Dr. Frank's What's-it

I grew up in a house in which Excitable Boy was played so much I knew all the lyrics by the time I was four (Roland was a big hit in preschool). I think of Sentimental Hygiene as "the album my parents got divorced to"...I haven't heard much of his recent stuff, although I liked that mostly 12-string live thing with the wonderfully almost maudlin rendition of The French Inhaler. From my musical/historical vantage, a Dr. Frank review of the forthcoming would be most interesting...

I thought Warren Zevon just died. Someone explain to the ignorant.

See, here in Vegas, music is something we hear about, more so than actually hear.

Here you will find a petition to get Warren Zevon into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame.
PLEASE read it (sign it?)

http://www.petitiononline.com/bucsrule/

Space Toast,

Excitable Boy and Sentimental Hygiene are important personal points of reference for me as well (though of course with different references.)

The remarkable thing about Zevon's writing (and this is exemplified in E.B.) is how the lyrics, while functioning just fine as words-sung-to-music and often reflecting complex, subtle compositional ambition, can also be read as perfectly ordinary, natural, conversational prose. Very few liberties are taken with even with grammar, almost to the point where the lyrics can be construed as complete sentences.

You can listen to EB, or you can read it. I can't think of another songwriter whose words sound so natural. It's something I've tried to emulate in my ham-handed semi-retarded way.

Warren Zevon died yesterday (Sunday.) He wukk be missed by many.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2003-09-08-zevon-dies_x.htm

Singer/songwriter Warren Zevon dies
From staff reports
Warren Zevon, who struggled with terminal cancer while finishing his latest album, The Wind, died Sunday in his sleep at his home in West Hollywood, Calif., a spokesman said. Zevon was 56. He was the author of such wry tunes as Werewolves of London and I'll Sleep When I'm Dead.

His illness, diagnosed a year ago, resonated in the lyrics of his new album. He beseeched in the fragile Please Stay, "Will you stay with me to the end?"

Zevon succumbed to mesothelioma, a rare lung cancer usually linked to asbestos.

Housebound because of his illness, Zevon finished The Wind by recording his last session at his home. He lived long enough to see his daughter Ariel give birth to twin boys in June.