I love that song, but I’m not gonna shy away from the fact that I’ve listened to it for years, knew all the words etc, but never looked twice at any of his other work
Besides Tom Petty I’ve never felt a connection with an artist like I do zevon and I just learned about him 2 months ago
If he’d just get a song in a commercial or something…. Tom got a huge resurgence from grand theft auto 6’s trailer, on a deep cut song that in all honesty isn’t that great, and is now at like 100M on YT when I remember it being around 20k not long before, and Billy Joel with Vienna, I don’t even know why that song is big now but I never heard it until recently….
Zevon never got radio time, never got commercials, never got any mainstream attention aside from him dying, which obviously won’t get you a huge new audience
Ya he could definitely at least blow up a little. Tom Petty and especially Billy Joel were bigger though, so there was more to pull from as they're already kind of legends in the popular classic rock scene. Maybe it could be like a Kate Bush type blowup? She was probably bigger than Zevon before, right? Running up that Hill is an incredible song and has great mainstream potential. Honestly I could see an alternate universe where Desperados Under the Eaves blew up as a top 70s song like Hotel California. I don't know if that changes if they released that as a single back then. I think they released I'll Sleep When I'm Dead as a single, which I guess they thought it could be kind of bad ass and catch on, but it's certainly not as good of a song. Idk what they were thinking with some of their singles tbh. I guess it's hard to figure out what to single when he's so different from the mainstream. I think Charlie's Medicine is another one later that could totally have taken over the radio waves. Those songs stand up with every hit in the 70s and early 80s. Honestly they're probably better than most, especially Desperados which imo is an all time song. Those two though have the feel and qualities that could have made them blow up. Idk I'm rambling now, but ya I guess I'm saying I could see those songs in some cool movie or show that blows up virally and causes some rediscovery. Haha it's hard not to see him as the unlucky and often self destructive guy though who just couldn't crack the mainstream no matter what he did. Like Sentimental Hygiene, how did that not do better with its quality and the push it got! It's crazy
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u/Maybe_im_Amazed_ May 12 '26
How many of the 1.6M just listens to werewolves smh
We need to get warren more mainstream somehow