I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon by Crystal Zevon Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon
Book Review: Warren from Every Angle--A Genius of a Biography
Summary: 5 Stars
My introduction to Warren Zevon came in the early 1980's when I was in a record store in Gainesville, FL looking for a new album that had just came out (I don't remember what the album was). While in the store I was caught up with the album they were playing over the PA system..a singer was singing about being in Hawaii and abandoned by his girl to the "Hula, Hula" boys with a refrain in Hawain. It piqued my interest. I listened on to the next song which was about going to Memphis, Graceland to be exact and digging up the king and begging him to sing about those heavenly mansions Jesus mentioned and imagining him (Elvis) walking on the water with his diet pills. I was hooked.
Who was the artist? I asked the guy at the counter.
Warren Zevon. The album? The Envoy. The EnvoyWhich only recently has been made availble on CD. Thus I was introduced to Warren Zevon.
I became a big fan, there is something about a certian class of artists, usually more know for their songwriting than their singing that has always categorized my favorite singers. People as diverse as Tom T. Hall, David Alan Coe, John Prine, Matraca Berg, Neil Young, Neil Diamond and Warren Zevon have long been my favorites. In some ways Zevon was the most diverse of all of them. One minute you were apt to hear a classical string piece introducing some twangy anthem to "playing that dead band's song...all night long" (the dead band referring to another of my long time favorites Lynyrd Skynrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" the next some hard rocking tune. Zevon in many ways defies definition.
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon in some ways is just as quirky a biography as the singer was in life. When my copy first arrived I was disappointed, because it didn't seem like a biography at all, but rather a collection of interviews, journal entries, reminicences. But like the genius that the book is about, I soon found their was a genius to what Crystal Zevon (Warren's second ex-wife) had put together. Here is the gripping and moving tale of the real Warren Zevon told from every angle, by people who both loved and hated hiim. The details read like a life long confession--mostly of failures, but with glimmers of grace here and there. The stories behind many of the songs co-written by Warren Zevon are here and as this became my lunch time reading over the past month, I found myself going back and listening to the music from the different periods of his life.
One of the most intriquing elements of the bio, that is very minor in the book but is there throughout his life is Zevon's fascination with the Catholic Church. In Spain he tries to convince then wife Crystal that they convert--she's reluctant, so nothing happens. Later when asked by someone what his religion he says, "Catholic." He attends Mass with a woman whom he sleeps with in the same apartment building, another time when troubled in Ireland he finds a Catholic Church and enters during Mass emerging afterwards and writing in his journal of the experience "Peace be with you" which seems to be something that eluded him throughout his life--hence the song title and book title "I"ll sleep when I'm dead." Perhaps the worst part of this flirtation with Catholicism happens when he is diagnosed with terminal cancer and given only three months to live and visits a Catholic priest with a friend only to be told that he does not have time enough to convert (for non-Catholics and Cathoilcs out there--this must be some reference to the RCIA process which normally takes about nine months to complete, but the priest was wrong to say this--but may not have understood the situation).
As a Warren Zevon fan I loved this book. As a Catholic I wished that Warren might have fell into the hands of a saintly priest or Catholic who might have given him the tools to redeem all of the demons that tormented his soul and kept him from committing to anything but death in his life. To paraphrase another author, we all are either living to sleep or sleeping to rise--unfortunately Warren was haunted by death (see the skulls that dominate his album art--complete with dangling cigarette), but somewhere in the midst of it all I think the grace that haunted him might have won out in the end.
Book Review: Repetitive and dreary after a time
Summary: 2 Stars
I've listened to and loved Zevon's music over the years, including (and especially) his later overlooked albums. I'd heard tales of his debauchery and alcoholism, but also appreciated the high intelligence and insight that shone through in his music. From the subject matter and point-of-view of many of his songs, I'd figured he was a rather disturbed and cynical man. "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" did not disabuse me of those notions. It splits into two parts: in the first, he's a drunken a******, and in the second, a sober a******. Surely his childhood had something to do with how he turned out, and I suspect there were some glitches in his hard-wiring as well. The Zevon in these pages is a user, of substances and of people. With very few exceptions, he eventually alienated everyone who reached out to him, some of whom supported and loved him through unthinkable behavior. The only bright spots are the growing relationships with his children, Ariel and Jordan, in the middle and end of his life; but even those have to be viewed through the lens of his utter callousness and neglect for them when they were growing up.
Early on, the stories of his rock-and-roll life are interesting in a train-wreck sort of way, and for the insight they provide into the cutthroat reality of the seemingly laid-back '70s California singer-songwriter scene. But by mid-book the recounting of his unsavory and despicable behavior becomes repetitive and numbing. When he kicks the sauce in 1986, you expect to read that he reforms at least some of his selfish and anti-social ways, but the river runs far deeper.
In the end, like Sinatra, it's a case of "trust the art, not the artist." Zevon left a catalog of finely-etched songs that illuminate many of the dark corners of the human condition, and those will stand despite the failings of the man and the misery he both suffered and wrought.
Book Review: The story of a well intentioned but oft-times troubled soul...
Summary: 5 Stars
Much has been written of this renegade singer-songwriter since his untimely death of inoperable mesothelioma in September of 2003. As one of the early rock poets of the California 70's (beginning with a stint in the Everly Bros. before becoming Jackson Browne's protege and a songwriter whose pennings were covered by Ronstadt, Dylan and numerous others) the acerbic, mercurial Zevon became a celebrated cult figure (despite his big 70's hits "Werewolves of London" and "Lawyers, Guns and Money") for his twisted, sometimes auto-biographical musical characterizations presented with a wit and vivid intelligence rarely seen in rock'n'roll. During his final year he requested that his former wife and friend chronicle his life in book form which she has done appropriately enough in the way of an oral history combined with Zevon's journal entries. Fellow musicians, managers, label execs, lovers and friends from Springsteen to Browne to Bonnie Raitt as well as a cadre of his literary chums like Mitch Ablom and Carl Heissan all add to the story of a well intentioned but oft-times troubled soul who more than dabbled along the dark edge of life. Stories of ex-wives and girlfriends, sexual addiction, guns, alcohol, OCD and even an obsession with collecting Calvin Klein gray T-shirts (and never opening them!) all contribute to a complete picture of the singer that Rolling Stone's Dave Marsh once described as "a visceral intellectual, except that he reminded me early in our talk of (Raymond) Chandler's advice: "Eddie, don't get complicated. When a guy gets complicated, he gets unhappy. When he gets unhappy, his luck runs out." - TD @ BlogOnBooksBook Review: Mr. Bad Example
Summary: 3 Stars
Crystal Zevon's biography of late ex-husband Warren Zevon is a no holds barred account of his life of notariety and his battles with his demons. It's easy to see why Zevon was not known for love songs after reading this account of his drug and alcohol fueled youth, and his OCD and sex addicted mid-life. The interviews with his famous and closest friends and family offer some engrossing tales. But even die-hard Zevon fans may come away from the experience with less reverance for this poetic and troubled genius.Book Review: warreb zevon lives on!
Summary: 5 Stars
No review-just a few words about a fascinating book,written about the life of a fascinating man.A true Zevon fan,I knew what I was in for when I bought this book-not a quiet normal life.It's so good that I have to ration out the chapters so I don't get to the end too soon.