In a matter of days, we had found the way to stay in Spain! Lindy was going to pay us two hundred pesetas a week (about twenty dollars, as I recall), which he would hold until we were ready to leave Sitges. I could pass the hat as often as I wanted for our day-to-day living expenses; breakfast and dinner would be provided by Lisa. There was no question now: luck was on our side.
We celebrated by taking the acid we’d been carrying around. Of course, the problem was that this was Franco’s Spain, and the secret police were supposedly lurking behind every shadow and we were working illegally. To us, this only added intrigue to our somewhat distorted sense of adventure.
Warren and Lindy (David Lindell) writing “Roland, the Headless Thompson Gunner” in Sitges, 1975.
Warren and Crystal bought matching glasses for their “new life.” Here, playing at the Dubliner in Sitges.
June 10, 1975
…Started singing—Irish crowd—ended up accompanying them—all Irish sing. Announced C’s birthday at 12—Lindy presented us with champagne, Brendan the bartender with hash, after the whole bar sang a round of Happy Birthday.
June 11, 1975
…Crystal’s 26th Birthday…Happy, affectionate morning, bkfst at The Dubliner. Gave C. the cheap blue t-shirt I’d bought, later shopped for a nice blue shirt & cinch belt…Took C’s picture with the pinball machine on which she’d racked up an astronomical score…did the set with dedications to C., afterwards went to the beach for some seaside necking in the sand. Lovely day.
CRYSTAL ZEVON: There is a lovely church on the cliffs overlooking the beach in Sitges. We learned to tell time by that hauntingly hollow echo of the church bells. We went there often and just sat and held hands. It was Catholic, and he decided we should convert. He meant it. He really wanted to stay in Spain. I don’t think he’d ever felt free before…He bought me a little gold cross to wear around my neck and told me we’d have a dozen babies and he’d play whatever music suited him and life would be grand. I wasn’t too enamored of the Catholic part, but I did love the reverence it brought up in him.
June 13, 1975
…Lindy paranoid about the local heat so didn’t play tonight. Met another guitarist there looking for work (Lindy turned him down flat).
CRYSTAL ZEVON: The Dubliner customers were mostly willing to indulge Warren playing original songs as long as the set was spruced up with Irish ballads where all could sing along. One night, we got back to our room at dawn and I was dead tired, but Warren was pumped up. I tried to get him to come to bed, but he said, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” We both thought that was hysterical and we started laughing, tears streaming down our faces, making up new lines for the song (which he had started but not finished yet) like “I’ll sleep when the cukaboo in the next room stops banging on the wall…,” or “I’ll sleep when the disco burns to the ground.”
June 22, 1975
…Lindy found some Irish lyrics in the drawer…kept singing “and she stuck the penknife in the baby’s head” over and over…I was hysterical all day…Did the show for a relatively quiet club, got Lindy to sing “Weilo Weilo Wailo” with me, fucking nearly messed my britches when I got to that part of “Whiskey in the Jar” where he’s dreaming of gold and jewels…Left relatively early, stopped in Andrew’s Spotted Dog, introduced German Mike to a German girl, arm wrestled with a Spanish amigo which meant buying him two beers because I lost (twice) of course.
July 3, 1975
…Now too drunk to read the 8th in my new (fine) book of Graham Greene short stories. Weak but recovering from a cold. Lindy is blowing up little bombs for the 4th.
July 7, 1975
…Slept late. Stopped at Dubliner, mailed birthday package to Jordan & cards to Jackson & Phil…Learned “Help Me Make It Through the Night”…added to my “Old Girl” song…Back to Dubliner…short slightly successful show, did “Old Girl” as a matter of fact. Home early. The Patatas Fritas stand across the street held out their last 2 jamon y queso sandwiches for us; read a little; made love.
July 13, 1975
…Big turkey dinner for the Dubliner employees…Show went fine—good Irish around—500 pts. in the jar. Short visit at Spotted Dog. Everybody’s crazy in Sitges & I’m getting saner by the day…oh well…C & I reading Ross MacD in bed together.
CRYSTAL ZEVON: An American from Barcelona named George Potter started hanging out at the Dubliner. One night after closing, he came with us to the beach to watch the sunrise. Right after we sat down, four armed and uniformed Guardia Civil marched down the beach in our direction. One of them started questioning me while another one used his machine gun to prod the guitar out of Warren’s hands. Neither Warren nor I understood what they were saying, but George suddenly grabbed my left hand and waved it under their noses. They backed off, smiling, apologizing. The wedding ring let them know Warren and I were married—legitimate. Bueno, bueno. Have a good time. Later, George asked Warren to come to Barcelona to meet some people he worked with. It turned out he was a manager and the people he wanted Warren to meet had a Swiss-owned record company. Eventually, they offered Warren a Spanish recording contract.
Warren and George Potter at the Dubliner.
The regulars at the Dubliner—front (L to R): Crystal, Murphy, Tommy O’Brien; middle: Warren, Barbara, Margaret O’Brien, (unknown), Scotts Jock; back: an AWOL soldier, Chris, Brendan, Lindy, (unknown).
We went to Barcelona to discuss recording possibilities and the people at the record company warned us that making a record in Spain would be very different from the U.S. They said when Warren went on tour, I would have to stay at home and be in the background. We returned to Sitges and started making plans to sublet a two-bedroom apartment from an Irish couple who were summer Dubliner regulars, Tommy and Margaret O’Brien. Warren would make a record, I would have babies, and we would live out a quiet, happy life in Spain. We sent postcards home, jubilant with the news.
About two weeks later, I wasn’t feeling well, so I stayed at the Mariangle while Warren headed for breakfast at the Dubliner. The hostel owner brought the mail and there was a postcard, a Los Angeles beach scene, from Jackson Browne. It said something like:
“Too soon to give up. Come home. I’ll get you a recording contract. Love, Jackson”
We spent days and nights wrestling with the options. Warren wanted to stay in Spain. We were happy. Luck was on our side, and you don’t mess with luck. I was less sure. Other than two hundred dollars in traveler’s checks I’d hidden (which Warren didn’t know about—one hundred dollars of which actually made it all the way back to the States), we were living on what we earned passing the hat, and some nights that wasn’t enough to feed us. Also, I was sick and I was concerned that if Warren didn’t try to make it in the U.S., he would always wonder if he could have.
While we were trying to figure it all out, Phil Everly wrote and had a job for Warren arranging his next solo album in England. It was perfect. We could take a month in England, earning good money, to decide what we were going to do with the rest of our lives.
July 29, 1975
…Much drinking mixed with speed…Thought a fellow was hassling me in the Dubliner, C. talked to him and he ended up buying me a beer. Went to Spotted Dog—much embracing and warm farewells with George Potter—he’d be a perfect personal manager…Woke C. (with headache), she went more or less berserk, not sure why (leaving Sitges)—called me a whimpering asshole—spent all night packing—full of pills. George said he expected me back within 2 months at the outside.
CRYSTAL ZEVON: Leaving Sitges was incredibly difficult. We didn’t really know if we were saying good-bye for a month or forever. We both wanted it both ways. It created a lot of tension, plus I was really sick and pretending not to be.
July 30, 1975—Sitges
…Irish acquaintance kindly translated “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” into Gaelic for me. Taped “Roland” for Lindy. Warm so longs all around, especially good old Brendan. C & I on good terms (she owed me a mean drunk & bad night
, I decided).
CRYSTAL ZEVON: Spain was such a significant and poignant part of our lives that I think we both always believed we were there for many months. It wasn’t until I read Warren’s diary after his death that I realized we were back in the States by the end of August. We were only gone for a summer. But, it was a period that gave us such sustenance—it lasted in Warren to the end of his life, and for me, it’s like a secret savings account that someone keeps replenishing so there’s always something there when I need it.
SEVEN
WHEN JOHNNY STRIKES UP THE BAND
Dry your eyes my little friend
Let me take you by the hand
Freddie get ready rock steady
When Johnny strikes up the band
Warren had been hired as the musical arranger on Phil Everly’s third solo album, Mystic Line. Phil’s producer, Terry Slater, arranged for lodging at Benifold, a medieval castle/monastery owned by Fleetwood Mac in Surrey.
August 2, 1975—Paris to Dunkirk
Dover to London
…we boarded the ferry, a posh human junkyard; bodies everywhere around the bar, on the floor, in line for the English passport people—even the obligatory minstrel who eyed me as if intuitively inviting me to out-sing him & eat his fist for the effort (I didn’t)…Watched dawn on the Channel and the White Cliffs draw near. We arrived at Victoria Station begged the W.C. attendants to take pesetas for our relief…Talked to Phil, arrangements made for us to stay at Fleetwood Mac’s house (they’re on tour)…We’ve stuck together through the whole experience and our spirits never flagged.
August 5, 1975…Surrey
…Spent all day at Benifold (the Mac) house working on “January Butterfly” fortified by Vitamin C & Heiniken’s—eventually drifted into a lyrical Dm9-Em7-Bflat add 4 passage that pulled me out of the junkyard of poorly-faked Debussyan cacophony (slight reminiscence of “Snowflake Bombadier,” however)…Took me precisely the length of “The Evil of Frankenstein” to draw the score neatly.
August 10, 1975
…Finished “The Ivory Grin”…Lovely weed in tobacco joints—made me sick and headachy. Don’t understand this custom. C & I walked to nearby pub…walked back to Benifold in near total but unmenacing darkness. Did write a little ditty about Adam & Eve & Cain & Abel today, useless.
By the end of the month, Phil’s album was finished and it was time to make a decision. Warren reasoned that between Jackson’s come-’n’-get-it postcard and his wife’s near-death experience, the obvious choice toward future fortune lay in Los Angeles.
CRYSTAL ZEVON: We arrived broke, so we stayed with Warren’s dad for a few days, but his girlfriend, Ruby, wasn’t thrilled to have us. Warren’s father bought us a 1967 Ford and some sheets and blankets, and he gave us enough money to rent an eighty-dollar-a-month apartment with a pull-down Murphy bed at 1843 N. Cherokee Avenue. Oddly, it was the same apartment I had rented in 1968 when I first arrived in L.A. and was working for the Cowsills.
September 2, 1975
…Went to see apt. on Cherokee…decided to take it. Called Phil. Work apparently starting next Sunday. Called Roy this morning…he said Linda Ronstadt wants to call her album “Hasten Down the Wind.” Afraid to think about it.
JACKSON BROWNE: I remember being struck by, wow, I wrote a postcard saying “You might be able to make this record” and, boom, there they were. There wasn’t much discussion or back-and-forth, or any kind of checking on anything. I sort of said, I think, maybe…It certainly wasn’t set when Warren and Crystal came back from Spain. The truth is that I didn’t actually expect them to come back.
Maybe the role I took in making Warren’s records wasn’t good for our relationship. I thought Warren wrote great songs and I was making them the way I would make my own records. There was a magnanimous “I don’t need to be doing this for the bread and I believe in you,” which may have translated into “I’m not here trying to make money off you because I have other ways of making money” in Warren’s mind. That could have stuck in his craw. Not that anybody would ever say that, but you don’t have to say those things for them to be apparent. My role as benefactor took its toll on our friendship.
September 5, 1975
…C. talked to Aspen—State tax bill had come (they attached my Phono Manufacturer’s check—$265), both of us upset. Dosed myself with Valium, Placcidyl & Cuba Libres & we set out for the Universal Amphitheatre. Jackson there, backstage, Linda Ronstadt’s concert excellent although I was seeing double for awhile. Introduced myself to Linda who was cordial & said she was calling her next album “Hasten Down the Wind.” She said she’d tried to change the gender of the song but decided to leave it as is.
CRYSTAL ZEVON: On our first night in our new apartment, we decided to celebrate with Warren’s favorite meal at home. I made pot roast cooked in cognac-based onion soup. Warren got dressed up in his one white dress shirt and when he tasted the pot roast, he grabbed a fistful, jumped up on the countertop, ripped off the buttons to his shirt and proceeded to rub the meat all over his chest. A couple nights later, we went to Roy Marniell’s place and had another pot roast dinner and “Excitable Boy” was born.
September 12, 1975
…Phil called to tell us that the Seattle-Vancouver dates had been cancelled, an ugly surprise. Morose, we invited ourselves to dinner at Roy’s who generously made us a fine pot roast. After dinner we worked out a good deal of a crazy new tune, “Excitable Boy.”
ROY MARINELL: I was living in this little shack on a canal in Venice. I was poor; Crystal and Warren were poor. Pretty much everyone we knew was poor. I was learning to cook inexpensive cuts of meat. On this particular occasion, I invited Warren and Crystal over for dinner, and we had pot roast. After dinner, we were sitting around with guitars and Warren said to me, “Nobody ever lets me play lead guitar. Why is that?” Trying to be diplomatic, I said, “It’s because you get a little too excited, Warren.” And he said, “Well, I’m just an excitable boy.” We looked at each other, and that was it. Fifteen minutes later, that one was written.
That bit about how he built a cage with her bones, the critics made all kinds of assumptions about the significance of the song, about how it was like Charlie Manson, who said, “Don’t let me out.”…Well, where that verse comes from is when I was a young boy in Illinois, around the schoolyard some kid would say, “Eat shit.” Your response would be, “What’ll I do with your bones?” And his response would be, “Build a cage for your mother.”
It had nothing to do with any of this social significance. It was this goofy kid thing, and I told the story to Warren and he laughed and we put that in the song. But, you know, it also gave me a perspective as to what critics don’t know…it turns out they didn’t know nothin’ about what I was saying, so they probably don’t know nothin’ about what anybody else is saying either.
Warren’s newer friendship with Jorge Calderon was taking root. Warren wanted to write a song in the vein of “Frank and Jesse James”—not musically but a song shaped around a historical character or event. After watching a TV documentary on Emil Zapata, Warren visited the Hollywood Library, and the kernel for a new song emerged.
What Jorge Calderon contributed to “Veracruz” changed Warren’s tangled perspective and created a bond between the two men that would endure longer than any other relationship in Warren’s life.
JORGE CALDERON: When Warren came back from Spain, we got tighter because I had been to Sitges. We had this instant connection, like, wow, you went there? But, the first song we wrote together was “Veracruz,” which came as a complete surprise to me. After we discovered the Spain connections, we used to have fun just hanging out. I was a big fan of his…I never even thought of the possibility that I would be doing anything with him. He wrote great songs, but they were completely different from what I was working on.
Then one day he said, “I have this song. It goes here, and then it stops and I want you to come up with something in Spanish, because it’s about these people in V
eracruz.” He told me there was some American-led rebellion going on, and these people were losing their homes…I go, “Yeah, cool.” I took it home and listened to it, and I did the whole Spanish part of it. When I came back with it, he totally loved it.
September 15, 1975
…News from Jackson: no front money from Geffen. Jackson offered to loan me money himself; I guess we’re still better off with Asylum (and I remember being pleased enough with my no-advance U.A. deal years ago). C. acting encouraging & unfazed by the winged departure of 10 grand.
JACKSON BROWNE: Geffen said, “Why do you want me to make this record? Is this going to make me a lot of money?” I said, “Well, I never thought about it.” Then, I said, “Yeah, maybe.” He said, “The problem is, you want to be the hero to your friends.”
This was the sort of thing that, among close friends, seemed to be the verdict on me…But, I said, “Look, he’s really good. What do you want me to say? I mean, you’re the guy that knows how to create success.” He says, “I think it’s great. But, is it going to make me money?” I said, “I don’t know.” He said, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You pay for it. I’ll put it out, and I’ll give you a bigger percentage of it.”
I wanted a budget of one hundred thousand dollars, not sixty thousand dollars. It isn’t that much money in today’s record business, but at the time, it was a lot. I wish I’d taken the deal. I wish I’d just said, “Okay.”
CRYSTAL ZEVON: We couldn’t go anywhere because we didn’t have gas for the car, and we’d even resorted to playing pinochle at home because we couldn’t afford to put quarters in the pinball machines. Meanwhile, we were being invited to celebrity parties in Malibu and concerts with the Rolling Stones.
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead Page 11