“One of the best songwriters ever”: the 1978 album Keith Richards can’t stop thinking about
“Rock and roll: music for the neck downwards” is the mantra that Keith Richards has lived by. His method with The Rolling Stones has been focused on flow more so than anything cerebral.
As he put it in his memoir, “Music is a language that doesn’t speak in particular words. It speaks in emotions, and if it’s in the bones, it’s in the bones.” As the famous maxim of fittingly unknown origin puts it, talking or writing about music is like dancing about architecture. I’ve always felt that should be caveated with ‘some music’. Richards seems to agree.
There is some music that’s inherently in the brain too, not just the bones. Despite Richards’ typical disposition, he hasn’t disowned music of a more thought-provoking propensity entirely. Of all those songwriters who probe beneath the skull, he puts Warren Zevon in prime position. He dubbed the late Chicagoan musician, “One of the best songwriters ever”.
Zevon is renowned for matching his intelligent musings with stirring musicology. However, it was the former that drew Richards’ attention when he crowned Excitable Boy an album that “forces me to think”. The 1978 record features career-launching singles such as ‘Werewolves of London’ that saw Zevon in his signature fun yet smart mode with an all-star band of Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and Waddy Wachtel ensuring his sentiment was a hit to boot.
Perhaps some of what Richards cogitates on is how the album brought Zevon back from the brink of obscurity, too. Six notable years passed between Zevon‘s muted debut album and his self-titled follow-up in ‘76.
A lot had happened in that time. His opening offering had flopped to such an extent that he was dropped by his label, succumbed to alcoholism, drifted around, ending up isolated in Spain, and it didn’t seem like we’d get another release from one of America’s greatest songwriters ever again. Them’s the breaks, as I believe they say in the States.
But two years on from his ship-steadying return, Excitable Boy helped to relaunch him. Along the way, Zevon refused to be anyone but himself. That’s the sort of defiant fucklessness that has always resonated with Richards. Attracted to its wandering bluesman-like backstory, Richards dove in, and he’s never stopped listening since.
Speaking to Q about the record, the Rolling Stones guitarist explained, “Really intelligent and another one that made me go, ‘Why didn’t I write a song about my typewriter?’ You can hear this is a guy that thinks a lot and was troubled, but doesn’t mind laying it out on the line.”
Once again, that’s almost a bluesy outlook in itself even if the instrumentation is grounded in pop structures. As Richards continues, “A lot of these guys you come off listening to them and you’ve learned something. You realise that you can write a song about anything. You just hope they touch somebody.”
They touched Richards in his rarely tickled pondering spot. He’s not often a man to wonder about things, and, in fact, it is hard to even imagine him poring over the complex ambiguities of ‘Accidentally Like a Martyr’; the image is like a swashbuckling centre back miffed by the tactics board. However, Richards’ admiration showcases his appreciation for all music that knows itself, even if it’s the only one in the room that does so.
As the swaggering Londoner once said, “To me, the main thing about living on this planet is to know who the hell you are and be real about it. That’s the reason I’m still alive.” That’s where Excitable Boy triumphs. It’s happy being AM pop, subverting that familiar platform with satirical takes on the male psychoses.
This makes for a record that resounds as music for the quiff down rather than “the neck”. Take, for instance, ‘Werewolves of London’, a huge hit that complexly touches upon a subtext of the dangers of despondency. In the song, a ne’er-do-well simply decides to chase their own individualistic ends and winds up running amok in Kent.
It’s not your usual stock-in-trade for the Hot 100, but it arrived dressed in a funny costume and with a groove so tight you could count the change in its pocket.
Thus, it’s no surprise that Richards isn’t alone in hailing the troubled star, with Bob Dylan, Hunter S. Thompson, David Letterman and Jackson Browne all celebrating Zevon as a master of his craft. Richards was so impressed with all elements of the record that years later, he would even hire Wachtel to be part of his X-Pensive Winos project, explaining, “I knew my man wanted to rock”.
