Warren Zevon and the mystery of art

Tomorrow is our big annual fundraiser, and I was thinking about what to say to try to get as many of you as possible to support the work we do here. This isn’t that post. Instead I want to write about something vaguely related, which is the extent to which all of us free ride, to use the ugly economic jargon, on the creative efforts of others.

What occasioned that thought in particular was Warren Zevon, or more precisely a random — it seemed random — encounter with his song “Carmelita,” which is a little three and a half minute masterpiece about the depths of addiction. This led me to listen to some other masterpieces of his, specifically Desperados Under the Eaves and Hasten Down the Wind — two songs that got into my bones decades ago, and will stay there as long as I live.

Warren Zevon died an untimely death 20 years ago this fall, a largely ignored figure in the music industry after some initial success, at least until the attention brought to him by his tragic demise. (David Letterman was a huge fan. If you’ve never seen his last interview with Zevon, you should. Key insight: “Enjoy every sandwich.”)

But fame is a bitch, as Warren probably said on some occasion, over a soggy margarita or three. For some people, Zevon’s music is one of the things that make life worth living. I’m one of those people, and it occurs to me that what I gave Zevon in return for the magical gift of his musical genius was pretty much nothing, or as close to nothing as makes no difference (“It Makes No Difference,” The Band, another song that justifies the universe to some degree).

When it comes to art, almost all of us are almost always almost complete free riders: these people make these amazing, life-altering things, and they just GIVE them to us, practically for free! How can you repay that? You can’t, except I suppose by giving back the thing which is infinitely more precious to any real artist than the fickle goddesses of fame and money: a kind of pure uncomplicated love and admiration.

But we could really use some money too.*

*Not intended as a comparison, express or implied, between LGM posts and Warren Zevon’s music.