Excitable Boy: Warren Zevon's Gloriously Dark Pop Record
Photo: Warren Zevon, 1978 press photo — public domain via Wikimedia Commons
Werewolves, headless mercenaries and a desperate call for lawyers, guns and money — the most fun anyone's ever had with doom.
On paper, Excitable Boy is the sound of 1978 Los Angeles at its glossiest: produced by Jackson Browne and Waddy Wachtel, played by the kind of session aces who could make a grocery list swing. Underneath the sheen, though, Warren Zevon was writing like a pulp novelist with a law degree and a bad habit — wickedly funny, frequently violent and never, ever boring.
“Zevon's genius was making the grim and the absurd feel deeply, ridiculously human.”
A rogues' gallery
"Werewolves of London" is the one that made him famous: a loping piano groove, a howl for the ages and a deadpan delivery that keeps it from ever tipping into novelty. It's a joke, sure — but it's a joke told by a master craftsman.
"Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" is a mercenary epic that plays like a short story you can't put down, and "Lawyers, Guns and Money" slams the album shut with the most gloriously panicked sign-off in rock. Hiding in between, "Accidentally Like a Martyr" reveals the wounded romantic under all that gallows humor.
The verdict
The most accessible door into one of America's great songwriters, and still a blast from the first chord. Essential listening.
