Warren Zevon

There's a sense of resolution. Not a solution so much as an unburdening, a reckoning with
secrets that, revealed, can be swapped, like a pawn ticket, for some kind of stopgap
redemption. Or a start toward it anyhow – a beginning: "Swear to God I'll change," the
singer says in the title tune. No wonder Warren Zevon's dedicated this fine new album to
detective novelist Ken Millar, who writes under the pen name Ross Macdonald. Z... More >

I don't know why the title tune's the title tune, except maybe to contextualize the classical interludes he composed all by himself, and Lord help us he's been hanging out with the Eagles, just like Randy Newman, who could teach him something about slandering the South--even Neil Young could do better than incest and Lynyrd Skynyrd, though the brucellosis is a nice touch. In fact, just about every song boasts a good line or three. But the only ones that score are the jokes: Ernie K-Doe's sly, shy "A Certain Girl," and "Gorilla, You're a Desperado," a satire of the Eagles, not to mention Warren Zevon. Don Henley sings harmony. Linda Ronstadt will not cover.