\Some days I feel like my shadow's casting me.""
Judging from the first lyric of The Wind's opening song, ""Dirty Life and Times,"" Warren Zevon is all-too aware that the context of his final album could eclipse the music itself.
Having been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, Zevon set out to make one final record. What he gives is an album that is touching, soulful yet still retains a brand of dark humor that Zevon has incorporated throughout his career.
The Wind blends pure rock, blues and country as Zevon paints a picture of all life's emotions, from the cradle to the grave. ""Dirty Life and Times"" showcases a rumination of things that should have been but cannot be changed. The heartbreakingly tender ""El Amor de mi Vida"" laments the loss of a true love and wishes them happiness to whoever they have found. Both of these songs showcase the album's two different themes: one in which Zevon is accepting his fate and is more concerned with his relationships with others, and the other in which he has become both numbed and embittered toward his mortality. On ""Rub Me Raw"" he growls, ""I don't want your pity and your 50-dollar words/ I don't share your need to discuss the absurd.""
One can have mixed reactions when reading the list of guest stars on the album. (Dwight Yoakam, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Don Henly, Emmylou Harris and Joe Walsh are just a few of the recognizable names which appear.) Although Santana's guest-laden album Supernatural generated some backlash for the abundance of new faces and players, this is not the case with The Wind. Many of the guest musicians are never even heard vocally, and those who sing remain on backup.
The musicians are complementing Zevon's sound, not altering it. Zevon's friends and contemporaries know they have been given the chance to contribute to an album that will stand as one of the great rock 'n' epitaphs. This is Zevon's show, and artists with as much class as Jackson Browne and Bruce Springsteen have no intention of trying to do anything except show their support for their friend and peer.
There is a long list of songwriters whose lives were cut short before they had a chance to compose one final introspective work. As a songwriter, Zevon's knowledge of his illness has allowed him the chance to give one last gift to the world, and it would be hard to imagine a better one.
On the final chorus of his cover of Bob Dylan's ""Knockin' on Heaven's Door,"" Zevon can be heard chanting ""Open up! Open up!"" It's hard to tell if this is a dark joke, a soulful wail or a mixture of both. However, one thing is certain: Warren Zevon is the first artist who truly deserves to cover ""Knockin' on Heaven's Door.\
