David Letterman on dedicating an entire show to Warren Zevon
20 years ago this Sunday, Warren Zevon appeared as the one and only guest on Late Show with David Letterman. Earlier in 2002, the legendary singer-songwriter who produced classic songs like ‘Werewolves of London’ and ‘Lawyers, Guns, and Money’ was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.
Zevon was told he had just months to live, so he got to work on his final album, 2003’s The Wind, and compiled a final greatest hits album. To promote the latter, Zevon agreed to appear on Letterman, a show he had guested on over a dozen times across two decades.
“It was the only time in my talk show history that I did anything like that,” David Letterman later observed in a retrospective piece published by The Ringer earlier today. “I’ve never sat down and talked to anybody on television where we both understood they were about to die.”
Because of the circumstances, Zevon didn’t really seem interested in doing the traditional promotional appearance. Instead, he and Letterman simply chatted for a while before Zevon played three songs. It was a remarkably low-key affair, one that was relaxed, unforced, and occasionally awkward when the topic of his own mortality came up. Zevon being the man that he was, he claimed that his impending death gave him a chance to “enjoy every sandwich,” a quote that later served as the title to a tribute album featuring famous Zevon admirer Bob Dylan.
“There are two things at work here, and only one of them I know for a fact: that when people get to be on television, they raise their game because they get to be on television,” Letterman says. “The other thing is, we guessed maybe that there was some pharmaceutical help. But it was stunning. And again, from my standpoint, do you expect a guy to be good-natured about it? I mean, God. It was weird.”
“If I was dying, I’m not going to go and talk to anybody on TV about me and my impending death,” Letterman adds. “Selfishly, and of course under the circumstances, why would I think about anything other than myself? That’s all you need to know about what I am.”
Letterman was taken aback by the direness of Zevon’s diagnosis. “In the beginning, it seemed like something that he would outlive, that he would get by because it was described as ‘cancer,’” he says. “At some point the idea of lung cancer stopped being a death sentence. … So I think that in that little loophole, there was hope that, ‘Oh, well, he’s a young guy, he’ll still be all right.’”
As the night unfolded, Warren dispensed some of his characteristic humour and appeared in good spirits even when the topic turned to his own mortality. After the taping, Letterman visited Zevon backstage to thank him. As the two continued to talk, Zevon gave Letterman one last gift that hit the host hard.
“While we’re talking he just perfunctorily is taking his guitar, taking the strap off, doing whatever you do to a guitar,” Letterman recalls. “He gets out the case, and we’re continuing to talk and who knows what we’re saying. It was small talk. Just fill the air with something while he’s going through the business of putting the guitar in the thing. He puts it in, closes the lid, snaps it closed, hands it to me, and he says, ‘Take good care of this for me.’”
“And I burst into tears. Uncontrollable. I had no idea that I would be bursting into tears, but I did. And I hugged him and I said, ‘I just love your music.’ And that was it,” Letterman concludes. “The only part of it that felt normal to me was after the show upstairs in his dressing room.”
