Dad and I Never Discussed Warren Zevon

Stop me if you’ve heard me tell this one before.

On second thought, don’t. I feel like I want to tell it again.

On Friday, August 15, 2003, around lunchtime, I wrapped up my workday, left the office and drove toward my parents’ house, for what would prove to my father’s last weekend. Dad’s “dilemma”—as he once referred to it to me—would be over soon.

Along the way, I stopped at Granite Run Mall, walked into a record store (probably and FYE, at that point) and purposefully bought a two-disc CD anthology of Warren Zevon. It was coincidentally called I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead.

I am not sure if I knew at that moment why I needed to stock up on Zevon tunes. I just knew I did.

I don’t recall Dad and I ever having a conversation about Warren Zevon, but nothing of the sort would be happening that August weekend. Dad was no longer speaking.

It’s not as if we’d never talked music in the past. Dad didn’t necessarily have the broadest taste in music ever, but he knew what he loved. He loved Ry Cooder’s mastery of all things stringed. He loved “progressive” bluegrass band, The Seldom Scene, and was known to extol the virtues of the dobro and mandolin players in that band.

He loved that era of the Rolling Stones that probably all men his age liked, so much so that he once pulled into the driveway of our house, burst through the door, bounded up the steps and appeared in my room, practically demanding me to turn on the radio so he could finish listening to “this great ole Stones song” that was playing. It turned out to be “Let It Bleed.” Dad wasn’t exactly an excitable man, but he was fully in tune with inner Mick Jagger and “Let It Bleed” that day. Cooder’s slide  

Dad could surprise though. He loved “Regrets,” a Eurythmics; deep cut surrounded by hits on their Touch album. He also, I think, expressed admiration for Bobby Brown’s “My Prerogative.”

Warren Zevon, though. I cannot remember Dad and I ever talking about Warren Zevon.

Dad didn’t necessarily love piano-playing singer/songwriters, but Warren Zevon was made for Dad. “Werewolves of London” would clearly have induced a smile from Dad, but I’m thinking more of Zevon’s tale of ghostly, vengeful mercenary, “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner” and his parable of misadventure, “Lawyers, Guns and Money.” Surely, Dad would have appreciated a tune whose lyrics end with “Send lawyers, guns and money/the shit has hit the fan.”

The rest of the weekend passed by as uneventfully as what you know is going to be your last weekend with a loved one could. I sat by Dad’s side in the dining room, which had been converted into dad’s bedroom, completed with a hospital bed provided by a home hospice care service. Various family members came and went.

At some point, I drove back to my house – listening to Warren Zevon -- to bring Donna and the boys down. We watched the local access cable, and I noted that my high school class officers had just announced our 20^th class reunion. That weekend was banal and surreal, all at once.

Dad died at 3:00 on Monday morning, August 18, 2003. He slipped away quietly. The calls that needed to be made immediately happened and the appropriate people arrived to do the appropriate things.

I never saw my mother cry the way she did just after Dad was taken out of the house for the last time.

In the hours and days after Dad’s passing, I had to make several trips from my parent’s house to mine. Each time I was in the car alone, I was listening to Zevon with the volume cranked. Something about Zevon’s pitch-black humor, even when he was addressing death, felt both comforting and oddly empowering.

Of course, if you know Zevon’s work, you know he was always addressing death.

I was also blaring Zevon tunes while I was tapping out the words of my eulogy. As odd as it may seem, I’d like to think Dad’s eulogy was not the only one that ever been written under the influence of Warren Zevon.

Here’s the plot twist to all of this: the week of my dad’s death and funeral, Warren Zevon was dying as well, after struggling through an illness that was eerily like Dad’s.

Zevon had learned sometime during the fall of 2002 that he had mesothelioma and was given just a few months to live. Dad’s diagnosis happened in December 2002 and from there, his and Zevon’s illnesses paralleled each other’s. I don’t know if Dad was aware of this, and this was not a conversation we had.  

Faced with this news, Zevon decided to record one more album and set about the project. He also visited his friend David Letterman’s late-night show one more time, famously advising Letterman and his viewers to “enjoy every sandwich.”

Dad’s funeral was Saturday, August 23. I got through the eulogy. Having had more than 20 years to think about it, I’m not sure I would have said some of the things I said, but I did the best I could, and one shouldn’t go through life regretting one’s best effort at eulogizing a parent.

Just three days later, Warren Zevon’s final album, The Wind, was released. Naturally, Zevon confronted his “dilemma” with dark humor, covering Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” and writing his own songs about his “Dirty Life and Times” and the “Disorder in the House.”

But he also approached his mortality with the tenderness and concern for those he was leaving behind, with the simple and heartfelt “Keep Me in Your Heart.”

I bought The Wind CD the day it was released. I honestly do not remember if “Keep Me in Your Heart” was a tough listen in those days or not.

Zevon died just weeks later, on September 7, 2003. He was 56 years old, about five years younger than Dad. They both died too young.

Enjoy every sandwich.

(P.S. Here is a list of under-appreciated Warren Zevon songs that Chris and I cooked up for Popmatters.)