning more wide-ranging, experimental music. Transverse City was a sci-fi concept album, and other albums had really eclectic song collections. This stuff is all really good, but IMO not quite as good as his earlier period.
We have an answer … from a friend of Zevon’s.
I have an old, scratchy vinyl bootleg of Jackson Browne and David Lindley
[paraphrased from long-term memory]
"Okay, we’re going to play something by a friend of mine … named Warren Zevon. Now, you’ve never heard of him, right? And y’know how other artists have people to divide up their work into “periods” like Picasso’s Blue Period? Well, Warren has to do that himself, because no one’s heard of him. So this is from his “60’s Post-Apocolyptic Meaningless Period”…
And launches into “Mohammed’s Radio”.
So the answer is: 60’s Post-Apocolyptic Meaningless.