Happy Anniversary: Warren Zevon, EXCITABLE BOY

39 years ago today, Warren Zevon released his third studio album, and while it featured a decidedly dark title track, it also offered up a tune about British lycanthropes which remains Zevon’s signature song.

Recorded at The Sound Factory in Los Angeles and produced by Jackson Browne and Waddy Wachtel, EXCITABLE BOY was the first time that Zevon found legitimate commercial success: it hit #8 on the Billboard 200. What was different about this album that led it to rise so high in the charts when its predecessors had not? For one thing, it was loaded with notable musicians, including Browne, Karla Bonoff, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Linda Ronstadt, J.D. Souther, and Jennifer Warnes. More importantly, though, it featured a little ditty called “Werewolves of London.”

“Writing ‘Werewolves of London’ was a good lesson in never taking yourself too seriously,” said Roy Marinell, who co-wrote the song with Zevon and Wachtel, in Crystal Zevon’s I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon. “On most songs you write, you labor and you craft a song for weeks. You put everything into it, every word is agonizing, and people say, ‘Humm, that’s a nice song.’ ‘Werewolves’ was literally a fifteen-minute song that none of us took seriously. We did it as spontaneously as could be, and look what happened.”

Although “Werewolves of London” only made it to #21, it was still the biggest hit that Zevon ever had, one which continues to receive airplay on a regular basis. (You can also hear it sampled in Kid Rock’s 2008 single “All Summer Long,” which has annoyed more than a few Zevon fans over the last decade.) In addition, EXCITABLE BOY also features classic Zevon tunes like “Johnny Strikes Up the Band,” “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner,” “Accidentally Like a Martyr,” and “Lawyers, Guns and Money.”

In short, if you only own one Warren Zevon studio album, then EXCITABLE BOY is the one to own.