The dignity of a Warren

 

I never knew much about Warren Zevon - other than seeing him on the Larry Sanders Show - until just before he passed away. The news that he had terminal cancer, and was working on a final album before the end, was in all the music magazines I was reading the time, and you couldn't miss his story.

And then I saw the clip of him on the Letterman show, in what might be the best late night guest interview ever, and even now I am still remain touched by the dignity in his public passing.

I obviously don't know the man personally, and have read that he fell off the wagon after getting his diagnosis. There surely must have been some horrible dark nights of the soul for the guy, but to go out with a definitive statement like his last album is some way to go.

We should all be so lucky to leave this world like this, with a genuinely heartbreaking version of Knocking On Heavens Door, or a song like My Ride's Here, with its inevitable conclusion that death comes to us all, so you might as well go with it and take your ride into the next life. We don't choose how we go out, but we can choose how we accept it. 

I don't know much about any damn werewolves in London, but I can go with that kind of final word.

(I do feel a little sad when I think about he said he really wanted to hang on for a little longer so he could see the new James Bond film, and he did, but it was fuckin' Die Another Day. Sorry about that, Warren.)