Finally! I was able to score the rest of an album I already own in .mp3 format, so now I have been able to listen to the rest of Warren Zevon’s first come-back album, and man was it worth the effort, so let’s hurry up and talk about it before we all die, why don’t we?
After The Envoy, things seemed to be going poorly for Mr. Zevon. His label had dropped him, and for reasons known only to the man and left up to conjecture for the rest of us, he decided to, instead of coming out with any albums or anything, go on a 5 year drinking binge.
Ok, not really. He fell pretty hard into the drink, but fortunately, was able to pull himself together enough to check into rehab, kick the booze, form a band with R.E.M. for a while, and then make his comeback as a cleaned-up, sober, and newly-signed to Virgin Records Warren Zevon, a Warren Zevon that, thankfully, had not scrubbed himself clean of his amazing sardonic wit and ability to portray himself as music’s most beloved bad guy (or is that most-hated good guy?)
One aspect of Sentimental Hygiene that can maybe be taken a cue to other aspects of Warren’s life is that, when he comes back from a time of adversity, he makes no apology about it in the music. Sure, he’ll subtly reference things that are going on, but in listening to Sentimental Hygiene, you’d never think for a moment that the album was born out of a career nose-dive, nightmare spiral into drugs and alcohol, and an ultimate rebirth of one of music’s greatest music guys. Nope, it just seems to be the next step (a fairly big one though, mind you) in quality and content from The Envoy. The sound, assisted by R.E.M., who are apparently harder to get rid of than… nevermind where I was going with that… is definitively 80′s. I can’t, in all good conscience, knock that at all, by 1987 there were precious few musical acts in existence that didn’t sound like the 80′s.
The first song, Sentimental Hygiene, demonstrates a couple of facets of the new Warren and how his sound would pan out for this, his “middle” period. One facet is that cheesy synthesizers can actually sound good sometimes, at least I’m not finding a problem here with the main melody being played on one of those fake-string Casio things. The other facet is that Warren utilizes guest stars, no matter how super-huge they are, as if they were just session musicians. An example: the guy playing that super-cool guitar solo half-way through this song? Neil Young. It’s not even that long of a solo, it’s just really good and then it just kind of hides in the background somewhere. Yet another facet that this song demonstrates is Warren’s ability to play off 5 years of stasis in a simple, yet subtle way:
Every day I get up in the morning and go to work
And do my job, whatever
I need some Sentimental Hygiene
And that’s it, he’s back to work, only now it’s the 80′s and so things are going to sound a little different. I think it stands, however, as the ultimate testament to Warren’s songwriting ability that, despite this album sounding 80′s, the songs are so good that only an idiot would care about the extra synthesizers and reverb’d stadium drums.
In fact, Warren seemed to cleverly play off these clever textures. In the second song, “Boom Boom Mancini”, written for the famous boxer who holds the distinction of once more-or-less killing a man in the ring, is a rocking, kind of droning song that utilizes one of the heaviest kick drums I’ve heard, so that each beat sounds like being punched through your headphones. The song is fantastic, since it’s a true story of a world championship boxer, and you may or may not pick up on the sense that the song is about a champion who is more or less making a comeback after some very difficult circumstances… quite clever.
The third song is “The Factory”, and this song is crazy for a couple of reasons. For one, it’s really a good song about being a blue collar factory worker trying to feed one’s family, and there’s a line in it about “kicking asbestos”, and who would ever think that one of the only songwriters to actually utilize asbestos in his songwriting would ultimately die from the stuff? I’m getting way ahead of myself here, but I thought I’d mention it. The other interesting thing about this song is that there’s a recognizable plucky harmonica solo in the song, played by… who else? Bob Dylan. This album is bananas!
One of my absolute favorite songs on this album is “Trouble Waiting To Happen”, one of Zevon’s trademark songs about the troubled life he likes to sing about. The opening lines are just gold:
I woke up this morning and fell out of bed
Trouble waiting to happen
Should’ve quit while I was ahead
Trouble waiting to happen
I turned on the news to the Third World War
Opened up the paper to World War IV
Just when I thought it was safe to be bored
Trouble waiting to happen
Brilliant stuff, I especially love the World Wars happening before can get from the television to the paper. Oh, but he’s not done yet:
The mailman brought me the Rolling Stone
Trouble waiting to happen
It said I was living at home alone
Trouble waiting to happen
I read things I didn’t know I’d done
It sounded like a lot of fun
I guess I’ve been bad or something
Trouble waiting to happen
That’s a fairly brilliant piece on its own, but it subtly seems to reference the infamous story of Zevon finding out about being dropped from Asylum Records in an issue of Rolling Stone. Here, of course, he has elevated it to the misunderstandings about his life that seem to go along with the “bad boys” of entertainment, of which he was one of the best.
A minor chord and very 80′s-sounding acoustic guitar open up the first of the “love” songs on the album, “Reconsider Me”, which is kind of a different spin on the usual “love lost” theme that Warren takes on for his albums. In fact, the song is a request for a second shot, and the text of the song seems pretty heart-felt and genuine! What? There’s really not a shot of humor to be found in the song, it’s just a genuine plea, but it’s still really well-written, in fact it’s one of his most popular love songs, if my sources are to be believed. Of course, this song may also be the most obvious-subtle references to the man’s comeback, asking fans to reconsider him, but that’s only here-say.
The album goes right back into rocking with “Detox Mansion”, which has a wonderful beat and some stunning guitar solos all throughout. The song is less about Warren’s actual detox, and more about the way celebrities are perceived, especially in the face of substance abuse and the inevitable rehab trip. So, in a way, just by its existence, it reminds the listener of Warren’s own detox, but you’d never know if all you did was listen to the song, which you should anyway.
“Bad Karma”, featuring R.E.M.’s own Michael Stipe on backup vocals, almost sounds like an R.E.M. song, but I don’t really listen to them so I can’t say for sure. The song’s got a cool sitar sound, which is interesting considering the song doesn’t sound at all like it should have a sitar.
“Even A Dog Can Shake Hands” is a nice scathing commentary on the slick world of record contracts, networking, business, all that disgusting stuff. It’s all put to a nice upbeat tune though, so it’s all good stuff.
We then come upon the second “love lost” song of the album, “The Heartache”, which brings us back down from where “Reconsider Me” had given us hope:
Shadows falling in the noonday sun
Blue feeling to the maximum
Look what happens when you love someone
And they don’t love you
The heartache
The risk you run
The chance you take
When you love someone
Man, I hear ya, dude. This song has a kind of strange keyboard solo in it, but is otherwise kind of standard love song material. This may put you in a mood for ending the album on a kind of bland note, but good luck with that given the next song.
That’s right, Warren Zevon brings us synth-heavy funk, with keyboards provided by Parliament Funkadelic then-keyboardist Amp Fiddler. The song is largely political, with a very “Freedom For Africa” vibe all across. George Clinton himself is on this track, I believe on background vocals, if Wikipedia and this video are to be believed. Wow that’s a ridiculous video, oh well.
So that is Sentimental Hygiene, one of the better “comeback” albums I’ve heard, though the best is still yet to come. I already wrote about Transverse City, so you’re going to have to work on getting over that while I prepare to write about the album after that. Until then, friends, leave my monkey alone!
Filed under: Albums Tagged: | 1987, 80's, Warren Zevon
Have yet to hear the album, but Zevon and REM seems like an odd mix, since Zevon does a lot with words, and Stipe didn’t know how to pronounce words until the ’90s.
I say that as a fan of both.
Ha ha I love that description of Stipe. Indeed, I always liked R.E.M.’s musical ability but never actually liked any of the songs I heard or Michael Stipe’s singing. The combination of their skills in this album (past about the 3rd track or so) and Zevon’s songwriting is pretty damn great. I recommend this one, if you can find it!