[lbo-talk] Cash / Zevon

Curtiss Leung curtiss_leung at ibi.com
Fri Sep 12 13:54:07 PDT 2003


In my mind's ear I'm trying to imagine Johnny Cash covering Zevon's "Carmelita":

Camerelita, hold me tighter

I think I'm fading fast

And I'm all strung out on heroin

On the outskirts of town

I love that song, but as Zevon sings it, there's something of a detachment to it, as if Zevon is trying to tell a a tale in style of the those authors jks notes below--that's not a criticism, just a comment. But I can imagine Cash imbuing it with real down and out desolation:

I'm sitting here

Playing solitaire

With my pearl handled deck

The county won't give me no more methadone

And they cut out my welfare check

Could have done, could have done/They all sigh...

Curtiss

AN/jks:
> I was thinking of mentioning that -- Zevon's a big
> fave of mine. He's not on the level of Cash, but
> wouldn't claim to be. Bob Dylan liked him; was been
> singing Zevon songs in his shows for some years,
> played on a disc Z released in the late '80s. He's
> not 70s SCal sound, though he used to write for Linda
> Rindsadt; he's a Rousseua to their Voltaire -- the
> SCal he speaks for is James Ellroy's or Nathanial
> west's rather than the Eagles and Jackson Browne. To
> like him you just have to be twisted in a Hunter
> Thompson bad boy sort of way.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list