Happy Halloween! Warren Zevon was late in his career before I became a fan of his music. So my memories of him are mostly of him toward the end of his life. So I especially love seeing him rock out in this performance of the one of the great Halloween songs, “Werewolves of London.”
Zevon once referred to “Werewolves of London” as “a dumb song for smart people.” But, of course, it is quite brilliant. Zevon wrote the song with LeRoy Marinell and Waddy Wachtel, but they had some inspiration from Phil Everly of The Everly Brothers. Everly suggested the song title to Zevon after watching the 1935 film Werewolf of London, directed by Stuart Walker and starring Henry Hull, on late-night television.
Zevon, Marinell, and Wachtel began making up the lyrics for fun, adding in some howling. Zevon’s wife at the time, Crystal Zevon, wrote down the lyrics. The next day in the studio, Jackson Browne heard the new song, and he began performing it live years before Zevon got around to releasing it on an album in 1978.
Upon it’s eventual release, “Werewolves of London” became a Top 40 hit for Zevon. But according to George Plasketes, the author of a biography about the artist, Zevon initially felt insulted that the record label had selected that song for a single release over other songs Zevon preferred on the Excitable Boy (1978) album. The label’s choice proved correct, in the sense that “Werewolves of London” became a beloved classic.
The song even inspired the name for a baseball team in London, Ontario. And there is that wonderful opening line, “I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand.” This live performance by Zevon is from Oct 1, 1982 at the Capitol Theatre in Passiac, New Jersey. Check it out.
But I still cannot get this Tom Cruise image out of my head anytime I hear the song.
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