As a longtime appreciator of Warren’s unique sense of humor, Browne loved it. Although it had been the plan to use Warren’s first album as a showcase for the more serious side of his songbook, Browne nonetheless recorded a version during those sessions. Like the early cut of “Werewolves of London,” the song was ultimately shelved for Warren Zevon’s follow-up. It was now decided that “Excitable Boy” would pair nicely with this album’s edgier humor and darker themes. The title also worked well for the album itself, introducing the darkly playful side of Warren it was meant to represent.
For the definitive studio recording, Warren used the core lineup from “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner,” with a few additions to match his updated arrangement. Jim Horn was brought in to provide the song’s R&B-infused saxophone break, while Linda Ronstadt and Jennifer Warnes provided the retro “girl group” backing vocals.
“Accidentally Like a Martyr” was a composite based on an older sketch Warren had been noodling with for years, coupled with additions reflecting the tumultuousness within his marriage. Dating back to the Rhys sessions, the song had started as an up-tempo pop number entitled “Why’d I Let You Get to Me Again.” Warren had since renamed the song and slowed its pacing, transforming it into a proper ballad. It also featured some of his most emotional and reflective writing since “Hasten Down the Wind.” For the studio session, Warren now used the same lineup as “Johnny Strikes Up the Band,” inviting Karla Bonoff to provide the additional backing vocals.
Although recorded on separate dates and featuring different session players, both the songs Warren had written with Jorge Calderón were aligned consecutively on the album. The first, “Nighttime in the Switching Yard” was the disco song that the duo had penned to balance out the seriousness of “Veracruz” and its anti-imperialist social commentary. Once the two friends were satisfied in their collaboration—teaming up on a layered historical ballad with both lyrical and compositional complexity had been no easy task—offering up a radio-friendly disco track to the label seemed like a bargaining chip to guarantee “Veracruz”’ for inclusion on the final release. And despite Warren’s preference for penning more cerebral and literate fare, adding a funky song with a danceable vibe to his repertoire was a sure-fire way to get audiences on their feet during live performances.
While Warren and Calderón had been discussing possible material for their follow-up to “Veracruz,” Warren shared with him some of ex-mercenary David Lindell’s stories about the railroad switching yards and the men responsible for manually changing the tracks for each passing train. Over dinner with Calderón and Wachtel weeks before, Warren had explained his idea of using Lindell’s stories as a starting point for a new song. Intrigued by the image of a mysterious track operator, alone at night with his trains, the three immediately began work on the track. Since disco was still a huge craze, the group jammed out by making Warren’s concept as funky as possible. Calderón, who was not only a songwriter but a gifted percussionist, had suggested the syncopated a cappella sections to stand in for a proper chorus. When the session date for “Nighttime in the Switching Yard” finally arrived, Bob Glaub returned on bass and Danny Kortchmar accompanied Wachtel on second guitar; renowned drummer Jeff Porcaro came in for the track, only a few months away from establishing his own band, Toto.
As one of the last songs left to record, “Veracruz” featured an almost entirely different lineup from the sessions up to that point. Kenny Edwards provided bass and Rick Marotta, who would go on to form the band Ronin with Wachtel the following year, stepped in on drums. In order to capture the cultural flavor of the song, Warren included additional instruments into the composition: Jim Horn traded in his saxophone for the nostalgic tone of the recorder, while a Mexican harp, or jarana, and requinto guitar were added to flesh out the song’s final, heartbreaking sound.
Two additional songs had been cut in demo form, but ultimately shelved: a maudlin ballad entitled “Frozen Notes” and “Tule’s Blues,” which Warren had already recorded in an earlier form for Wanted Dead or Alive. Although the songs had been slated to appear on Excitable Boy, both producers Browne and Wachtel were unsure of their inclusion—especially Wachtel, who hated both.
Everyone was exhausted when the Excitable Boy sessions wrapped. Warren and Browne were particularly ready and willing to consider the album complete. When Wachtel returned to the studio one night, Browne informed him that he and Warren were about to hold an impromptu “listening party,” and had invited friends and family to hear Excitable Boy in its entirety. Once the guests arrived, Wachtel was immediately aghast. He watched as a small gathering shifted and yawned, fighting their boredom and indifference to the tracks. Once the final song had faded out, he checked his watch to find that the album was only twenty-four minutes from start to finish—barely long enough to qualify as a releasable LP. Furious, Wachtel grabbed both of his cohorts and dragged them back into the studio.
“I took Warren and Jackson and I told them we didn’t have a finished album,” Wachtel remembered. “There were two songs that I took off, ‘Tule’s Blues’ and another one called ‘Frozen Notes,’ and I said, ‘I’m sorry, guys, but neither of these songs fit on the record.’ It wasn’t that I didn’t like them—I mean, we worked them and [Don] Henley did a beautiful harmony on ‘Frozen Notes’—but, honestly, those two tracks dragged it all down. Jackson was surprised and said, ‘What are you talking about, we have an album right here,’ and I had to be honest. I said, ‘You’re fucking crazy.’ And I had no problem telling Warren, they were ‘duds’ in the context of closing the album’s second side. People at this party of theirs were on the phone, walking around, yawning.” According to Wachtel, he pulled the two men aside and made them peek into the living room to see the apparent boredom around the room. “I said to them, ‘You believe me now? You see what’s fucking happening in there? We don’t have an album yet.’”
Wachtel gave Warren an ultimatum. He was booked to tour with Linda Ronstadt for the next three weeks and when he returned, he demanded two new songs written—both matching what he considered to be the same quality of the other material. Worn out from the pressures of meeting the Excitable Boy deadline, Warren begrudgingly agreed. As Wachtel recalled, “He just lowered his head and said, ‘Alright, alright—fucking asshole, alright.’ But that was us.”
Initially, it had been Excitable Boy’s looming session dates that pushed Warren’s recent openness toward collaborative writing. Regardless of its necessity, the process had yielded incredible results. Working alongside Jorge Calderón hadn’t merely gotten Warren out of a creative jam; writing “Veracruz” together had been a productive and meaningful experience for both. It had proven that with the right partner, Warren’s writing could expand in genre and instrumentation even further, sparking even more creative possibilities. With only mere weeks until Wachtel’s return, he decided to team up with Browne to finish the album once and for all.
Although Warren’s drinking hadn’t curbed during the production of Excitable Boy, the daily creative regimen of the studio had kept the depression and self-doubt at bay. However, facing the new frustrations that yet another deadline presented, Warren’s default creative process quickly led back into dangerous territory.
Only a few nights after the studio altercation with Wachtel, Browne received a frantic phone call from Crystal. Warren was on a drunken rampage. In fear—and at her wit’s end—she pleaded for Browne’s help. He immediately sped to their home in Los Feliz and spent hours calming Warren down. He later recalled, “I went over to his house because a bannister had been ripped off the wall. It was late when I got there, one or two in the morning, and he had no memory of doing this.”
Getting creative in his effort to keep the peace, Browne suggested the best therapy he knew—working on their song. The two wrote into the late hours of the night, still drinking, but now with an air of creative camaraderie. “We sat down and started this song,” Browne recalled. “I might have written the first two [l
ines]. Then I went down. When I woke up, it was a song. I don’t know what the arc of his waking and sleeping was, but when I came up, it was done.” To his astonishment, Warren—even in an inebriated state—had written a gorgeous and heartfelt song for Ariel.
“Tenderness on the Block” was the first true set of lyrics that Warren had penned for his infant daughter, writing from his own perspective as a proud father: possessing the knowledge that this new life will soon grow up to face the excitement and romance of becoming an adult, and the bittersweet frustrations that a parent faces in having to sit back and watch it occur. Rather than perform the gentle lyrics as a ballad, Warren composed a distinctive repeated piano lick throughout the chord progression, the playful light-rock vibe that was just what the album needed—and Wachtel expected.
Perhaps as a young single father himself, and with his position as Ariel’s own godfather, Browne always deemed “Tenderness on the Block” among his personal favorites of Warren’s songs.
There was still the matter of Warren’s behavior, however. The cathartic creation of “Tenderness on the Block” had successfully brought him back down to earth during a particularly erratic, alcohol-infused episode, but Warren had apparently learned little from that night’s drama. Having written the song following a period of blackout drunkenness, Warren had already forgotten the destruction he had inflicted upon the house. Much like Crystal’s black eye of the previous year, Warren couldn’t accept accountability for damages done.
Browne took the initiative in seeking more help, this time calling Elektra/Asylum head Joe Smith, who had replaced David Geffen in a bizarre turn of events that had seen Geffen temporarily retire during a highly publicized cancer scare. (Geffen was now vice chairman of Warner Bros.) Without emphasizing the gory details, Browne explained to Smith that Warren was burned-out from the stress of completing Excitable Boy and needed some time off to ponder the album’s final cut. Sympathetic, Smith contacted the label’s go-to A&R (artists & repertoire) man, Burt Stein, and asked the charismatic representative to accompany Warren on a brief retreat to Hawaii. With no time to lose, they left right away. While there, they got into a mess with a local waitress who coerced them into “visiting” a local friend—unaware that they were aiding her in breaking and entering. Warren wrote the song that night on a wet cocktail napkin. “Lawyers, Guns and Money” would become one of Warren’s best-known songs and, much to his delight, the one most quoted by political commentators when analyzing foreign policy.
Wachtel called Warren as soon as he returned from his tour with Linda Ronstadt. “How’d we do?” he asked.
“I got ’em,” Warren said.
Wachtel was rightly pleased with the material awaiting him. “Tenderness on the Block” was a lighthearted rocker, but a rocker nonetheless, with plenty of sonic meat for the ace guitarist to sink his teeth into. Additionally, the signature piano refrain provided a perfect counterpoint to Wachtel’s incorporated licks. To Wachtel, this was “as good as it gets.” He recalled, “We were all over the moon with that one—it had these little bits of classical, all with rock and roll.” And “Lawyers, Guns and Money” not only offered up Warren’s signature humor in its adventurous, yet self-deprecating, desperation, but it’s hard-rock power chord structure drove the album to its thundering conclusion. Wachtel later recalled, “He wrote two incredible songs.”
In order to get Excitable Boy completed in time for its January release, the three immediately headed back to the Sound Factory. In the whirlwind sessions for both tracks, they used the crew from “Nighttime in the Switching Yard,” Kenny Edwards and Rick Marotta, on bass and drums, respectively.
With all players and crew satisfied, Excitable Boy was finally wrapped.
As had been the case with Warren Zevon two years earlier, everyone was proud of the work, yet admittedly eager to move on. Wachtel had more gig offers than he could list—not only as a session man, but for various tours and further producing work—and Browne had all but washed his hands of having to guide Warren around professionally. It was uncertain if Excitable Boy would finally garner Warren the mainstream listeners Elektra/Asylum was hoping for, which would also dictate any preliminary plans for a promotional tour and potential third album. Regardless of the outcome, Browne had the postproduction of his new album to complete and a career to focus on. Warren had the tools to keep his career running; the ball was in his court.
For the cover of Warren Zevon, Wachtel’s older brother, Jimmy, had acted as photographer and graphic designer, providing an iconic shot of a very dapper-looking Warren on the outside steps of the Palladium during that year’s Grammy Awards. With the atmospheric tones of the spotlights in the background, the image had been a perfect fit for the new LP. Adding a tongue-in-cheek nod is the fact Warren hadn’t even been invited to the awards ceremony he stood beside.
Jimmy Wachtel returned to design Excitable Boy. This time, however, Warren wanted to get even more conceptual. Although the primary photo shoot for the cover had yielded strong traditional headshots of Warren against a vibrant red background, at his insistence, Wachtel added multiple layers of retouches to Warren’s face, making the singer appear as much as the titular “boy” as possible. The results presented Warren as a sort of mischievous bookworm, perversely innocent and cherubic given the thematic contents of the songs—particularly the album’s title track.
To further the design’s ironic motif, Crystal arranged the inner sleeve’s design photograph: a plate of home-cooked side-dishes—potatoes, carrots, peas, and garnish—with a .44 Magnum hand cannon in place of Warren’s beloved pot roast. She called the conceptual piece, “Willy on the Plate.” Warren loved it.
That week, Warren made Howard Burke’s wife and personal assistant, Claudia, drive him to a local gun shop. He had to have one for his home arsenal.
As a collective, Warren, Browne, and Wachtel were all shocked when the label executives announced their intentions for the album’s marketing campaign. While the team had successfully delivered the goods in time for a January 18, 1978, release, the three were furious when “Werewolves of London” was picked as the flagship single.
Wachtel recalled, “When they picked ‘Werewolves’ we were aghast—we were spitting and cursing, you know, ‘What the fuck? “Werewolves”? Is that really what they want to hear?’ I mean, we wrote it in like ten minutes on the run.”
Warren and company hadn’t agreed with Elektra/Asylum’s choice for the first single, but the optimism for the album was apparent: in a push for major exposure, they planned to release five singles—a generous amount given the LP consisted of only nine songs.
Joining “Werewolves of London” as radio edits were “Johnny Strikes Up the Band” and “Excitable Boy,” followed by “Nighttime in the Switching Yard” and “Lawyers, Guns and Money.” As the label had anticipated, “Werewolves” proved the track with the most staying power, hitting 21 on Billboard. Excitable Boy itself proved a solid hit; on May 13, it cracked the Top 10 at a respectable Number 8. By April, the album was certified gold.
As had been the case with Warren Zevon, critics loved Warren’s second effort, widely acknowledging his evolving presence as more than merely the songwriter of other artists’ hits.
“The further these songs get from Ronstadtland, the more I like them,” wrote Greil Marcus in The Village Voice, being one of many renowned cultural critics who continued to take Warren seriously as an artist. “The four that exorcise male psychoses by mock celebration are positively addictive, the two uncomplicated rockers do the job, and two of the purely ‘serious’ songs get by. But no one has yet been able to explain to me what ‘accidentally like a martyr’ might mean.”
Barbara Charone of Sounds agreed with the addictive nature of Warren’s harder-rocking efforts, writing, “Undoubtedly, Excitable Boy is one of the finest albums to emerge since Warren Zevon’s first album surfaced over a year ago. It transcends California and all its smugness, America, the universe and punk rock too. In a word; it’s brilli
ant.”
Most critics were enthusiastic in the darkly humorous turn Warren’s writing had taken with the new effort, and assured legitimization of Jackson Browne’s intuition to save the fun stuff for the second album. Now that Warren’s writing talents had been confirmed, there was an openness from critics and fans alike to see his more mischievous, and wilder, side.
“On the inner sleeve of Warren Zevon’s Excitable Boy album is a picture of a .44 caliber revolver, and this foreshadows the performance by Zevon as he blows the audience away,” wrote Chip Engemoen. “The lyrics from many of Zevon’s songs conjure up images of Clint Eastwood meeting the Texas Chainsaw Murderer, but the music is incredibly fine in Zevon’s piano-based rock. The lyrics are clever and the violence in them is tongue-in-cheek, reminding one of Monty Python.”
Billboard, on the other hand, zeroed in on the more serious nature of Warren’s ballads and more autobiographical tracks. “Zevon’s second album proves to be a more balanced and cohesive set of true-to-life tales of day to day living,” claimed its review. “His lyrics, no matter how morose and down, nevertheless reflect reality and the sad but true deficiencies in the human condition. Zevon’s first album was critically acclaimed and this follow-up should add further credibility to the artist’s songwriting ability.”
During interviews, Warren made a habit of name-dropping his major literary influences and taking on a serious, theory-driven voice when speaking about his writing. The apparent dichotomy of a scholarly intellectual in whose chest beat a rock-and-roll heart soon crafted an undeniable mystique. It seemed to bring out the literary best in the major cultural critics who profiled him, many of whom were as excited by his approach to a “thinking-man’s rock and roll” as they were confused by his conflicted personal nature.
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