{"id":8695,"date":"2011-10-19T07:15:08","date_gmt":"2011-10-19T11:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=8695"},"modified":"2011-10-19T11:10:35","modified_gmt":"2011-10-19T15:10:35","slug":"midweek-music-break-warren-zevon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2011\/10\/midweek-music-break-warren-zevon\/","title":{"rendered":"Midweek Music Break: Warren Zevon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In a music-rich culture, how do you decide what (and whom) to listen to in the first place? And what keeps you listening to it, over time?<\/p>\n

My kid brother and I have had this pervasive and often subconscious back-and-forth influence on each other ever since he arrived on the scene. (Well, that first year was sort of blurry for me. Kindergarten, y’know. (“You’re leaving me where<\/em>? By myself<\/em>?!?”)) He has numerous stories about borrowing\u00a0my stuff, from wherever I thought I’d stowed it securely, when I was looking the other way (i.e.<\/em>, often); he claims that the music he found on these occasions influenced what he listened to. (The books supposedly influenced what he read and, no doubt, the whole thing influenced how he sneaked.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>For my part, I haven’t always had an easy time “getting” the music he listened to. Some of it, like Pink Floyd, came along just a wee bit too late to make much of a dent in my awareness. But even obvious greats with whom I should have been familiar — The Who, for Pete’s sake! — didn’t click at first.<\/p>\n

I think the problem was that I’d early fixated on melody\u00a0<\/em>in music (although I couldn’t and still can’t explain what melody is). No doubt,\u00a0the hearing thing played a role: if I couldn’t reliably make out the lyrics, I at least had to like listening to whatever-it-was, as background to whatever I was really paying attention to. (Hence, for example,\u00a0my early Herb Alpert fascination<\/a>.) Once I’d listened to it a few times, okay, then I could move on to the lyrics. But if the sound didn’t strike me right, I might never care about the lyrics at all.<\/p>\n

The first honest-to-gods musical\u00a0bull’s-eye which he scored in my consciousness was Talking Heads. Even with them, I remember saying something like: I really like their music, but none of their song titles ever appear in the actual lyrics<\/em>. He stared at me for a beat before answering, as tactfully as he could, That’s not true<\/em>. So much for trying to fake my way through an assertion about lyrics which I didn’t, like, actually know<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Then we have the case of Warren Zevon<\/a>. It may be the one recommendation whose failure with me has most surprised Little Brother.<\/p>\n

I sympathize. On the face of it, what a natural fit: the guy wrote witty, sardonic, outright mordant<\/em>\u00a0(and often macabre) songs. Just look at some of the song titles, and know that the lyrics fall into line behind them:<\/p>\n