On April 12, 2003, Warren Zevon recorded the final song of his career without leaving home. He was too weak to make the trip to a studio, so the studio came to him. His daughter Ariel, pregnant with twins, was in the room. His friend and co-producer Jorge Calderón helped prop him up on the couch. The song was “Keep Me in Your Heart,” and it became the closing track of his last album, The Wind.
Three months to live
Zevon played what turned out to be his last concert at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival on August 9, 2002. His tour managers noticed he was sick and badly short of breath. For most of his life he had avoided doctors, and he had rarely had a real checkup. This time he went. On August 28, 2002, he was told he had inoperable pleural mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lung.
Doctors gave him about three months. He decided against treatment that might have left him too sick to work. Instead he called Jorge Calderón, the longtime bandmate and co-writer he trusted most, and told him he wanted to make one more record and see it through to the end.
He had other goals too. He said he wanted to live long enough to see his first grandchildren born. He also joked that he hoped to see the next James Bond film, Die Another Day. It opened that November, and he made it.
One more record, with friends
Sessions began in the fall of 2002 at studios around Los Angeles, including Billy Bob Thornton’s home studio, the Snakepit. Artemis Records gave Zevon a generous budget, and word spread fast among the musicians who loved him.
The list of people who came to help reads like a roll call of the California music he had been part of since the 1970s. Jackson Browne, who had produced his first major album, sang on “Prison Grove.” Don Henley played drums on “Dirty Life and Times” and sang on “She’s Too Good for Me.” Emmylou Harris sang on “Please Stay.” Tom Petty and Mike Campbell joined “The Rest of the Night.” Ry Cooder, David Lindley, Joe Walsh, Timothy B. Schmit and Dwight Yoakam all took part. In December 2002, Bruce Springsteen came in to play guitar and sing on “Disorder in the House.”
Calderón later said Zevon was thrilled by who turned up. Between sessions, on October 30, 2002, Zevon flew to New York as the only guest for a full hour of Late Show with David Letterman. When Letterman asked whether he now knew something about life and death, Zevon gave the answer people still repeat.
Enjoy every sandwich.
The winter he slipped
The cameras of filmmaker Nick Read, shooting a VH1 documentary, captured the humor, but they also caught the decline. The diagnosis had pushed Zevon back into drinking after about 17 years of sobriety. He was taking liquid morphine. He was often depressed, and at times he disappeared for days, which made the work hard for Calderón.
Over Christmas he went downhill. His son Jordan stepped in to help get him through it. After the turn of the year, Zevon never went back to a studio. Most of the album was finished, but one song was not.
April 12, 2003: the couch session
“Keep Me in Your Heart” was the song Zevon had started writing soon after he learned he was dying. It is a plain, gentle farewell, very different from the dark jokes and outlaw characters that made his name. Calderón kept pushing him to record it before it was too late.
On April 12, after Zevon had accepted medication that steadied him, Calderón and engineer Noah Scot Snyder set up the recording gear at his home in Los Angeles. Ariel was there. With her help and Calderón’s, Zevon sat propped on his couch and sang. Calderón later described the day in simple terms.
He was weak. But he sat on the couch and sang.
The finished track is quiet: Zevon’s voice, Calderón on acoustic guitar, bass and tres, and Jim Keltner on drums. It was placed last on the album. Ariel later said that once the record was done, her father declined quickly.
Once the album was recorded, honestly, he declined rapidly.
Twins, a release date and a chart
He kept his first promise. On June 11, 2003, Ariel gave birth to twin boys, Maximus Patrick and Augustus Warren. Apart from the trip to the hospital to see them, Zevon spent nearly all of his last months at home, resting and watching movies.
On August 24, VH1 aired the documentary, titled Keep Me in Your Heart. Two days later, on August 26, The Wind was released. It sold about 48,000 copies in its first week and entered the Billboard 200 at No. 16. According to Billboard, that was his highest chart position since Excitable Boy reached No. 8 about 25 years earlier.
“We had fun”
Warren Zevon died in his sleep at home in Los Angeles on September 7, 2003, twelve days after the album came out. He was 56. Calderón later said the last words Zevon spoke to him were short and typical of the man.
We had fun.
After his death, The Wind climbed to No. 12 and was certified gold in December 2003. In February 2004 it won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album, and “Disorder in the House” with Springsteen won Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. They were the first Grammys of his career. “Keep Me in Your Heart,” the song he sang from his couch, was nominated for Song of the Year.