This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
I was sitting in the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel
I was staring in my empty coffee cup
I was thinking that the gypsy wasn't lyin'
All the salty margaritas in Los Angeles
I'm gonna drink 'em up
And if California slides into the ocean
Like the mystics and statistics say it will
I predict this motel will be standing until I pay my bill
Don't the sun look angry through the trees
Don't the trees look like crucified thieves
Don't you feel like Desperados under the eaves
Heaven help the one who leaves
Still waking up in the mornings with shaking hands
And I'm trying to find a girl who understands me
But except in dreams you're never really free
Don't the sun look angry at me
I was sitting in the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel
I was listening to the air conditioner hum
It went mmm...
Look away
(Look away down Gower Avenue, look away)
I was staring in my empty coffee cup
I was thinking that the gypsy wasn't lyin'
All the salty margaritas in Los Angeles
I'm gonna drink 'em up
And if California slides into the ocean
Like the mystics and statistics say it will
I predict this motel will be standing until I pay my bill
Don't the sun look angry through the trees
Don't the trees look like crucified thieves
Don't you feel like Desperados under the eaves
Heaven help the one who leaves
Still waking up in the mornings with shaking hands
And I'm trying to find a girl who understands me
But except in dreams you're never really free
Don't the sun look angry at me
I was sitting in the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel
I was listening to the air conditioner hum
It went mmm...
Look away
(Look away down Gower Avenue, look away)
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No one can read these lyrics and understand the power of this song without hearing the airconditioner turn into strings.....
Absolutely amazing and it always brings me to tears.
mysterri
@mysterri One of my favourite moments, when the air conditioner hums its victorious melody.
The overall tone feels like it's about recovery from alcoholism - "...empty coffee cup", "Still wake up with shaking hands" allude to that; What ties the verses together is the sense of guilt and disorientation , and that there's a higher power judging him ("...the sun look angry at me")- that's sort of where 12 step programs take you.
Not bad, but here is a little more insight from someone who grew up in Hollywood. As far as gypsy goes there are more than a few fortune tellers in Hollywood, but your thinking fits, about 12 steps. <br /> Under the Eaves refers to a shopping center on Sunset Bl. and Gower St. that is called Gower Gulch and is set up with a western theme with boardwalks and eaves!<br /> It is true that Gower St. ends at Melrose where the studio is, but it also goes past a very large cemetery (The Hollywood Forever Cemetery). This can also be a reference to heavenly powers you allude to in paragraph three,<br /> Warren was such a great talent and the line about how California sliding into the ocean but not until he pays his bill at the hotel reminds me of how the always had a clink in his armor or a tweaked wheel. I reference the title of one of his albums "Bad Luck in Dancing School) LOL.<br /> Lastly, he has that haunting lyric similar to "Dixie".<br /> "I wish I was in Dixie in Dixieland I'll make my stand, look away, look away."<br /> Perhaps Warren was going to make his stand there in Hollywood, look away, look away.
Gower Gulch is were they used to shoot a lot of westerns; the term "drugstore cowboy" came from all the extras from these films who would congregate in the drugstores along Gower drinking coffee and probably whisky. This is the true origin of the songs title.
Great call Pat1234, dizzoh, on the shopping center Gower Gulch !!! It's classic Zevon tongue in cheek!! The cemetery is another good call - it all references mortality. I think I missed a good bit in my original analysis: WZ has this great technique of zeroing in on a theme with visceral images (i.e. his "empty cup" - depression is a "coffee" cup - sobriety). While the angry sun through the trees is a higher power metaphor, it's also a very real and painful source of sunburn and dehydration to those "desperadoes" on the street - which WZ counters with Air Conditioning. Jeeze, I miss him.
Love this interpretation and also the notes in the replies. In response to your last question, though it was in disrepair at the time, the Hollywood sign is pretty much straight ahead if you're looking North on Gower Avenue (as Google Maps' Street View will attest), and it's probably the only N/S running street in Hollywood that offers this view from the street level from beginning to end. Put that together with cemetery to the south, and either way you look you have symbols of both death and fame. I'm not sure if I can link here, but this photo illustrates being able to see both at once: ssl.panoramio.com/photo/82136260
Yours is a brilliant interpretation. Thanks. Along those lines perhaps the title line has a double meaning. One, that an alcoholic sleeping late would shun the direct sunlight and stay under the eaves. Another, that he would avoid the harsh judgement of the angry Sun/God looking down on him.<br /> <br /> Another thought just hit me. Desperados are desperate persons, right? From "to despair".
As Crystal Zevon reports, the song is actually a literal report from the field. Warren had been staying for quite a while at the Hollywood Hawaiin hotel during one of his many "down" periods, and had run out of money and couldn't pay his bill. With the help of a friend (could have been Jackson Browne or Waddy Wachtel, read the book but don't recall), he left through a bathroom window into an alleyway during the night. Felt guilty about leaving an unpaid bill and returned years later to make good, but famous by then, all they would take was an autographed album. Felt like a desperado, escaped "under the eaves", and was tormented by the guilt of filching on his bill.
That is a great story.<br /> Definitely adds depth and resonance to a song already fraught with both.<br /> And I've had that book on my to-do list for years; thanks for the reminder that I really need to get to it.<br /> And, of course, thank you so much for taking the time to share that story here,<br /> O great world-king
I've heard this song my whole life and it wasn't until today that I realized the string intro is the same as the piano intro of Frank and Jesse James. I suppose he was feeling a bit like an outlaw as he sat in that hotel room contemplating the alternatives to a traditional front desk check out.
Possibly WZ's finest moment.
Has anyone else noticed Zevon's nod to Bob Dylan in "Desperadoes"? Following the the second verse of Dylan's "It takes a lot to laugh, It takes a train to cry" from Highway 61 Revisited. By chance I heard it on the radio this morning, and I was struck by the wording. We know that Warren admired Dylan immensely. I don't think the echoes in "Desperadoes" were accidental, especially the first two lines here.
I also wonder if Warren's referring to the Double E in "Poor, poor, pitiful me" was also a nod to Dylan.
Don't the moon look good, mama, Shinin' through the trees? Don't the brakeman look good, mama, Flagging down the "Double E"? Don't the sun look good Goin' down over the sea? Don't my gal look fine When she's comin' after me?
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@doitright Nice catch!\r\n
No one can read these lyrics and understand the power of this song without hearing the airconditioner turn into strings.....
Absolutely amazing and it always brings me to tears.
mysterri
No one can read these lyrics and understand the power of this song without hearing the airconditioner turn into strings.....
Absolutely amazing and it always brings me to tears.
mysterri
Seems to be about the nadir of existence. Blending oneself into the background.
As Joyce wrote, "His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world"
yes, alcoholism, but also an acceptance of the basics of human nature (this hotel will be standing until i pay my bill) and a kind of miltonesque looking forward in listening to the air conditioner hum. his time is running low and he still has a lot to say.