By Tony Attwood
I made an attempt to write about Dylan’s “Philosophy” book but had to stop very early because I couldn’t find a way to comment on it that said anything meaningful or entertaining. (But if you feel you can do a review of that book by all means get in touch: Tony@schools.co.uk). So I moved on to looking at the songs Dylan chose.
So far we’ve had
- Detroit City
- Take Me from This Garden of Evil
- Pump it up
- There stands the glass
- Waist Deep in the Big Muddy
- My Generation and Desoltation Row
Now we come to “Dirty Life and Times” by Warren Zevon
Warren Zevon has turned up time and again on this site, but “Dirty Life and Times” has only had one mention – and that in passing. Which is strange because Warren Zevon made some extraordinarily brilliant recordings in his life, and yet with this one I had to go back and look it up, as it had never made an impact on me.
The lyrics are clearly what has drawn Dylan in, although the melody is certainly very memorable – one listen and it’s there in my head for days to come…
Some days I feel like my shadow's casting meSome days the sun don't shineSometimes I wonder what tomorrow's gonna bringWhen I think about my dirty life and times One day I came to a fork in the roadFolks, I just couldn't go where I was toldNow they'll hunt me down and hang me for my crimesIf I tell about my dirty life and times I had someone 'til she went out for a strollShould have run after herIt's hard to find a girl with a heart of goldWhen you're living in a four-letter world And if she won't love me then her sister willShe's from Say-one-thing-and-mean-another's-villeAnd she can't seem to make up her mindWhen she hears about my dirty life and times Some days I feel like my shadow's casting meSome days the sun don't shineSometimes I wonder why I'm still running freeAll up and down the line Gets a little lonely, folks, you know what I meanI'm looking for a woman with low self-esteemTo lay me out and ease my worried mindWhile I'm winding down my dirty life and times Who'll lay me out and ease my worried mindWhile I'm winding down my dirty life and times
And really I can do no better than quote what Jochen said on this site…
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Zevon, to whom Dylan also devotes an honourable chapter in The Philosophy Of Modern Song (Chapter 39, “Dirty Life And Times”), as well as to the song “Jesse James” (Chapter 10); Zevon, who is also quoted again in the only interview Dylan gives in 2022 (“We’re in ‘Splendid Isolation,’ like in the Warren Zevon song; the world of self, like Georgia O’Keefe alone in the desert” – Wall Street Journal, 19 December 2022); like Dylan quotes just as reverently from that same “Dirty Life And Times” back in 2011, in the Elderfield interview:
“Sure, but everything in life, directly or indirectly, has a great degree of mystery. To paraphrase Warren Zevon, some days I feel like my shadow’s casting me. Persons, places, things … time itself is a mystery.”
… the song in which the narrator sighs: “She can’t seem to make up her mind.”
“This is a great record,” Dylan writes, continuing with effervescent praise of both this one song, one of the very last songs Zevon writes, and of Warren Zevon the artist at all.
“Being a writer is not something one chooses to do. It’s something you just do and sometimes people stop and notice. Warren was a writer till the very end.”
It’s almost as if Dylan is talking about himself; just before this, again admiringly, he describes the different sides of Zevon at different stages of his career, as well as “all the roles Zevon chose to play in his songs”.
Zevon dies of cancer, 7 September 2003. Just before his death, he manages to record one last record, The Wind, the album featuring “Dirty Life And Times”. And with a breathtaking, moving cover of Dylan’s “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”.
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And I think here we can be absolutely clear what has drawn Bob into the song – it is the lyrics, for surely it cannot be anything in the music that he has found to be unusual or inspirational. It is in fact a reflection of what it feels like to be a person like Warren Zevon or Bob Dylan: “some days I feel like my shadow’s casting me”.
Jochen has returned several times to Zevon several times including featuring a recording of Knocking on Heaven’s Door within the final part of I made up my mind to give myself to you.
But now, since we are back on the subject of Warren Zevon, and since Bob Dylan nominated a Warren Zevon song as one of his favourites in the past, and wrote about him in the Philosophy of Modern Song, I think that is enough of a reason to re-introduce my favourite too – just in case you missed it before.
In fact it turned up in our series on Dylan’s favourite songs so that is all the excuse I need to play it again. If it had been me writing “The Philosphy” it would have been this song that was included from Warren.