Warren Zevon

The song that feels most like death on what is probably Warren Zevon's last album is "Prison
Grove," a moaning phantom that sounds like a cross between Blind Willie Johnson's "Dark
Was the Night (Cold Was the Ground)" and a Russian folk dirge. Between Ry Cooder's
chilling slide guitar and the chanted chorus (Jackson Browne, Billy Bob Thornton, Bruce
Springsteen, T-Bone Burnett, Jordan Zevon), the listener has no choice but to c... More >

Naturally he fends off death-the-fact the way he fended off death-the-theme--with black humor. "I'm looking for a woman with low self-esteem" is how he sums up the succor he craves, and he finishes off a painful "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" with impatient cries of "Open up, open up, open up." But "El Amor de Mi Vida," "She's Too Good for Me," "Please Stay," and "Keep Me in Your Heart" mean what their titles say. Only by hearing them can you grasp their tenderness, or understand that the absolute Spanish one seems to be for the wife he left behind, or muse that while the finale addresses his current succor provider, it also reaches out to the rest of us. Everyone who says this isn't a sentimental record is right. But it admits sentiment, hold the hygiene, and suggests that he knows more about love dying than he did when he was immortal. (Grade: A-)