He started his musical career in 1966, as half of lyme and cybelle, a folk duo he formed with Violet Santangelo. High school was uneventful, so much so that Zevon dropped out. He received formal training in classical piano, and in junior high school struck up acquaintances with Robert Craft, the veteran conductor and biographer, and the legendary Russian pianist Igor Stravinsky, who lived near Hollywood. ![]() He moved to Arizona and Los Angeles as a child with his family. 24, 1947 in Chicago, son of a Russian Jewish immigrant and a Scots-Welsh Mormon. his hair was perfect.”īut the pain of loss and the longing for human connection were evident in other songs that revealed a depth and complexity that contrasted with more offbeat compositions. Or they could be imaginary creations: a headless mercenary loose in Africa an excitable soul so enamored of pot roast he rubs it all over his chest or “a werewolf drinking a piòa colada at Trader Vic’s. They could be real-life cartoons like Bill Lee, the self-styled former Boston Red Sox pitcher. Zevon also betrayed a footloose imagination, his songs painted pictures of characters - characters in every sense of the word. I like to think I have some goodhearted romantic impulses now and then, but for the most part I write a different kind of song.” We live in a culture where violence is all around us and I found myself writing more songs about violence than romantic subjects. “Some of them are based on my upbringing and some are based on my reading habits. ![]() “Hemingway said all good stories ended in death, and I write songs about death and violence for some reason,” he told VH1 in an interview this year. Like many other successful rock acts, Zevon eventually adopted a logo: a skull adorned in sunglasses with a cigarette dangling from its mouth - a hipster update of an 1885 painting by Vincent van Gogh. Excess and dissolution were frequent topics in his lyrics songs from “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead,” a rousing anthem to the party life (from his breakthrough 1976 album) to “Werewolves of London,” a tongue-in-cheek horror story set to a jaunty melody (on “Excitable Boy,” 1978) revealed a fascination with the macabre.
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