#22 – ROLAND, THE HEADLESS THOMPSON GUNNER – Warren Zevon - 2/4/2020

On February 4, 1974, Patty Hearst was kidnapped from her apartment in Berkeley, California. On September 18, 1975, Hearst, or “Tania” as she called herself, was captured in a San Francisco apartment and arrested for armed robbery alleging she was brainwashed by her captors.

Great art sometimes find inspiration in strange places. Zevon described the creation of ROLAND, THE HEADLESS THOMPSON GUNNER in the liner notes to his Anthology collection: “In 1974 I ran off to Spain and got a job in an Irish bar called the Dubliner, in Sitges, on the Costa Brava. The proprietor was a piratical ex-merc named David Lindell. He and I wrote this song at the bar one afternoon, over many jars.”

One of Zevon’s best and most complex songs, you hear the song’s true meaning seeping out during the closing lines which reference Hearst: “Patty Hearst heard the burst of Roland’s Thompson gun and bought it.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRWCK9zGynA

1977

#1440 – DISORDER IN THE HOUSE – Warren Zevon - 12/21/2019

There has been a lot going on around the ranch these days so I am going to nominate this as the theme song for December 2019.

The tune comes from the magnificent final studio album by songwriting giant Warren Zevon: “The Wind”. The album is an amazing achievement because Zevon was battling (and succumbed to prior to the album’s release) lung cancer. The songs he wrote were as raw as a knife wound and were some of his best. You can hear the effort it took to sing, Zevon’s normally powerful delivery a raspy whisper at times. The album is also an all-star bonanza with many of Warren’s famous buddies (Petty, Henley, Emmy Lou, Springsteen, Joe Walsh, Jackson Browne, Mike Campbell) appearing on almost every track. Curious that Bruce rips off one of his best recorded solos ever for his buddy, Warren. It is a wonderful listen from front to back, but also a sad one for his fans who wish he were still around to delight us with tales of his Dirty Life & Crimes, right, Berk?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACSeVC6umzg

2003

GORILLA, YOU’RE A DESPERADO – Warren Zevon

#1686 – GORILLA, YOU’RE A DESPERADO - 10/18/2019

This hilarious send-up of the SoCal music industry circa the late 70’s comes to us from the late, great Excitable Boy himself, Warren Zevon.

The tune is found on Warren’s third Asylum Records release "Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School". You have to love any tune starts off with the lines:

Big gorilla at the L.A. Zoo snatched the glasses right off my face.

Took the keys to my BMW and left me here to take his place

Hope ya got a smile from this little nugget. I’ll leave you with today’s deep thought from George Carlin: “Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, you soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epov4_3h2-w

1980