Song Lyric Sunday: Excitable Boy

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A closeup photo of the artist, wearing glasses and a black sweater, in front of a red background.

 

The calendar makes its inexorable journey towards another Sunday, which can only mean one thing: yup, it’s Song Lyric Sunday again! This week Jim is inviting us to play a song from an album where the group or artist wrote all their own songs, as he tells us here. I have a great many singer-songwriter albums in my Apple Music library – it is, after all, one of my favourite genres – so my choice for this was wide. I’ve settled on one of the all time greats, and have chosen an album of his for which he wrote all of the songs, though several were in collaboration with others. That may feel like I’m cheating but who cares? I sure as hell don’t, and anyway Jim says that collaborations count, so who am I to argue?

The artist in question is the late, extremely great, Warren Zevon, and I’m going with his third album, Excitable Boy. I’m playing you three of its tracks which highlight his clever lyric writing abilities, and also his wry (warped?) sense of humour. This is the title track:

And in case you missed them, or just want to see them in all their gory glory, here are the lyrics:

 

Well, he went down to dinner in his Sunday best
“Excitable boy,” they all said
And he rubbed the pot roast all over his chest
“Excitable boy,” they all said
Well, he’s just an excitable boy

He took in the 4 A.M. show at the Clark
“Excitable boy,” they all said
And he bit the usherette’s leg in the dark
“Excitable boy,” they all said
Well, he’s just an excitable boy

(Ooh, ah-ooh)
(Ooh-ooh, excitable boy)
(Ooh, ah-ooh)
(Ooh-ooh, excitable boy)

He took little Suzie to the Junior Prom (Ooh, ah-ooh)
“Excitable boy,” they all said (Ooh-ooh, excitable boy)
And he raped her and killed her, then he took her home (Ooh, ah-ooh)
“Excitable boy,” they all said (Ooh-ooh, excitable boy)
Well, he’s just an excitable boy

After ten long years, they let him out of the home
“Excitable boy,” they all said (Ooh-ooh, excitable boy)
And he dug up her grave and built a cage with her bones
“Excitable boy,” they all said (Ooh-ooh, excitable boy)
Well, he’s just an excitable boy

(Ooh, ah-ooh)
(Ooh-ooh, excitable boy)
(Ooh, ah-ooh)
(Ooh-ooh, excitable boy)
(Ooh, ah-ooh)
(Ooh-ooh, excitable boy)
(Ooh, ah-ooh)
(Ooh-ooh, excitable boy)
(Ooh, ah-ooh)

 

Lyrics: Genius.com

Songwriters: Warren Zevon, LeRoy Marinell

 

I told you his sense of humour was unique, didn’t I: he never failed to amuse and entertain me. His family background may have something to do with his later development: he was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Beverly Cope (née Simmons) and William Zevon. His father was a Jewish immigrant from Ukraine, whose original surname was Zivotofsky. William Zevon worked as a bookie who handled volume bets and dice games for the notorious Los Angeles mobster Mickey Cohen. He worked for years in the Cohen crime family, in which he was known as Stumpy Zevon, and was best man at Cohen’s first wedding. Warren’s mother was from a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints family and was of English descent. Coming from a family that mixed mobsters and Mormons is fairly uncommon, but it probably helps explain that wry take on life in so many of his songs

Excitable Boy was Warren’s third album, released in January 1978, peaking at #8 and going Platinum in the US, and at #9 in Australia, but to our shame it didn’t make the UK charts. For some inexplicable reason he has enjoyed very little chart success here in the UK, but I love his music and have all of his albums. It was his breakthrough album and is still the best-selling of his career: I guess when at least four of its tracks make it feel like an early ‘Greatest Hits’ record that is hardly surprising. This song is written for laughs rather than being an attempt at horror, and at least one of the lines – the one about the pot roast – reflects an event from Warren’s own life. I hope the others don’t! There is a serious underlying point to the song, though: it describes a juvenile sociopath for whom friends and family make excuses, instead of attempting to get him the help he needs. I fear that many have been in a similar situation.

Here’s the second tune I’m playing from the album:

Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner was written after Warren met David Lindell in Sitges, Catalonia, where Lindell ran a bar named The Dubliner after working as a mercenary in Africa. Inspired by Lindell’s stories of his career as a mercenary, Warren decided to collaborate with him in making a song about a left-wing mercenary, and gave him a songwriting credit for it: I think this is all pure Warren, though! It is a wonderfully inventive story of a gunman for hire who comes back to haunt the guy who betrayed and killed him – you don’t get that with a Cliff Richard record, do you? This was the final song he played before an audience, during an appearance on David Letterman’s late night tv show in 2002, before we lost him to a virulent form of cancer in September 2003.

My final selection from the album is the one that you may well know already, even if the others are unfamiliar. There is a similar vintage official live video for it, but I’m going instead with an animated version from 2021 which is rather fun, and shows that it was conceived during pandemic days:

 

Werewolves Of London began as a joke by Phil Everly to Warren in 1975, after Phil had watched a television broadcast of the 1935 film Werewolf of London and suggested to Warren that he adapt the title for a song and dance craze. During the recording sessions for the Excitable Boy album Warren got together with two of his band – LeRoy Marinell and Waddy Wachtel – and they wrote this in about fifteen minutes. It was released as a single and made #21 in the US and reached the top twenty in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Again, it wasn’t a UK hit at the time but after it was used for a scene in the 1986 movie The Color Of Money it was re-released and climbed to the dizzy heights of #87 here. But it has become something of a sleeper, and was awarded a Silver Disc in 2023 for 200,000 sales. Quality will always succeed if you give it long enough!

 

That’s me done for today. Thanks as always to Jim for hosting the show, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the other participants are playing. I’ll see you again for Tuesday Tunes – with a new theme – so until then take care 😊

 

65 thoughts on “Song Lyric Sunday: Excitable Boy”

  1. Pingback: September Fields | Take It Easy

  2. great post, Clive. Warren is one of my favorite artists as well. And it’s hard to imagine having all these great songs on just one album.

    I can’t remember if I told you this before, but back when I was in high school (yikes, this year is my 50th reunion!), a friend and me got t-shirts that said Excitable Boy on it…

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  4. Excitable Boy is my favorite Warren Zevon song and the darkest pop song I’ve ever heard. The first few times I listened to it….the melody and song covered it up… and then I listened closely…I burst out laughing…I know many people listen to this pretty song and not realize what they are listening to until they pay attention to the lyrics.

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  5. It would be interesting to know how often you’ve chosen Zevon for your posts over the years. I remembered immediately that he was one of your favorites. I like almost all of his music. I am shocked that Werewolves of London didn’t chart higher in the United States. I remember it always being on the radio back in the day. I would have guessed it charted at least in the top 5 here.

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    • You made me curious with this, so I looked back through my posts. The answer is seventeen! Many of those are of Werewolves for Halloween, but several others get a look in too, and I have devoted one of my Listen To The Band posts to him as well. I was surprised at the chart placings too: if you think the US was low, what about here!

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  6. Clive, this is the 2nd time this week I listened to Warren Zevon. Am really liking what I’m hearing. I need to correct his absence in my listening world. So sorry cancer got him. Thanks for the informative post and the musical selection. Had heard Werewolves… before but not the others.

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  7. There was always a serious side to those songs wasn’t there?
    It always fascinated me that there’s this werewolf prowling around London right out in the open causing mayhem and the character singing just keeps on complimenting him about his clothing and general appearance.
    Good selection

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    • That was the beauty of the way he wrote them: a serious point underneath the humour. As Werewolf was written by three of them in fifteen minutes it may not stand up to close inspection! And I was born and brought up in Kent and don’t ever recall seeing a hairy-handed gent running amok!

      Glad you liked them 👍

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      • Yeah tough on Kent. Though the rhyming couplet was very sharp.
        Apparently that particular song was created in a jokey atmosphere of one coming up with a throwaway line and someone else seeing if they could think of a follow on one. I’ve heard of far less satisfying creative processes.

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      • That’s exactly how it happened. Phil Everly had kind of thrown it at Warren in jest as a challenge, and the record company was worried that the album didn’t have any obvious singles on it. So they wrote this in around fifteen minutes. I wouldn’t be surprised if alcohol was involved in the process 🤣

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      • I wouldn’t.
        They were one of the ‘let’s do freaky things and to hell with the art of music’ style of bands that proliferated in the mid 1960s-to mid-1970s .
        You had to have respect for music and the attendant discipline to do that.
        Not just turn up at the studio hopped up on ‘stuff’ ,not sure if all the band is there while the engineer and producer are pressing buttons and giggling.

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    • Thank you, Marina, I’m pleased you liked it. I think most people just know him for that one song, which is a shame as his catalogue is full of gems like these.

      With a childhood like that it probably isn’t a surprise that his humour was rather unique!

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  10. Vlive, that was a great video from 2021 as you are so right, it does show us the pandemic stuff, like mask, spacing, etc. An I did not know Warren Zevon wrote the original version of “Werewolves of London.” It sure is catchy and a little Jackson Browne in backup singers there….

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    • They did well to fit the song’s story to their times, didn’t they. Only Warren (and his band) could have written a song like this!

      He and Jackson were good friends and Jackson played guitar and provided harmony vocals on this album.

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      • You’re welcome. And I’m saving that clip to watch this evening: I think I’ve seen it before but he and Letterman were good friends so I’ve seen many interviews with him on that show.

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      • you could tell they were good friends. And while I was not a TV watcher at that time (only really started in late 200os and even then was never a mass consumer and especially not of any late night stuff – just not my thing )

        however, I did have a certain respect for letterman when I heard of his wonderful tribute to Steve Oedekerk – it showed that Letterman had a kind side –
        Quick story in case you missed it:
        “The comedian Steve Oedekerk was a stand-up comic who struggled with depression and a lack of success in his career. Despite his talent, he had been trying for years to get a spot on The David Letterman Show and felt like it was his last shot at recognition. When he was finally given the opportunity to perform on the show, it was too late—he had already tragically taken his own life.

        David Letterman, deeply moved by the loss, honored Steve Oedekerk in a heartfelt tribute on his show, acknowledging the tragedy and the toll that the industry’s pressure can have on comedians. This moment highlighted the mental health challenges often faced by performers and the personal cost of not finding success, despite their efforts.”

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  11. Collaborations count as original songs because they represent a new, co-created work of intellectual property, rather than a reproduction of a pre-existing piece.  A collaboration is original if it combines new lyrics, melodies, and other creative elements from all involved artists to form a unique and newly “fixed” piece of music.  Lovely choice from an album and artist that I love listening to Clive.  Great write-up on the life and music of Warren Zevon, who I learned some new things about from reading your post.  I know that you are very fond of David Lindell, so Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner was an obvious choice for you.

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