Forgottten Music #1: Warren Zevon - Desperadoes Under the Eaves

Beginning to reprint some of my blog entries from my Livejournal, starting with my forgotten music series.
Something I've been meaning to do for a while is start posting obscure and semi-obscure music that I love, that moves me in some way or deserves to be listened to by people who hadn't heard it before. Here's the first: Warren Zevon with Jackson Browne - "Desperadoes Under the Eaves" This comes from Warren Zevon's self-titled debut album in 1976. It's a remarkable song on a remarkable album, which contains three excellent and sad songs about the horrors of addiction (the other two being "Carmelita" and "Hasten Down the Wind", I'll probably talk about those two at some time). This one is about alcoholism. It's about being trapped in addiction and not knowing how to get out, even though you desperately want to. It's also about how knowing even if you do kick your addictions, you know that you are just a single person in the entire world and learning to deal with the loneliness of the human condition. There's a desperate attempt at balance, of yearning for escape and yearning to find someone who can help fill the emptiness of your life while you wallow in your drunkenness. The last refrain, "Look away down Gower Avenue" infuses some hope into the future for the singer (Warren did eventually kick his addictions), though the crushing helplessness of the rest of the song makes the entire exercise bittersweet.