In terms of a baseball motif, Warren’s portrait of Lee certainly was not “Casey at the Bat,” or any other traditional representation of America’s Pastime. With only the most fleeting mention of the sport itself, the song’s true subject became Lee himself: a character study weighing the burden of individualism and the stigma of displaying an outspoken progressive attitude. In the post-Watergate era, Lee’s rebelliousness, while actively excelling within one of the country’s most wholesome and enduring symbols of its own identity, resonated with his generation. The baseball commissioner was the principal and Lee was the class clown who had been sent to his office. Warren could relate. And in the same way that Jackson Browne’s romanticism provided a wistful voice to the spirit of disillusioned idealism felt by the maturing flower children, so Lee spoke as the snarkiest and most angst-ridden alter ego of that same spirit. Warren could relate to that, as well. Like Warren, Lee was another Offender, with a capital “O.”
During Warren’s intervention, Paul Nelson had admitted his own concerns that Warren could come to a tragic end, not unlike the protagonist of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic “The Crack-Up.” While autobiographical self-reflection pervades even the most seemingly unrelated material on Bad Luck Streak, Warren’s playful “Gorilla, You’re a Desperado” is as close to directly addressing Nelson’s fears as Warren would get—albeit in a very humorous style. Here, the song’s narrator visits the Los Angeles Zoo only to switch places with the gorilla of the song’s title, providing a list of advice to aid the simian in adjusting to human society. Handing the ape the keys to his BMW and apologizing for the poor state of his apartment, the narrator provides sad updates on the gorilla’s progress: following a divorce, our beloved ape suffered an apparent midlife crisis, taking up racquetball, jogging, seeing a therapist, and moving into a bachelor pad at the luxurious L’Ermitage hotel in Beverly Hills.
Presumably, our human narrator remains quite comfortable in his cage at the zoo; his animal counterpart, on the other hand, grows accustomed to life wearing a “platinum chain” of materialism and leisure for which he had traded his own primal nature. Ironically, Warren would flip the symbolic images of a humanized simian trading his freedom for the soft comforts of bourgeoisie living in exchange for a worthless trinket in another of his later songs: the second of two homages to Elvis Presley, “Porcelain Monkey.” There, Warren and co-writer Jorge Calderón worked together on a stinging commentary of fame—“from the glitter to the gloom”—by way of the many worthless antiques and unnecessary luxuries the King had amassed during his twilight years within Graceland.
By the time the album’s recording sessions were winding down, Warren and actress Kim Lankford had become a solid couple. For months, she had been dividing her time between the long hours on set for her hit television series Knots Landing and keeping Warren company at the Sound Factory. One episode had required exterior shots at the LA Zoo and, between takes, Lankford dropped a few coins into a souvenir “Vac-u-form” arcade machine, purchasing Warren a miniature statue of an angry gorilla. When she presented the gift to him later that night, Warren found the gesture so amusing he gave it a place of honor atop his Yamaha grand piano. Not to be outdone, George Gruel soldered custom spectacles for the toy, completing the gorilla’s full “Warren look”—and inspiring the song’s opening line. It also inspired the trio’s daytrip to the zoo soon after. There, Warren saw that the real-life monkey cages had been adorned with a brass plaque created by none other than Hollywood legend Lee Marvin, another of Warren’s favorites. In rather cheeky fashion, the actor had made the generous donation in his ex-wife’s name, further adding to Warren’s playful gorilla song narrative.
The up-tempo, near-calypso vibe of “Gorilla, You’re a Desperado” was further enhanced by the all-star guest appearances that accompanied the standing core of Warren on synthesizer, Marotta and Sklar. Aside from J. D. Souther and Jackson Browne’s guest harmonies—and Browne’s memorable slide guitar work—the song holds the distinction of marking the fourth appearance by an Eagles member on the album. As Don Felder, Glenn Frey, and Joe Walsh had all contributed to previous songs, so Don Henley now came aboard to provide backup vocals to a loving parody of his own song, “Desperado.”
Warren later remembered what a good sport Henley had been, willingly replicating the refrain of his own 1973 hit. “To their credit,” he said, “when the Eagles came in to sing backup, they asked me if I wanted them to make fun of themselves; I said, “No, no, just sing like you do.’”
According to George Gruel, in many ways, the Eagles’ participation—particularly Henley’s playful cameo—was like a reaffirmation of Warren’s reputation among his peers. “He had amazing musicians playing on his records because he was so respected as a songwriter,” remembered Gruel. “How many times have Don Henley and Glenn Frey sung backgrounds on someone else’s song? And on Warren’s ‘Gorilla, You’re a Desperado,’ they actually sing the word ‘desperado’ just like they did on their [own song].”
Bringing the pace back down following the gorilla’s adventures, Warren followed the track with his first songwriting collaboration with longtime friend and musician-cum-legendary-producer T Bone Burnett. “Bed of Coals” was a soft piano-based ballad—played with the tone of a gospel hymn, the song was compositionally reminiscent of the spiritual weariness Warren had previously expressed in “Mohammed’s Radio.” Here, he again avoided the direct references to his own ongoing personal turmoil yet offered his most vulnerable observation: “I’m too old to die young, and too young to die now.” The striking declaration spoke volumes of Warren’s own concerns and regrets regarding the addictions that had slowly driven so many of his loved ones away.
Warren’s self-revelation also related to the growing number of personal heroes and musical influences he had watched living fast, dying young, and leaving behind the proverbial attractive corpse. When David Letterman humorously observed that Warren’s intake of “a couple of quarts of vodka a day” demonstrated “the resiliency of the human system,” Warren couldn’t argue; on that theme, he followed up with Letterman many years later, memorably adding, “I got to be Jim Morrison a lot longer than he did.” The veiled form of survivors’ guilt echoed in “Bed of Coals” surely struck a chord with many of his rock-and-roll peers: the hard-partying bad boys who, by now, were well past the age of thirty—many of whom were well represented in the roster of all-star cameos throughout the entire album. On the recording, Warren’s consistent lineup was joined by J. D. Souther on supportive vocals and Ben Keith who, in his only album appearance, filled in for David Lindley with soulful, appropriately twangy pedal steel guitar.
It is perhaps with Warren’s own rebelliousness in mind that Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School closes with a rousing celebration of that very same youthful spirit—the one that directly inspired both his romantic restlessness and romanticized recklessness. The joyous perspective with which Warren unabashedly presents irresponsible wanderlust in “Wild Age” worked as ironic bookend for Bad Luck Streak, contradicting the desperate mantra of its opening title track—“I swear to God I’ll change”—with the wide-eyed stubbornness of its own promise: “Well they tried so hard to hold him / Heaven knows how hard they tried / But he’s made up his mind / he’s the restless kind.”
On the recording, the romantic “bad boy” declaration is made even more sincere as, coupled with David Lindley’s guest lead guitar, both Glenn Frey and Don Henley joined Warren as his backup vocals—a harmony of generational voices singing a pact to remain young, and reckless, at heart.
The momentum of Excitable Boy had, for better or worse, solidified Warren’s persona as the mischievous intellectual, the two-fisted troubadour who drank like Hemingway, wrote like Raymond Chandler, and could rock like Bowie. He would take the stage in a three-piece Armani suit, yet be shirtless and soaked by the final encore. The design and marketing for the highly anticipated Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School would reflect each of his signature eccentricities—guara
nteed by the return of Jimmy Wachtel.
For the album cover, Wachtel’s conception played perfectly into Warren’s original intention to push for a music video of the title song: like the two Elektra/Asylum releases before it, Warren is decked in an expensive suit, now surrounded by a bevy of young ballerinas in various poses of stretching and warm-up exercises. As desired, the iconic final image succinctly hit the most important elements in representing the facets of its complex artist, especially his humor: a literal translation of the album’s title, taking place in a genuine dancing academy, and with Warren the centerpiece, à la Sean Connery as 007 surrounded by beautiful women in the classic movie posters. Adhering to Warren’s mandatory ironic twist, the “bad luck streak” is seen in the women’s indifference to his presence.
Wachtel had arranged for the photo shoot to take place in the early morning at a willing Pasadena ballet school. The exhausted look on Warren’s face in the final images were not the product of method acting, as George Gruel later remembered: “Warren and I had been up all night, not certain why, we just were. Jimmy Wachtel did a wonderful job… the dancers were fantastic. It was a fun time, too.” As a professional photographer himself, Gruel used many of the photo opportunities to take his own shots, many of which proved strong enough in quality to be used in later tour marketing and merchandise. He later recalled how fortunate he’d been to be surrounded by like-minded creative types who let him grab the best candid shots of Warren behind the scenes. During the cover shoot for Bad Luck Streak, Gruel captured nearly as many iconic moments as Wachtel, furthering their own mutual admiration. “While Jimmy was shooting, I was too,” remembered Gruel. “Some photographers freak when another photographer is shadowing them on their shoot, not Jimmy. He’s a true gentleman and artist.”
Wachtel’s greatest attributes were truly put to the test, however, when it came to the album’s back cover. Like the famed inner sleeve for Excitable Boy, which featured Crystal’s “Willy on the Plate” still life of a .44 Magnum atop a home-cooked meal, firearms would be the motif. In the two years since that album, Warren had upgraded his arsenal: the Smith & Wesson had been swapped for an Uzi. It wasn’t so much the gun itself that caused controversy, but rather the ballet pointe shoes surrounded by used shell casings beneath the submachine gun.
For the dramatic photo arrangement, Wachtel had to rent the gun, along with the hourly services of a mandatory weapons expert. For all the trouble to design and execute the shot, more trouble came in the form of advocacy groups unhappy with the image’s violent inference. As Wachtel later remembered, “This women’s group got up in arms that it was saying we were going to mow down these ballerinas with a gun. And I had to go to Asylum Records, to Joe Smith’s office, to defend the album cover to some lesbian women’s group.”
One addition to the album’s back cover had no basis in humor or satire, but rather a small and heartfelt message to a mentor. In the bottom left-hand corner, Warren had penned: “For Ken Millar—il miglior fabbro,” calling to mind T. S. Eliot’s own dedication to mentor Ezra Pound in The Waste Land, which in turn had referenced Dante’s Purgatorio. The literal translation offered the Italian master’s definition of a troubadour as “the greatest craftsman of the mouth tongue.”
Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School was released on February 15, 1980. The label planned for three singles, two less than Warren’s previous album: “A Certain Girl” / “Empty-Handed Heart,” the playfully linked “Gorilla, You’re a Desperado” / “Jungle Work,” and the very deliberate “Jeannie Needs a Shooter” / “Interlude No. 2” / “Bill Lee.”
With “A Certain Girl” as the album’s flagship single, Elektra/ Asylum had selected the only song not penned by Warren himself, making for the second instance in a row where the label’s commercially minded strategy undermined his primary stature as a songwriter. Additionally, with “Jeannie Needs a Shooter” chosen as the third single, A&R heavily played on the song’s collaboration with Bruce Springsteen, using the larger superstar’s mass appeal to draw attention.
It was with the latter’s release that Warren had been able to enact a sly revenge, taking a cue from Paul McCartney’s notorious advice to Abbey Road assistant engineer Alan Parsons: the seasoned Beatle had once urged the aspiring young rocker to register his songs’ introductions and preludes as autonomous copyrighted compositions, doubling all future residuals. The Cute One’s words of wisdom paid off handsomely when Parsons’s own 1982 release, “Eye in the Sky,” became a minor hit—but its B-side, the instrumental prelude “Sirius,” became a staple of television commercials, movies, and especially major sporting events for decades. Following suit, Warren insisted the flip side of “Jeannie Needs a Shooter” not only include “Bill Lee,” but its extended classical segue, “Interlude No. 2”—releasing it as a “double B-side,” or the increasingly popular “maxi-single,” featuring two separate compositions attributed solely to Warren.
As with Excitable Boy, Warren’s latest release had its fair share of both champions and detractors. While the polarity in opinion usually stemmed from critics’ appreciation—and comprehension—of Warren’s unique brand of humor, this time around, most reviews noted the artist’s heavier new style. With significantly harder-edged rock tracks spread out among ballads, tearjerkers, and two classical pieces, many also found the album uneven, especially when compared to Warren’s last two albums.
“On the back cover of his latest album, Bad Luck Streak, Zevon’s trusty gat is thrown down alongside a pair of ballet slippers, spent bullets strewn about the floor,” noted Washington Post critic Boo Browning. “It’s only the first indication that something uncharacteristic is happening here.”
Browning continued, “Zevon has been through a transitional period of late, including a divorce and a drying-out, and these songs supposedly represent a catharsis. What he’s actually wound up doing is trading his usual rapid-fire lyrics and straight-to-the-gut subject matter for a skin-deep commitment to change… Instead of the rhythmic surprises or the dissonant tension he has used to maximum effect in the past, Zevon serves up music that sounds familiar, if not downright redundant.”
The assessment concluded with, perhaps, the worst affirmation Warren’s fragile semi-sobriety needed: “There’s little we can learn from innocence, and though this album is hardly a wasted effort, Zevon is ultimately more enlightening when he is an excitable boy.”
Robert Christgau was slightly more forgiving for Warren’s shifts in topical and sonic tones, but, like other self-declared admirers, stressed his confusion over the changes. “I don’t know why the title tune’s the title tune,” he wrote, “except maybe to contextualize the classical interludes he composed all by himself… though the brucellosis is a nice touch. In fact, just about every song boasts a good line or three.”
“As a kid, Zevon obviously devoured horror comics, cowboy flicks and The Untouchables,” observed People magazine in its overtly playful review. “Nothing else would account for his uniquely baleful brand of dirge-rock and a singing style as ominous as twin six-shooters. Zevon’s fans will find this album a macho-morbid match for his previous two… Sometimes Zevon misses—on the meaningless title cut and on a clumsy tribute to wacko baseball pitcher Bill Lee, for example.”
Like Christgau, other critics directed some of their harshest words toward the album’s title cut, despite its earliest consideration as a potential single. Not surprisingly, “Gorilla, You’re a Desperado” came out as a front-runner as one of the album’s most popular tracks, with many comparing the tongue-in-cheek autobiographical fable as a spiritual follow-up to “Werewolves of London.” As People added, “The gorilla winds up in Transactional Analysis while Zevon remains at the monkey house. The image ideally suits his chest-thumping virtuosity.”
But there was something about Warren’s enigmatic, ever-shifting persona that consistently brought out the most meditative writing and literary aspirations in the crew at Rolling Stone. Soon enough, staff writer Paul Nelson would be begin
ning the long and difficult process of persuading the magazine to run an epic, unadulterated, and unflinching profile on Warren’s battle with alcoholism—a labor of love monster of a manuscript that would take the journalist over a year to complete, and ultimately bring about his literary demise. In his place, another of Warren’s friends, Jay Cocks, took to the plate and penned an extended review of Bad Luck Streak, offering a critical assessment so in-depth it would be assumed to end any debate regarding the album’s merits.
“Bad Luck Streak could be Zevon’s best album,” Cocks wrote. “Certainly, it’s the best-sounding record he’s ever done, with supple guitar work by David Lindley and drumming by Rick Marotta that gives no quarter. There are various instrumental guest appearances—by Jackson Browne and Joe Walsh most strikingly—and string arrangements by Warren Zevon that show, as clearly as anything ever has, the results of his adolescent pilgrimages up behind the Whisky a Go-Go to visit Igor Stravinsky.”
Cocks’s lovingly written track-by-track analysis read more like a full-on defense of the album’s overall execution than a mere review—and a glowing one at that. Like Nelson, Cocks heavily benefited from knowing Warren in real life, recognizing the autobiographical scars within even the most seemingly unrelated tracks that his fellow critics wouldn’t spy. For certain readers, Cocks’s intimate knowledge of the stories behind the songs, however, made his words of praise cut to the bone—as was the case in “Empty-Handed Heart,” the track that he zealously heralded as the album’s “core” and “centerpiece.”
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