A cynical chronicler of paroxysmal neuroses and the grotesqueries of modern urban life, Warren Zevon introduced into the clichés of the singer-songwriter a desperado attitude from the Frontier. In doing so he indirectly recovered what is perhaps the authentic spirit of folk, much closer to the epic than to the elegiac. His “casual” and irreverent style aligns him with punk rockers (who emerged while he was recording his first album).

His cinematic ballads (highly dynamic, with actions described as they unfold), largely autobiographical, sing of the subconscious of the wild American male, as portrayed by Sam Peckinpah in cinema or in the hard-boiled thriller in literature.

Like many victims of “Dylanism” in his generation, in the mid-1960s Warren Zevon, son of Russian immigrants from Chicago, crossed the United States to starve in Greenwich Village. He returned two years later with four songs—two for his friends in the Turtles and two for himself. He shared a room with Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac. He had also recorded an album, Wanted Dead or Alive (Imperial, 1969), which went unnoticed. After meeting Kim Fowley and Jackson Browne in Los Angeles, and completing his apprenticeship with the Everly Brothers and Fleetwood Mac, in 1976 Zevon, now almost thirty, began his solo career with greater determination.

A nimble, sharp and forceful vignettist, his sound blends a bit of country-rock, fast blues, full-bodied soul and exotic spices. Moving between airy ballads and detonating rock, Zevon, over the course of four carefully calibrated albums released every two years, left a tangible mark on the ephemeral world of songwriters of the era: a long series of raw chronicles and bitter reflections on American life that modernize the “ballad” form both in rhythm (more aggressive) and in lyrics (urban), transferring Frontier iconography into the nightmarish world of the Cold War and the crisis of ideals.

The album Warren Zevon (Asylum, 1976), produced by Jackson Browne and featuring members of Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles, caused a sensation for its rebellious way of speeding up and electrifying the folk ballad. The lyrics are shouted over rhythms that explode into bursts of hard-rock guitar and boogie piano. From the epic, martial Frank And Jesse James, to the wild bluegrass/yodel Mama Couldn't Be Persuaded, from the explosive boogie Poor Poor Pitiful Me to the desperate invective of French Inhaler, from the hypnotic anthem I'll Sleep When I'm Dead to the desolate funk of Join Me In L.A., all the tracks are driven by an excessively electrified arrangement, far beyond folk-rock. His vocal delivery combines a tone of defiance with epic inflections (more akin to the choruses of Jefferson Airplane than to the baritone of the stereotypical singer-songwriter), as if to uphold the dignity of the outcasts he sings about. Equally noble is his piano style, much more classical than rock or folk, something halfway between the titanic attack of a symphonic concerto and the repertoire of showbiz effects from variety theater. Failed actors, addicts, Lolitas parade through the moral filth of Los Angeles, ending up, with their human despair, redeeming the sordid bourgeois lives of their executioners. Zevon’s most theatrical qualities emerge in the more intimate songs, where the driving rhythm gives way to more funereal atmospheres. The slow and solemn rhythm and blues Mohammed's Radio, the simple melody of Hasten Down the Wind, the dramatic, Latin-tinged Carmelita, and finally the terrible, threatening rhetorical emphasis of Desperado Under The Eaves, which blends Dylan-like sermons with Neil Young-like nightmares. sermoni di Dylan e gli incubi di Young.

Excitable Boy (1978) reiterates the same philosophy, but appears more episodic and less breathtaking. The typical marching crescendo attack launches Roland The Head Thompson Gunner, another epic celebration of the modern desperado meant to be listened to at attention. The picturesque and demagogic sarcasm of Werewolves Of London, still driven by a rolling piano cadence, is his playful Desolation Row. Lawyers Guns And Money, full of revolutionary fervor, is the most explosive track, with hard-rock riffs and handclaps, almost a war anthem (even though the story is a parody of guerrilla fighters). Around these three masterpieces Warren Zevon experiments with blues-rock in Johnny Strikes Up The Band, rhythm and blues in Excitable Boy, mariachi in Veracruz, and the comic Accidentally Like a Martyr. Perverts, mercenaries and terrorists are added to his Dantesque hell.

That frenzied, subversive and irreverent streak quickly subsided, perhaps also due to problems with alcohol and financial difficulties. Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School (1980) still contains the tragic Jeannie Needs A Shooter, the funk of Jungle Work, the wild Wild Age, the demagogic reggae of Gorilla You're A Desperado, and Play It All Night Long. But it is a bad sign that the single was a cover (Certain Girl).

Envoy (1982) was a bad idea: drowned in loud, noisy arrangements, it drained the songs of their vital fluids, leaving instead a mess of derivative sketches: the apocalyptic political sermon of The Envoy set to a martial rhythm, the frantic rock'n'roll of The Overdraft, the hard-rocking sound of Charlie's Medicine, the melancholy singalong Looking For The Next Big Thing, and the pounding Ain't That Pretty At All. Piercing guitars and thundering pianos are ubiquitous. The exceptions to the misguided rule of "louder is better" are The Hula Hula Boys, with pastoral flute, and the solemn Never Too Late For Love. Each song seems to echo a song from Zevon's first two albums, and a pale echo it is. And those who don't ape old songs are simply inane.

Zevon spent the following five years rehabilitating from alcohol addiction.

Backed by wPete Buck, Mike Mills and Bill Berry of REM, Zevon returned with Sentimental Hygiene (Virgin, 1987), a more original set of songs. The sound is still rocking and intense, but the beat has become almost a dancefloor beat. The classic Zevon-ian self-indictment of Sentimental Hygiene, the stratospheric blues of Boom Boom Mancini, the Bob Dylan-ian folk tirade of The Factory the neurotic syncopated vignette of Detox Mansion, the anthemic sitar-tinged Bad Karma (the closest number to Zevon's first album), are propelled by a turbo reactor. And when Zevon intones epic melodies over powerful bar-room bacchanals, as in Trouble Waiting To Happen and Even A Dog Can Shake Hands, he sounds like River-era Springsteen. The slow tender pop ballads Reconsider Me and The Heartache are hardly appropriate for a songwriter of his reputation, but the rest is prime Zevon.

The same line-up recorded also a collection of covers credited to the Hindu Love Gods (Giant, 1990).

Transverse City (Virgin, 1989) was finally an ambitious work worthy of his early albums. Inspired by Thomas Pynchon's surreal post-modern pastiches, and arranged in a futuristic vein, the album indulged in the harrowing visions Transverse City and Down In The Mall, as well the bleak ballads of Splendid Isolation and Nobody's In Love ThisYear.

Stand in the Fire (1981) and Learning to Flinch (Giant, 1993) are live albums. I'll Sleep When I'm Dead is a two-disc anthology.

Despite a few reasonable ballads (Mr Bad Example, Finishing Tuches, Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead, Searching for a Heart, Heartache Spoken Here), overall Mr Bad Example (Giant, 1991) is the first bad album that Zevon has made.

The home-made Mutineer (Giant, 1995) is similarly uninspired, and similarly rescued by a handful of simple tunes (Seminole Bingo, The Indifference Of Heaven, Piano Fighter, Monkey Wash Donkey Rinse, Mutineer).

Life'll Kill Ya (2000) is the best album of the last ten years, which is not necessarily a compliment. The rock'n'roll numbers (I Was In The House When The House Burned Down and Porcelain Monkey) are not ferocious, but radio-friendly. Zevon is serious in Fistful Of Rain, and ironic in My Shit's Fucked Up and For My Next Trick I'll Need A Volunteer, but neither mood has the depth of a philosopher.

His bitter, black humour finds a more corrosive avenue on My Ride's Here (2002), a meditation on death. Few songs stand out (Genius, the novelty Hit Somebody) but Zevon's carefree romp through metaphors of dying is harrowing. This is almost a spoof on goth (You're a Whole Different Person When You're Scared, I Have to Leave, My Ride's Here) if it weren't true life: Warren Zevon is terminally ill (lung cancer).

Warren Zevon died at 56 of lung cancer in 2003.

Judging from The Wind (Artemis, 2003), featuring cameos by Ry Cooder, Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Tom Petty, Dwight Yoakam, Emmylou Harris and others, Warren Zevon left this world without any major statement for humankind. In fact, most of the album is a retrospective, but cynical rather than nostalgic, view of life (Numb as a Statue, Disorder in the House, The Rest Of The Night, Dirty Life And Times) that doesn't quite sound like he's going to miss us humans. Only superficially haunted by intimations of mortality (particularly the spiritual-sounding Prison Grove), the ballads are dreadfully sincere (She's Too Good for Me, El Amor de Mi Vida,, Please Stay, Keep Me in Your Heart Awhile) but they don't beg for eternal life or divine forgiveness. The message seems to be "I have lived, I have sinned, and what will be will be".

Preludes (2007) compiles six unreleased songs and alternative versions of some of his classics.