Warren Zevon’s Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School
Released in February 1980, Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School was an
appropriate, if slightly less commercially-successful, follow-up to
Excitable Boy. From the album title to the material contained herein,
Zevon’s whipsmart lyrics and dark humor dominate over an all-star cast of
musicians that included longtime collaborator Jorge Calderón;
multi-instrumental talent David Lindley; guitarists Jackson Browne, Waddy
Wachtel, and Joe Walsh; singer Linda Ronstadt; and members of the Eagles. The
album features six original Zevon songs (plus two instrumental “interludes”)
alongside a single cover song and co-writes with Calderón, T-Bone Burnett (who
had toured with Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue), and another rising rock ‘n’
roll star, Bruce Springsteen.
At the time of its release, critics
were rather lukewarm on Bad Luck Streak, with Robert Christgau giving
the album a rare B- grade (most of Zevon’s albums rated As). Writing in
Rolling Stone magazine, critic Jay Cocks was complimentary overall, but
most reviewers were seemingly confused by Zevon’s oddball songs and poignant
glimpses into his own humanity. The album has since found kindness in
reappraisal, with All Music Guide’s Mark Deming writing in 2015, “the
album’s rockers hit harder and cut deeper than any of his previous work,”
concluding that “while Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School didn’t quite
return Zevon to the top of his game, it made clear that the quality of
Warren Zevon was no fluke, and is a stronger effort than
Excitable Boy
in nearly every respect.”
I have to agree with Deming…Bad Luck Streak
is overall a strong creative effort, an album that builds upon the strengths
of its predecessor while inching, albeit slowly, onto new creative ground.
Co-produced by Zevon and Greg Ladanyi (who’d worked with Browne and Fleetwood
Mac), the pair perfectly capture the talents of the assorted instrumentalists
while still placing an emphasis on Zevon’s strong, evocative vocals and poetic
lyrics. The album-opening title track is a bit of a bawdy throw-away (“dancing
school” a longtime euphemism for a brothel), but the song’s fierce fretwork
and introductory orchestral flourishes point towards Zevon’s symphonic
ambitions. An inspired cover of Ernie K-Doe’s 1961 hit “A Certain Girl” skews
closer to the Yardbirds’ 1964 version than the New Orleans R&B of the
original, but Zevon’s call-and-response vocals, backed by a chaotic
instrumental soundtrack, provided the singer with his second charting hit
single.
Bad Luck Streak picks up steam with the
muscular ode to mercenary soldiers, “Jungle Work,” which features strident
vocals, iron-pumping percussion, and Joe Walsh’s jagged guitar licks. The
grand ballad “Empty-Handed Heart” (featuring a verse sung by Ronstadt) was
written for Zevon’s impending divorce and reveals a sliver of the singer’s
inner turmoil. “Bed of Coals” and “Wild Age” are of a similar thread, the
former a lovely piano-driven ballad and the latter a more mid-tempo tune with
a melodic groove; both songs delve inward, lyrically, as Zevon attempts to
face up to his shortcomings with self-reflection, the emotion supported by
Lindley’s wiry yet nuanced fretwork.
Play It All Night Long
At the core of Bad Luck Streak are the three songs that anchor the
album and save it, perhaps, from melancholy and maudlin sentiment. “Play It
All Night Long” is a dark-hued caricature of life in the deep south that
cleverly references Lynyrd Skynyrd while revealing the lie behind the
glorification of the Southern lifestyle. With barbed lyrics that address
poverty, racism, and substance abuse, Zevon delivers one of his most scathing
vocal performances above the mournful sounds of Browne’s guitar and Lindley’s
pedal steel. The Springsteen co-write, “Jeannie Needs A Shooter,” was released
as the second single from the album, and it should have been a huge hit.
Zevon’s lyrics are inscrutable, as usual, but the song’s tale of romance and
betrayal, and Walsh’s imaginative lead guitar – bolstered by slight background
orchestration and a strong melody – should have helped the song receive a
modicum of chart success.
“Gorilla, You’re A Desperado” is too
often considered the album’s novelty song, a pithy comedic throwaway that
lightens the mood before the one-two punch of introspection that closes
Bad Luck Streak. I view it differently, however, and have long
considered the song a savage satire of the music biz specifically and the
entertainment industry-dominated Southern California lifestyle in general.
Yes, it’s a funny song with visual lyrics and an infectious melody and plenty
of meta references but it also features a jaunty, cheeky Zevon vocal
performance alongside Jackson Browne’s tasteful slide-guitar playing and a
rich musical backdrop. It’s novel only in that the song is an unbridled
expression of Zevon’s imagination, which makes it a worthy successor to
“Werewolves of London.”
Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School
would enjoy modest success, with the aforementioned “A Certain Girl” haunting
the upper half of the Billboard “Hot 100” singles chart while the album
itself notched a #20 placement on the albums chart, not too shabby a showing
considering that Zevon was uniquely out-of-step with musical trends at the
time. The stopgap live album Stand In the Fire was released in late
1980, followed by the eccentric collection The Envoy in 1982. In spite
of his earlier commercial success, Asylum Records dumped Zevon after
The Envoy failed to chart, and as the artist sunk into drug and alcohol
abuse, he wouldn’t record again for five years and the critically-acclaimed
1987 album Sentimental Hygiene…but that’s a story for another time.
(Asylum Records, 1980)
Buy the LP from Amazon.com:
Warren Zevon’s Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School
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