"Warren Zevon's fight against cancer has been well documented in the media, as has his extraordinary decision to use his time to write and record a new album. The result of that work, The Wind, will be hailed as a masterpiece," excitedly proclaim the promotional materials for the 14th album by the self-admitted Excitable Boy. This optimistic prediction is likely to be true: after all, any critic who gives a bad review to a man on his deathbed would be the living example of James Carr's "Pouring water on a drowning man." And not just on a man drowning with mesothelioma, but a quirky singer/songwriter who travels with a large posse of friends, the likes of whom include Bruce Springsteen, Don Henley, Tom Petty, Jackson Browne, Billy Bob Thornton, Joe Walsh, Dwight Yoakam, and Ry Cooder. And so the real question to address with The Wind is not whether or not it is a masterpiece, but if it is even possible objectively to review what is undoubtedly and unfortunately Warren Zevon's last album.
It probably isn't. For to hear The Wind without knowing that Zevon is singing with his last breath is akin to listening Double Fantasy minus the knowledge that John Lennon and Yoko Ono even know one another. It's not that Zevon plays too heavily the "one foot out the door" card, with the exception of his cover of Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door". Rather, set against the backdrop of a horrifying reality, the absurd juxtaposition of themes of finality and permanence inside The Wind is open to be appreciated with even greater poignancy. While knowing too well the particular Ono of Lennon's "Dear Yoko" might make the song a little over-personal, the universality of Zevon's songs suffers not because we are well acquainted with his deathly muse. In that sense, The Wind is similar to Lou Reed's paean to death-by-cancer, 1992's powerful Magic and Loss. Doing Reed's own haunting masterpiece one better, Zevon even manages to make all this fit tidily inside of little pop songs that invite you to sing along.
Musically, The Wind is a Warren Zevon album. He carries out his ironic and sardonic commentary in the baritone talk made famous by "Werewolves of London" while reserving the lilting weakness of his barely-tenor falsetto for straightforward moments of sincerity. Zevon's musical mates work their way through well-structured songs in the blues and folk vein with the rather standard arrangement of guitars, bass, drums and a little keyboards. Although the chorus to "El Amor de mi Vida" is in the loving tongue, the furthest Zevon moves from standard rock and roll instrumentation is a pair of maracas. Yet if keeping close to a well-tested formula of songs intended for adult-oriented radio, at least Zevon stacks his deck with the not only a solid set of studio greats, but friends/superstars who help bring The Wind's songs not only to life, but to the heights of their genre as well.
"Dirty Life & Times" opens the album, and is a good a song as Zevon has ever written. Hardly a biographic send-off, instead the song is a send-up of a mid-life crisis with an incredibly sarcastic turn of phrase. Instead of reverberating with echoes of the author's actual demise, the lyrics ring with a sly humor nearly Dylanesque. In fact, given that Bob has been known to include at least one Zevon tune in every night's set-list [usually 1995's beautiful "Mutineer"], it shouldn't be long before we hear Dylan paying tribute to his friend by drawling the words, "Gets a little lonely, folks, you know what I mean / I'm looking for a woman with low self-esteem / To lay me out and ease my worried mind / While I'm winding down my life and dirty times".
If one Mr. Zimmerman is noticeably absent from The Wind [minus the presence of one of his better known songs], a certain Springsteen steps right up to the forefront. Letting loose on "Disorder in the House", Bruce and Warren interplay vocals on this barnstorming song like they were recording a track from The River. On top of the song's imagery of a house and life in shambles, Bruce shreds his squeaking Telecaster with an unabandoned passion not heard on record since Darkness on the Edge of Town. Similar electrifying guitar work is offered on "Rub Me Raw" by Joe Walsh, who is able to find the perfect rough and bleeding tone for this Thorogood-styled blues rant. While both Springsteen and Walsh add their own inimitable selves to each of these tracks, what makes the songs successful is not the presence of these guests, but rather how well their cameos are suited for Zevon's well-crafted songs. A perfect example of this is the haunting chain-gang choir that brings to life Zevon's minor-keyed testament to being trapped in life's "Prison Grove": the Greek chorus of Browne, Thornton, Springsteen, and T-Bone Burnett makes you feel the shackles on your feet.
"Prison Grove" in one of The Wind's two songs that are frighteningly fatalistic. The other, "Keep Me in Your Heart", closes the album with a sincere plea from Zevon to be remembered, even if just "for a while". In a sparse instrumentation of guitar and percussion not unlike a late-Replacement's era Paul Westerberg gem, Zevon is able to shed his trademark sarcasm for an honesty that brings his personhood as close as ever to the listener. Hardly being over-done and staying far away from the realm of the trite, "Keep Me in your Heart" is a haunting song filled with a love for live even at its close. This type of sentimentality, which avoids the teary-eyed while still inducing tears, also brings life to other tracks on the album, most notably the throwaway "The Rest of the Night". A feel-good song so in the countrified vein of Tom Petty that it features him, this track could easily be the most mediocre track on any sub-par album. Yet here it is rescued from such harsh objectivity by the sheer subjective nature of Zevon's plight: a stupid lyric like "Why stop now? Let's party the rest of the night! / Seven o'clock, Eight o'clock, Nine o'clock, Ten/ You wanna go home? Why, honey? When?/ We may never get this chance again!" has its exclamation points transformed from dumb party rally to life's rally cry.
That will to live pervades The Wind. It's in Springsteen's guitar, Petty's jangle, and -- most importantly -- Zevon's words and music which are far more testament to the power of living than the fear of dying. That will is in Zevon's dedication to mocking not only life in "Dirty Life & Times", but also his life in "Rub Me Raw", where he sings that "Every cure seems to be against the law". That power is in Zevon's vocal lilt on "She's Too Good for Me", and it haunts Emmylou Harris's harmonies on "Please Stay", where she sings the album's elegy: "Will you stay with me to the end? When there's nothing left / But you and me and the wind?" In answering his own question, fittingly and masterfully, that's just what Warren Zevon has done.
— 28 August 2003
