Warren Zevon : Werewolves of London (Ah-hooo!)

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Nowadays I live a life of quiet rural seclusion in our cottage in the South Downs.

At night the only sounds are the nocturnal scurrying of woodland animals, the call of the Owls and the music of the swirling wind.

Ah but there was a time when I lived a world away from such bucolic charms.

For almost two decades I lived and worked in the heart of London.

The nocturnal choirs there were composed of police and ambulance sirens, the omnipresent roaring traffics boom and the relentless beat, beat, beat of youthful ambition.

Millions upon millions of dreams and desires, spoken and unspoken, melding and clashing twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.

And, dreams and desires are tales we tell to ourselves and the pursuit of those tales leads to public stories.

Heroic stories. Comic stories. Tragic stories.

Oh, I could tell you some stories.

Like the time, well refreshed, when I attempted to jump onto the open platform of the 159 Bus as it accelerated up Regent Street.

The Bus was travelling at about 30mph so I did well to time my approach run and very well to manage to grab the bar of the platform.

However, while it’s one thing to grab on to the bar it’s quite another to then hold on and pull yourself in to the Bus.

So, that’s how I became the first man to perform a triple Salchow Jump from a moving Bus onto tarmac and live! (though I did disrupt traffic and walk with a limp for several weeks after).

I had a number of unexpected encounters with The Metropolitan Police when I was, ‘Living  on the Frontline’.

Like the time I was walking home not on the well lit Main Street but by the route that skirted the Park as a short cut.

Suddenly, I found myself surrounded by dozens of Her Majesty’s Constabulary supported by some very vocal Dogs as a drugs raid was carried out on the Rastafarian Temple just around the corner from my flat.

They didn’t seem interested in my observation that Bob Marley had stayed there on his first visit to England!

Like the time I woke up intrigued by the unusually high volume of sirens in the night and an eerie red glow in the night sky.

This turned out to a serious riot in nearby Brixton.

I thought I might get a closer look by walking to the end of my road but found on opening my front door that the Police Control Line had been set up exactly there.

So, that was how I first met the Metropolitan Police Commissioner who wasted no words in ordering me to immediately return to my flat and on no account leave unless formally instructed to do so.

Stories. So many stories.

But I have to admit, though I like to think I tell a good story, that no story of mine can hope to match a London story that starts with these lines :

I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand
Walkin’ through the streets of SoHo in the rain

No, when it comes to London stories my favourite will always be, ‘Werewolves of London’ by the late, very great, Warren Zevon.

Ah-hooo, werewolves of London
Ah-hooo
Ah-hooo, werewolves of London
Ah-hooo

Warren Zevon was a complete, ‘One Off’ with a songwriting imagination that knew no bounds.

He had a blacker than black noir imagination so that many of his songs could double as screenplays for classic film noir movies.

I first saw Warren when he supported Jackson Browne and though I was a fan of JB it was Warren who I came out of the show madly enthusing about.

He was a highly charismatic performer who didn’t seem to be performing at all – just allowing the audience to spend some time interacting with his outrageous tales of love and loss and rage and bewilderment at the madness of life.

I saw and met some extraordinary characters during my time in the Big Smoke (one day I’ll tell you the story of how I won £50 from Peter O’Toole or the time Richard Harris threw a pint of Guinness all over me).

But, more’s the pity I never saw :

Lon Chaney walkin’ with the Queen
Doin’ the werewolves of London

 

Ah-hooo, werewolves of London
Ah-hooo
Ah-hooo, werewolves of London
Ah-hooo

Stories. So many stories.

Like the time I called in to one of the music pubs I frequented to find I was the only audience member prepared to pay to see an unknown pedal steel player called Sarah Jory.

Over a drink we agreed she would do the show and I would applaud wildly throughout.

Turned out she was excellent and my parting comment of ‘Stick with it – you never know where you’ll end up’ was proved more prescient than I had imagined when I saw her a few years later as part of Van Morrison’s Band at the grand old Albert Hall!

A great story needs a punchline that lodges permanently in the imagination and I know there is no song punchline anywhere to to top :

I saw a werewolf drinkin’ a piña colada at Trader Vic’s
His hair was perfect

 

From the first time I ever heard Werewolves of London it plays in my head as I walk through the Capital’s  storied streets.

Look – there’s where the great fire of London started.

Look – that’s where they publicly hung Perkin Warbeck!

Look – that’s the house that both Handel and Hendrix lived in!

Look – here we are in Mayfair; keep your eyes peeled for a hairy handed gent, you know the one who ran amok in Kent, because  given half a chance he’ll rip your lungs out Jim!

Ah-hooo, werewolves of London
Ah-hooo
Ah-hooo, werewolves of London
Ah-hooo

Yup, compare to Warren’s howling at the Moon wild werewolf imagination almost all songwriters are very domestic dogs indeed!

Ah-hooo, werewolves of London
Ah-hooo
Ah-hooo, werewolves of London
Ah-hooo

88 thoughts on “Warren Zevon : Werewolves of London (Ah-hooo!)”

  1. Like yourself Thom, I also first saw Warren that December in 1976, (both nights at London’s New Victoria Theatre) supporting Jackson Browne on “The Pretender” Tour, and again like yourself, was simply blown away by his performance, (although Jackson wasn’t too shabby either). I once heard Andy Kershaw describe Warren as “the Hunter Thompson of rock n’ roll”, and I couldn’t really argue with that.

    I’d only been aware of WZ for a short while at that time, and had recently picked up his first solo album, (if one discounts “The Wanted Dead Or Alive” record), on the back of hearing Linda Ronstadt’s version of “Hasten Down The Wind”, which had been released on her album of the same name, (which also included three songs from another at the time unknown songwriter to me, Karla Bonoff), back in May of that year, “Warren Zevon” not being issued until that August.

    Warren opened both nights with “Frank & Jessie James”, and played, (from memory), several songs from the first album, plus “Werewolves” and “Excitable Boy”, all solo on the piano, apart from I think, a couple of numbers when he was helped out by David Lindley on fiddle, (whose hair at the time was almost down to his waist!) and Jackson on harmony vocals. Can’t be too sure but I think one of those two songs was “Mohammed’s Radio”. He was positioned way off to the right of the stage, (almost hidden behind the side curtains) and wore the same grey jumper on both occasions, and I still remember him doing the “shaking hands” movement during “Desperados”.

    In the 43 odd years since, Warren has been an integral part of my life, musically, and I can only concur with Bruce Springsteen who said just a few days after his untimely death, “Warren was one of the great, great American songwriters”. I think he was also one of that very rare breed that just didn’t make bad albums, 11 studio records, plus a great collaboration with (three quarters) of R.E.M. and an outstanding live effort, all of which contain some magnificent songs.

    At a push I’d still say that first record takes some beating, but personally for me, “Excitable Boy” and “Mutineer” are both of an equal quality, others out there would have different favourites, such is the consistency of his work.

    I’d also concur with Steve Goldsmith, (a man who knows his music), regarding the sublime “Heartache’s Spoken Here” with Dwight Yoakam, (from the fabulous “Mr. Bad Example”, and Springsteen’s cover of “My Ride’s Here” is perhaps better even than the original, one of Bruce’s greatest ever efforts, and easily the strongest song on that “Eat A Sandwich” tribute. Finally, another nod to Dwight Yoakam for his simply staggering cover of “Carmelita”, one of Warren’s greatest of all songs, from the Flaco Jimenez “Partners” album from 1992.

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  3. I always wondered what was going on in the late ’70’s-early ’80’s that produced this song, and “American Werewolf in London,” I’m sorry Abbott & Costello, and Lon Chaney, Jr. weren’t still around to join in the fun. I really enjoyed your layered reminiscence of real history and Zevon’s whacked-out story

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