National Poetry Month: Warren Zevon

 



"My Shit's Fucked Up" - Warren Zevon

 

Well, I went to the doctor
I said, "I'm feeling kind of rough"
He said "I'll break it to you, son,
Your shit's fucked up."
I said "my shit's fucked up?
Well, I don't see how."
He said, "The shit that used to work
It won't work now."

I had a dream
Ah, shucks, oh, well
Now it's all fucked up
It's shot to hell

Yeah, yeah, my shit's fucked up
It has to happen to the best of us
The rich folks suffer like the rest of us
It'll happen to you

That amazing grace
Sort of passed you by
You wake up every day
And you start to cry
Yeah, you want to die
But you just can't quit
Let me break it on down:
It's the fucked up shit

 

Warren Zevon  was an occasional visitor to the home of  Ivor Stravinsky, where he briefly studied modern classical music. When he was 16 years old he quit high school and moved from Los Angeles to New York City to become a folk singer. In 1992 he told an Australian interviewer: “My advice to starting-out songwriters – not that I ever get the opportunity to say this to them – is that all those songs you’ve written have probably got a couple good lines in ‘em. Throw out everything but those and start over. Then build those up on a couple songs – then combine the two. That’s it. Be ruthless.” He died of cancer in 2003.