Desperados Under the Eaves

Historically the people who've helped me think most deeply about life are artists (or mystics, I suppose), and artists are typically really screwed-up people.  For a case in point, I give you the late, great Warren Zevon.

I used to be a music critic (fun fact--I was blown off in the span of a month for scheduled interviews with Stevie Nicks and Amy Grant; is there anyone else alive who can make that claim?), so I was once astoundingly culture-current regarding music.  Then I grew up, and all that was gone.  And then I had kids and my artistic impulses began to coalesce around musicians who'd made a difference to me in younger days.  This has been pointed out to me by the poor musicians in our midst who've been forced into one too many performances of a new tune by, say, Joe Jackson (I'm telling you, anyone who doesn't think "Rush Across the Road" from last year is genius...well, what can one say to such people?).  So I'm listening and, if you're a part of our church, prepare for tunes from the likes of Sara Bareilles and Gavin DeGraw.

Meanwhile, on my own time, I'm immersing myself in Warren Zevon.

Let me give you a little background on Zevon, should you care.  And then I actually have a theological (or metaphysical...or something) point to make from his music. 

Zevon came up in arguably the last great stretch of American pop music.  (Clearly this is debatable, and we all tend to lobby for the seasons that have made the most difference to us.  But there are actually whole books devoted to, say, 1974 as the year pop music started its death march in America.  The argument is that this is when any semblance of the pop world being an artists' colony vanished in the middle of mega-corporate buyouts of most music labels.  These folks would point to the great seasons of American pop music as being, say, 1937-1949 [Gershwin, Berlin, Cahn, the rise of Sinatra and the big bands] and, say, 1968-1977 [when 60s artistry found a form and left behind drecky 50s vestiges--the Association ("Cherish"), for instance--and moved into Motown, singer-songwriters, and the California artists' colony.)

Zevon met lots of the California up and comers--Jackson Browne became a major backer, the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, ultimately he became friends with non-Californian Springsteen.  Zevon was magnetic and smarter and more literate than anyone else--his bios customarily call him the "genius" of the bunch.  And his music, particularly, his early music, is a mix of phenomenally tuneful and seriously ambitious pop music.  David Letterman devoted an entire show to Zevon when Zevon was given only a couple months to live because of lung cancer.  Letterman's request was that, whatever else happened on the show, Zevon sing (Zevon's voice had lost a lot by then--lung cancer will make one a bit breathless) "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner," this apocalyptic song about the immortality of violence. 

Zevon's only hit was a goof--"Werewolves of London."  But on the same album he has one of the catchiest, edgiest songs in history about how men are fundamentally dangerous ("Excitable Boy").  (You could make the point that that's the bottom-line point as well of "Werewolves.")

Grace has mixed feelings about Zevon.  His long-divorced, but still-friendly, wife, Crystal, put together a memoir about Zevon with reflections from all his musician friends along with his endless list of literary friends (Stephen King, Carl Hiasson, Mitch Album [who cowrote a hoot of a song with Zevon about a hockey goon who, at the very end of his career, gets a chance to take a shot on goal--"Hit Somebody"--Letterman actually sings backup on that one; he's the guy shouting "Hit somebody!"], Ross MacDonald, Hunter S. Thompson).  And Zevon comes across as about the worst addict who ever lived (which seemingly is what convinced him that men are fundamentally dangerous), a womanizer, and the sort of charismatic but vexing narcissist that you'd steer clear of after you caught onto his act.  But Grace, with her mixed feelings, will be the first to say that "Lawyers, Guns and Money" might be the most-delightful rock song ever written.  (I once asked some rock buddies of mine to work up "Lawyers" for a Sunday service at our church.  They listened to it, were appalled and perplexed why I'd suggest such a thing, and turned me down.  I took that as God's wisdom and bagged the idea.)

Which brings me to "Desperados Under the Eaves" and why I bring up Zevon at all. This is a catchy, symphonic song from his light-selling first album ("Werewolves" was on the second album).  To my mind, it's a distillation of the artist's impulse.  The singer is living in a seedy, Hollywood hotel, unable to pay his bill.  (There's a very clever line about that in the song.)  He sounds like an alcoholic (he wakes up with "shaking hands").  But he's caught up in this exciting time in California.  For all his problems, "heaven help the one who leaves."  You can't leave.  You're broke, drunk, lonely and blocked, but nonetheless you feel you might just be a "desperado under the eaves"--you're the outlaw who sees what nobody else sees, who sees the truth through an artists' eyes.  If only you weren't broke, addicted, lonely and blocked.  (This song got me back into Nathanael West, whose Day of the Locust was about this several decades previously.)  Grace has mixed feelings about this song--doesn't that sound like what a narcissist would say?  HE'S the super-special one.  Nobody sees his true genius.

But I wonder if that's at the heart of many people who may never be super-artists, but who strongly feel like they're onto something they can't quite grasp, but it's BIG, BIG, BIG I TELL YOU.  And they're in on the ground floor.  I wonder if that urge is at the bottom of revivalists, who feel they might just be seeing a work of God before anybody else.  It certainly seems very deep in me, which may speak poorly about me.

The song ends with a meditation on the hum of the air conditioner in the singer's room...a hum which becomes a full-blown symphony, which itself says something to me about the heart of the song.

All to say, as we take a little artist's interlude on the blog, take a listen to "Desperados Under the Eaves" if you'd like. (Download the lyrics).  Does this speak to something in you?  What is it?  Does it relate to your calling in God?  How?  Or does it vex you rather than call to you?  If so, why?

Comments

[Evan]

Nice song Dave. Enjoyed it thoroughly. I'm finding some new music that I enjoy, but nothing can replace the way an old song takes you back. Music has that sort of eternal quality which hovers above the timeline of your life and let's you experience it all at once. Awesome!

Desperados ties in nicely with our conversations about hope and idealism vs skepticism and realism. You've gotta cheer for folks who've had their share of failure and rejection and still push through for something special.

Maybe that hopeful feeling of "being in on the ground floor" is part of the image of God in us. Yes, we can be unrealistically optimistic about our prospects (see American Idol auditions), but human life and potential really are special and significant. What I like about Desperados is how it expresses the "before", when the potential was still unfulfilled. How noble to always persevere when the outlook is bleak!

[David Tunstall]

"Desperados Under the Eaves" reminds me of being depressed. 'look away' is exactly the kind of surly command i would have uttered if my landlord was hounding me and my hands were shaking and no one understood me (as the sun was making me squint & I pulled the covers over my head)...so, yeah, doesn't look or feel like a time when I was 'calling in God'. If anything, the song reminds me of someone 'pushing away God'.

However, if you find redemption in the A/C hum, I see that. After pitching a hissy fit, he sits & listens to the a/c and the music of the hum picks him up from his own self wallowing...yet maybe it takes hitting bottom to surrender to that hum and find a symphony in it...

[Vinceation]

"But I wonder if that's at the heart of many people who may never be super-artists, but who strongly feel like they're onto something they can't quite grasp, but it's BIG, BIG, BIG I TELL YOU. And they're in on the ground floor. I wonder if that urge is at the bottom of revivalists, who feel they might just be seeing a work of God before anybody else. It certainly seems very deep in me, which may speak poorly about me."

I feel this way all the time.

[Prashant]

Excellent song. The urge to translate inspiration into art isn't narcissism. I hope that the urge to think of ourselves as in on the ground floor frequently triumphs over the urge to be sensible & rational and place ourselves in proper historical perspective. No, Warren wasn't the only super special one, but thank goodness he didn't let that stop him. Ditto for revivalists, for the most part.

Caveat: I'm a confirmed sucker for Warren Zevon. And more of a sucker for Nick Cave, whose post-Goth oeuvre reminds me of Zevon.

[Dave Thom]

I only have time to say I love Warren Zevon. I wonder if there's appropriate therapy out there for you & me.

[DJ Sybear]

Simply put, I love the song, and like the commentary, I suppose. I'm not sure whether I'm more or less the kind of guy Warren Zevon was, or whether the stories we each tell about ourselves are very similar or different. Reality is maybe a bit more important than the stories.

It seems to me (for whatever the hell that's worth) that Zevon has a subtle point about what matters as an artist. He may have a rocky start, and the world might not look that pretty further down Gower Street, away from the glitz of Hollywood proper. But there's something special in the hum of those stripped-down beginnings.

If I were to be really honest, I'd say that this song reminds me of one I wrote. I don't play that song anymore; my experience pursuing Jesus has been less "successful" than Zevon's pursuit of a music career, if such a thing is possible. And so I look back at a similar story of my own and see as much wishful thinking as genuine inspiration.

Still the inspiration was there, and maybe accepting reality means knowing we're just outlaws in desperate need of justice. Maybe Zevon's on to something.

[Vinceation]

"The urge to translate inspiration into art isn't narcissism."

Thanks Prashant, I've been down on myself a bit in this area and I needed that reminder.

[danafr4]

a couple thoughts:

One-Zevon was a curious and amazing songwriter.

Two-Did you notice that he's probably followed by men way more than women (if the gender of the folks commenting here are any indication - I'm a man, by the way). And also by generally odd-ish, heady-type men, I'd guess - no implication for any of you, for sure, just for me!

Three-I think that the world has only a limited tolerance for art, no matter how amazing, that is too off-center. We just don't stick with it to really figure it out.
For instance, in "searching for a heart", he sings of love, "you can't start it like a car, you can't stop it with a gun." So catchy & arresting, but too dang weird for most of us. Really profound, perhaps, but too much for the average person to want to stick with & figure out. As catchy & melodic as it is, most folks just write it off.
Or make it a hit like "werewolves of London". It's catchy & weird, & fun to listen to, but nothing more.
So what if Zevon used all his craft & made something less weird but still deep? Would it have caught on more? Like Jackson Browne.
Can we have mainstream and profound?

[dana]

a couple thoughts:

One-Zevon was a curious and amazing songwriter.

Two-Did you notice that he's probably followed by men way more than women (if the gender of the folks commenting here are any indication - I'm a man, by the way). And also by generally odd-ish, heady-type men, I'd guess - no implication for any of you, for sure, just for me!

Three-I think that the world has only a limited tolerance for art, no matter how amazing, that is too off-center. We just don't stick with it to really figure it out.
For instance, in "searching for a heart", he sings of love, "you can't start it like a car, you can't stop it with a gun." So catchy & arresting, but too dang weird for most of us. Really profound, perhaps, but too much for the average person to want to stick with & figure out. As catchy & melodic as it is, most folks just write it off.
Or make it a hit like "werewolves of London". It's catchy & weird, & fun to listen to, but nothing more.
So what if Zevon used all his craft & made something less weird but still deep? Would it have caught on more? Like Jackson Browne.
Can we have mainstream and profound?

[Jeff]

This post was a fun read. I don't think I quite connected to the song as deeply as others, but I know the feeling of getting something like that from a song. There's a U2 line that gets me as a church planter

You love this town, and even if that doesn't ring true
You've been all over, and it's been all over you

from Beautiful Day.