"I Need A Truck", Warren Zevon

On his Underground Garage radio program a few weeks ago, Miami Steve Van Zandt was talking about how hard it was to write a short song - two minutes, two minutes and twenty-five seconds - and have it be brilliant (I believe he was holding up Little Richard as an exemplar, but I can't recall which song in particular).  In a short song, he said, to make it great, every millisecond had to be perfect.  With longer songs, his theory went, you could meander around a bit, and you might have a little more leeway here and there (though he didn't say you couldn't write a great song that was longer than two or three minutes (see Dylan, Bob)).

At any rate, clocking in at 49 seconds, I give you I Need a Truck, by Warren Zevon.  What is amazing to me is how this song so perfectly captures just about anything and everything Zevon dealt with in his other songs - booze and drugs, physical and mental anguish, fame, mortality.  I still miss him, and why wouldn't I.

(The images add nothing in my opinion, I only use the link for the audio...)


IBL:mm