Tag: Jackson Browne

Warren Zevon – Werewolves of London

He’s the hairy-handed gent who ran amuck in Kent
Lately he’s been overheard in Mayfair
Better stay away from him
He’ll rip your lungs out, Jim
I’d like to meet his tailor

I’ve heard this song so many times, but it does not get old to me. Zevon was one of the darkest songwriters I’ve ever heard, but kept a sense of humor about it. His vocal delivery is more spoken than sung, dry as gin and twice as sharp. The way he tosses off lines like “I saw a werewolf drinking a piña colada at Trader Vic’s — and his hair was perfect” is pure poetry.

Warren Zevon was a very clever songwriter. He went where other songwriters don’t often go. This song was off his critically acclaimed album Excitable Boy released in 1978. The song peaked at #21 on the Billboard 100, #18 in Canada, and #87 in the UK. It’s simply a great album with tracks like this one, Excitable Boy, Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner, and one of my favorites, Lawyers, Guns, and Money. 

Zevon was working with the Everly Brothers in their backup band. He had just hired Robert “Waddy” Wachtel on guitar. The song started as a joke.  Phil Everly tossed out the title during a casual songwriting session, half-daring Zevon to write a song called “Werewolves of London.” Phil had just watched Werewolf of London and thought Warren could make it into a dance craze. 

Zevon thought about it and took it up with his musicians, guitarist Waddy Wachtel and bassist Leroy Marinell. When Wachtel heard the idea, he mimicked a wailing wolf, “Aahoooh,” which became part of the howling chorus. What came out of that session was a Frankenstein’s monster stitched together from old horror flicks.

This track was produced by Jackson Browne. The songwriters were LeRoy Marinell, Waddy Wachtel, and Warren Zevon. John McVie and Mick Fleetwood played on this song.

Werewolves of London

I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand
Walking through the streets of Soho in the rain
He was looking for a place called Lee Ho Fook’s
Gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein

Aaoooooo!
Werewolves of London!
Aaoooooo! (Repeat)

If you hear him howling around your kitchen door
Better not let him in
Little old lady got mutilated late last night
Werewolves of London again

Asoooooo!
Werewolves of London!
Aaoooooo! (Repeat)

He’s the hairy-handed gent who ran amuck in Kent
Lately he’s been overheard in Mayfair
Better stay away from him
He’ll rip your lungs out, Jim
I’d like to meet his tailor

Aaoooooo!
Werewolves of London!
Aaoooooo! (Repeat)

Well, I saw Lon Chaney walking with the Queen
Doing the Werewolves of London
I saw Lon Chaney, Jr. walking with the Queen
Doing the Werewolves of London
I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic’s
And his hair was perfect

Aaoooooo!
Werewolves of London!
Aaoooooo! (Repeat)
Draw blood…

Gregg Allman – These Days

Last week I had a UK-flavored week…this week I’m going to have a southern feel.

Right before recording the Allman’s Brothers and Sisters album…Gregg brought a song in for the Brothers and they rejected it because it didn’t fit as well with them. Gregg wanted to expand and use the folk and the California vibe that he had. He thought…I’ll just make my own album. The Allman Brothers fully supported him in this.

In the sixties, Gregg and Duane were in the band Hourglass… Gregg roomed with Jackson Browne for a while. Gregg has stated that he picked up a lot from Browne on songwriting.  They kept that relationship for the rest of their lives. Gregg did this song that was written by Browne. He slowed it down and added some more soul to it and Jackson ended up changing the way he did it to match this live. The song was the B side to the biggest hit on the album, Midnight Rider. Allman would continue to play this throughout his career.

Gregg Allman - Laid Back

This song was on Gregg’s first solo album Laid Back released in 1973. He recorded this album while recording the great Brothers and Sisters album with the Brothers. He was also battling addiction brought on by the loss of his brother Duane and the passing of bassist Berry Oakley.

The song has a history dating back to the 1960s. Nico of the Velvet Underground recorded it first in 1967. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band did it in 1968. According to Secondhandsongs the song has been covered 75 times!

Allman went on tour with Laid Back which included a string orchestra. The tour was a huge success and helped to chart the album at #13 on the Billboard Album Charts and #19 on the Canadian Charts.

Allman’s recording somewhat overshadowed Browne’s version and many have called Allman’s version the definitive version. Jackson Browne even alluded to that as well. Greg Allman and Jackson Browne covered it in 2014. Just my two cents…it’s hard to beat Allman’s voice and his soulful feel.

Jackson Browne: Gregg Allman was one of the most gifted singers of the last fifty years. We became friends in LA in the late sixties when he and Duane were in The Hourglass. He was a blues singer first, and he was so natural, and so soulful, that when he sang songs that were written in a major scale, he found all the most soulful and expressive passages through those changes. It was just how he heard it. That’s how it was with my song, These Days. He slowed it down, and felt it deeply, and he made that song twice as good as it was before he sang it. I got to speak with him in the week before he passed, and I got to tell him how much his music and his friendship has meant to me. He recently recorded one of my early songs, Song For Adam, and he and Don Was sent it to me to sing on, and I did. That song, the way he sang it and where he sang it from – at the end of his life – well, he completed that song, and gave it a resonance and a gravity that could only have been put there by him.

Jackson Browne Version

Allman and Browne…I kept the quick bio and interview with Don Was in at the beginning.

These Days

Well I’ve been out walkingI don’t do that much talking these daysThese days-These days I seem to think a lotAbout the things that I forgot to doAnd all the times I had the chance toI’ve stopped my ramblingI don’t do too much gambling these days, These days-These days I seem to think aboutHow all the changes came about my waysAnd I wonder if I’d see another highwayI had a loverI don’t think I’ll risk anotherThese days, these daysAnd if I seem to be afraidTo live the life that I have made in songIt’s just that I’ve been losing so longI’ve stopped my dreamingI won’t do too much schemingThese days, these daysThese days I sit on corner stonesAnd count the time in quarter tones to tenPlease don’t confront me with my failuresI had not forgotten them

…

Jackson Browne – Running On Empty

The album Running On Empty album was always very interesting to me. He basically made a new album in front of audiences and in hotels. The songs were not his old songs…they were songs he would have ordinarily gone into a studio with. This song was recorded at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland on August 27, 1977. It was the first live rock album with all new songs.

The album and song were about life on the road in all its glory and squalor. To emphasize this notion even further, Browne literally recorded the album on the road, in hotel rooms, on buses, and, in the case of “Running On Empty,” on stage.

The dates and ages given in the song (“In ‘65 I was seventeen” and “In ‘69 I was 21”) synch up with Jackson’s own timeline. He imagines a life spent running for so long that it becomes difficult to know where it all started or where it will end. He is not looking back in the song…he sings it in the present tense. He wrote about himself and where he was at in 1978.

In 1976 Browne had a terrible year. His wife, model Phyllis Major, had committed suicide, leaving Browne to raise their toddler son alone. The grief of her death permeated his fourth album, The Pretender. You can hear it in the single off of that album, “Here Come Those Tears Again,” co-written by Major’s mother, Nancy Farnsworth.

The song’s title track and opening cut blasted strong right out of the gate, landing on radio playlists across the country as the single soared up the charts. The single peaked at #11 on the Billboard 100 and #4 in Canada.

The album peaked at #3 on the Billboard Album Chart in 1978. and #8 in Canada (the best I can find) in 1978.

Jackson Browne: “I’ve always been real close with my crew, as a matter of fact, the guy who’s my manager now. Lines like, “The first to come and the last to leave,” come from him. His name’s Buddha. He’s a guy that you’d wind up spending an incredible amount of time with… people that you’d get to know because the closeness. These guys work really hard, and at least in those days they really did make practically the minimum wage.”

Running On Empty

Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels
Looking back at the years gone by like so many summer fields
In sixty five I was seventeen and running up 101
I don’t know where I’m running now, I’m just running on

Running on, running on empty
Running on, running blind
Running on, running into the sun
But I’m running behind

Gotta do what you can just to keep your love alive
Trying not to confuse it with what you do to survive
In sixty-nine I was twenty-one and I called the road my own
I don’t know when that road turned, into the road I’m on

Running on, running on empty
Running on, running blind
Running on, running into the sun
But I’m running behind

Everyone I know, everywhere I go
People need some reason to believe
I don’t know about anyone but me
If it takes all night, that’ll be all right
If I can get you to smile before I leave

Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels
I don’t know how to tell you all just how crazy this life feels
Look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through
Looking into their eyes I see them running too

Running on, running on empty
Running on, running blind
Running on, running into the sun
But I’m running behind

Honey you really tempt me
You know the way you look so kind
I’d love to stick around but I’m running behind
You know I don’t even know what I’m hoping to find
Running into the sun but I’m running behind

Max Picks …songs from 1978

1978

I remember this year well. The Dodgers repeated a World Series trip but also repeated losing to the Yankees.

Great song by The Who on their last album with Keith Moon. Keith was not in the best shape by this time but his drumming on this is still fantastic. The song is about real events that happened to Pete Townshend down to being passed out drunk at night and asking a policeman that knew Pete’s name, Who the F**k are you? You can still hear Daltrey sing the expletive on classic radio stations.

This one was always a favorite of mine of the Rolling Stones. Keith Richards wrote this, but a lot of the lyrics were improvised in the studio. While the band played, Jagger came in with different lines to fit the music.

This song is a good example of the Rolling Stones tapestry of guitars. Keith and Ron Wood weave their guitars in and out until the two guitars are almost indistinguishable from each other.

Warren Zevon was a very clever songwriter. He went were other songwriters don’t often go. This track was produced by Jackson Browne. The songwriters were LeRoy Marinell, Waddy Wachtel, and Warren Zevon. John McVie and Mick Fleetwood played on this song.

This song is one of the best pop singles of the 1970s. It was on the album City To City. This was Rafferty’s first release after the breakup of his former band Steeler’s Wheel. Gerry Rafferty had been unable to release any material due to disputes about the band’s remaining contractual recording obligations, and his friend’s Baker Street flat was a convenient place to stay as he tried to remove himself from his Stealers Wheel contracts. It was his second solo album, the first being Can I Have My Money Back? released in 1971.

The album and song were about life on the road in all its glory and squalor. To emphasize this notion even further, Jackson Browne literally recorded the album on the road, in hotel rooms, on buses, and, in the case of “Running On Empty,” on stage.

Warren Zevon – Poor Poor Pitiful Me

I love this song. Not many songs deal with a failed suicide, domestic abuse, and a brush with sadomasochism. I’m a huge Warren Zevon fan. His songs tend to be on the dark side…and anyone who has listened to Excitable Boy will testify to that.

When I heard Zevon’s version of this song for the first time I was sold. I first heard the Linda Ronstadt version and I loved it. I’m a Linda Ronstadt fan but something about Zevon’s version draws me in. It’s raw and crude and I love the way he sings it.

Zevon wrote and recorded the song and it appeared on his self-titled album in 1976. It became a hit when Linda Ronstadt covered it the next year. She cleaned up the song a little. Ronstadt’s cover was a cleaned-up version with the gender reversed. Still, her character fails at suicide, but the S&M (sadomasochism) references are gone.

Like other Zevon songs this is a pretty crude and risqué song. His character is such a disaster that he can’t even kill himself: he puts his head on the railroad tracks, but the train doesn’t run anymore.

I met a girl at the rainbow bar
She asked me if I’d beat her
She took me back to the hired house
I don’t wanna talk about it, hut

It’s thought that the song was a friendly swipe at Jackson Browne, whose songs such as “Here Come Those Tears Again” and “Sleep’s Dark and Silent Gate” from The Pretender could be quite dark. The album was produced by Jackson Browne and had backing vocals by Lindsey Buckingham.

Another hit cover version of the song was recorded by Canadian country singer Terri Clark in 1996. It peaked at #1 in the Canadian Country Charts and #5 in the Billboard Country Charts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TbfQPRgcS8

Poor Poor Pitiful Me

I lay my head on the railroad tracks
I’m waiting on the double E
The railroad don’t run no more
Poor poor pitiful me

Poor poor pitiful me and poor poor pitiful me
These young girls won’t let me be
Lord have mercy on me, woe is me

Well I met a girl in West Hollywood
Well I ain’t naming names
But she really worked me over good
She was just like Jesse James

She really worked me over good
She was a credit to her gender
She put me through some changes Lord
Sort of like a waring blender

Poor poor pitiful me, poor poor pitiful me
These young girls won’t let me be
Lord have mercy on me, woe is me

Poor poor pitiful me and poor poor pitiful me
Oh these girls won’t let me be
Lord have mercy on me, woe is me

I met a girl at the rainbow bar
She asked me if I’d beat her
She took me back to the hired house
I don’t wanna talk about it, hut

Poor poor pitiful me
Poor poor pitiful me
Hut, never mind
Poor poor pitiful me
Yeah poor poor pitiful me

Jackson Browne – Somebody’s Baby

I remember hearing this song on Fast Times at Ridgemont High. A good pop song by Jackson in 1982 and it peaked at #7 in the Billboard 100 and #16 in Canada in 1982. It was written by Jackson Browne and Danny Kortchmar.

This was his highest ever charting song.

Jackson Browne recorded the song for the film because he was friends with its writer, Cameron Crowe. The song’s co-writer Danny Kortchmar was also friends with Crowe, and was working on the song “Love Rules” for the film with Don Henley when he came up with the framework for “Somebody’s Baby.” Kortchmar convinced Browne to finish writing the song and record it for the movie.

Browne has called this an “unabashed pop song.” Most musicians would want their most popular songs on their albums, but Browne was OK having it on the Fast Times at Ridgemont High soundtrack, despite the advice of his former label boss David Geffen, who told him he was nuts for giving it up.

From Songfacts

This song is about a guy who is infatuated with a girl, and convinces himself that she must have a boyfriend. As he tries to work up the courage to talk to her, he keeps losing confidence by reminding himself that she’s too fine not to be taken.

This was part of a memorable scene in the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High, where it was used to express the feelings of a frustrated teenager. The movie was a huge hit and helped drive the chart success of the song. “Somebody’s Baby” was the only hit from the soundtrack, although “Moving In Stereo” by The Cars was used in a famous scene and also became associated with the film.

Jackson Browne wrote this song with Danny Kortchmar, who played guitar on his Running On Empty and Lives In The Balance albums. Kortchmar had the music and the “must be somebody’s baby” hook. He knew Browne could do something special with the song, so he brought what he had to Jackson, who helped Kortchmar complete it. That’s what I brought to him: all the guitar parts and everything else. In our 2013 interview, Kortchmar explained:

“It was not typical of what Jackson writes at all, that song. But because it was for this movie he changed his general approach and came up with this fantastic song. It’s a brilliant lyric. I think it’s absolutely wonderful. But it’s atypical of him – he wasn’t sure what to make of it himself. He didn’t want to put it on his album that he was making because it was atypical of what he did, but it ended up being something that got requested a lot and he ended up playing it live and taking it to his heart, as it were. And now he plays it all the time.”

Somebody’s Baby

Well, just, a look at that girl with the lights comin’ up in her eyes.
She’s got to be somebody’s baby.
She must be somebody’s baby.
All the guys on the corner stand back and let her walk on by.

She’s got to be somebody’s baby.
She must be somebody’s baby.
She’s got to be somebody’s baby.
She’s so fine.

She’s probably somebody’s only light.
Gonna shine tonight.
Yeah, she’s probably somebody’s baby, all right.

I heard her talkin’ with her friend when she thought nobody else was around.
She said she’s got to be somebody’s baby; she must be somebody’s baby.
Cause when the cars and the signs and the street lights light up the town,

She’s got to be somebody’s baby;
She must be somebody’s baby;
She’s got to be somebody’s baby.
She’s so

She’s gonna be somebody’s only light.
Gonna shine tonight.
Yeah, she’s gonna be somebody’s baby tonight.

I try to shut my eyes, but I can’t get her outta my sight.
I know I’m gonna know her, but I gotta get over my fright.
We’ll, I’m just gonna walk up to her.
I’m gonna talk to her tonight.

Yeah, she’s gonna be somebody’s only light.
Gonna shine tonight.
Yeah, she’s gonna be somebody’s baby tonight.
Gonna shine tonight, make her mine tonight.