The 25 Best Live Rock Recordings - No. 19: Stand In The Fire

No. 19 - Warren Zevon - Stand In The Fire

Wikipedia

Sometimes it’s about the supremely talented (and misunderstood) underdog with a propensity for shooting himself in the foot, but who also has a loyal following among prominent musicians.  “Poor, Poor Pitiful Me,” “Carmelita,” “Hasten Down The Wind,” and “Desperados Under The Eves” are songs made famous by musicians other than the composer.  Then consider “Jeannie Needs A Shooter,” “Mohammed’s Radio,” “Excitable Boy,” “Lawyers, Guns, and Money,” and “Roland, The Headless Thompson Gunner” and the picture becomes clearer. The composer is an unhinged genius.

Conspiracy Theory: Warren William Zevon and Jackson Browne are actually the same person. Good personal friends, men were Southern California fixtures during the heady period of the 1970s when recordings like For Everyman (Asylum, 1973), Late For The Sky (Asylum, 1974), The Pretender (Asylum, 1976), Warren Zevon (Asylum, 1976), and Excitable Boy (Asylum, 1978) were released one after another. Both men emerged as often-covered songwriters in addition to having successful performing careers. Both composed songs about difficult things: loss, conflict, hopelessness. But they did this in very different ways.

When Browne mourned a lost lover, he wrote:

But I can't sing, I can't help listening
And I can't help feeling stupid standing 'round
Crying as they ease you down
'Cause I know that you'd rather we were dancing.¹

Then Zevon did the same, writing:

She's so many women
He can't find the one who was his friend
So he's hanging on to half her heart
He can't have the restless part
So he tells her to hasten down the wind.²

In anger, Browne wrote:

By the magnitude of her fury in the final hour
And when the sand was gone and the time arrived
In the naked dawn only a few survived
And in attempts to understand a thing so simple and so huge
Believed that they were meant to live after the deluge.³

Seething, Zevon countered with:

Roland searched the continent for the man who done him in
He found him in Mombasa, in a barroom drinking gin
Roland aimed his Thompson gun, he didn't say a word
But he blew Van Owen's body, from there to Johannesburg.⁴

When hurt, Browne wrote:

'Cause I've been up and down this highway
Far as my eyes can see
No matter how fast I run
I can never seem to get away from me.

No matter where I am
I can't help thinking I'm just a day away.⁵

Zevon, devastated, wrote:

We made mad love
Shadow love
Random love
And abandoned love
Accidentally like a martyr
The hurt gets worse and the heart gets harder.⁶

You get the idea.

Zevon was like a naked id composing songs exposing naked anguish, pain, anger, and indifference. Zevon’s emotional baggage is on complete display in his live album, Stand In The Fire. Recorded at Los Angeles’ Roxy Theater over five shows in August 1980, the performance was initially released as a 10-selection LP that included “Jeannie Needs A Shooter,” Excitable Boy,” Mohammed’s Radio,” and “Lawyers, Guns, and Money.) This release was expanded with “Johnny Strikes Up The Band,” “Play It All Night Long,” “Frank And Jesse James,” and “Hasten Down The Wind.” What mars these releases is the absence of “Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner” which was released on a Deluxe 2-LP version released on the 2021 Record Store Day. This has never been made available as a CD or a download and remains an oversight by the industry.

Working with what we have, there is little music that compares to Zevon’s original album coda of “Poor Poor Pitiful Me,” “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead,” and “Bo Diddley’s A Gunslinger/Bo Diddley.” Ferocious and unhinged, Zevon’s “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” leaves Linda Ronstadt’s version as radioactive ash before segueing into a gravel-producing “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead.” The dark humor and ghastliness of “Excitable Boy” are fully revealed in this lighthearted performance just as “Werewolves In London” is, sporting Zeke Zimrngiebel’s raging lap steel guitar solo.

The added material “Interlude No. 1/Play It All Night Long” with the earlier “Jeannie Needs A Shooter” reveals what Zevon had to offer on Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School (Electra), released early in 1980, and the promotional subject of this tour. This was Zevon at his creative height. He would not garner this much attention until shortly before his death with his recording The Wind (Artemis, 2003). Stand In The Fire was everything Warren Zevon and remains his live recording testament.

As for Jackson Browne, after his friend’s death, Browne made it a point to play a Warren Zevon song in all of his performances. Don’t it make you want to rock and roll all night long…

1. “For A Dancer.” Late For The Sky (Asylum, 1974).

2. “Hasten Down The Wind.” Warren Zevon (Asylum, 1976).

3. “Before The Deluge.” Late For The Sky (Asylum, 1974).

4. “Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner.” Excitable Boy (Asylum, 1978)

5. “Bright Baby Blues.” The Pretender (Asylum, 1976)

6. “Accidentally Like A Martyr.” Excitable Boy (Asylum, 1978)