Tracks 5, 6 and 7 from Excitable Boy (1978)

Tracks 8, 9 and 10 from Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School (1980)

Track 11 from Stand In The Fire (1980)

Tracks 20 and 21 from Life'll Kill Ya (2000)

I grew up, like most people, knowing "Werewolves Of London" and little else about Warren Zevon, other than what I gleaned from his appearances on Letterman. But in college, my roommate and sometimes bandmate Mike Bartolomeo was going through a big Zevon phase when we lived together, so I got to know his music a bit better than, and have been revisiting his albums in recent years. 

As an artist, Zevon is more or less a one hit wonder, although some of his songs have been covered famously by other artists. Linda Ronstadt, who sang backup on Excitable Boy, covered "Carmelita" and "Mohamed's Radio," made "Hasten Down The Wind" the title track of one of her biggest albums, and had a pretty big hit with "Poor Poor Pitiful Me." Jackson Browne, who produced Zevon's self-titled album and Excitable Boy, still regularly covers Warren Zevon songs in concert -- when I saw him in Baltimore in 2014, Browne did three Zevon songs in a row: "Carmelita," "Life'll Kill Ya," and "Don't Let Us Get Sick." 

And of course there are some pretty famous people playing and singing all over Zevon's albums. Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks are on "Mohammed's Radio," Glenn Frey on "Carmelita," Carl Wilson on "Desperados Under The Eaves," Jeff Porcaro on "The Overdraft," Bob Dylan on "The Factory," Bill Berry, Peter Buck and Mike Mills throughout Sentimental Hygiene, Benmont Tench on "Networking," Jim Keltner on "Keep Me In Your Heart," and Don Henley and Dwight Yoakam on "Dirty Life And Times." Again, I think the reason he has a shot at the Rock Hall is that so many superstars rightfully thought Zevon was one of rock's greatest lyricists and were always happy to help him make a record. 

Since Warren Zevon's singles experienced very little chart traction outside the obvious ones, a lot of his most famous songs have been album tracks that were covered or became fan favorites or live staples. This playlist has 6 tracks in common with 1986's A Quiet Normal Life: The Best of Warren Zevon, which is his second best-selling release after Excitable Boy. 

"Networking" was released the same week as Kate Bush's "Deeper Understanding" in 1989 and features a similarly prescient grasp of the kind of technology enabled Internet communication that would come to define our world in the years to come. "Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead" is an excellent song which inspired a mediocre 1995 film of the same name. And some of Zevon's most popular music came from those three albums he released in the last four years of his life that dealt pretty directly with death, mortality, and the mesothelioma that took his life in 2003, including "My Shit's Fucked Up" and "Keep Me In Your Heart."