The Poor Top Ten: Poor Poor Pitiful Me (#4)

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Oh, you impatient people won’t let me be. For the second day in a row we have a song with “poor” in the title that “everybody” has been waiting for. So, without further ado (“What is ado and why should there be any further of it?” — Robert Klein), here’s today’s song. #4: Poor Poor Pitiful Me - Warren Zevon One of the things that endeared me, and still endears me, and probably always will endear me, to Warren Zevon was his ability to start a song with a grabber. “Hell is only half-full, room for you and me” is how he began “Monkey Wash, Donkey Rinse.” And how about the opening line for this gem? I’d lay my head on the railroad track To wait for the Double E But railroad don’t run no more Poor poor pitiful me Linda Ronstadt obviously loved Zevon’s first album, because she did four songs from it: this one, “Carmelita,” “Hasten Down the Wind,” and the ill-advised “Mohammed’s Radio” (she didn’t do that one very well…and I think “Backs Turned, Looking Down the Path” would have suited her much, much better….but she didn’t ask me ). This and “Carmelita” probably paid a few bills in Zevon’s life: it was a successful single for Ronstadt, and later Canadian country singer Terri Clark remade it. “Carmelita” has been covered by everybody from Dwight Yoakam to g.g. allin. The guy was a stinking genius (and not just because he wrote a song called “Genius”….which, by the way, also has a killer opening line: “I’ve got a bitter pot of je ne sais quoi, guess what, I’m stirring it with a monkey’s paw”). I’m sure thankful we had his twisted humor to enrich our musical lives. Poor Poor Pitiful Me Written by Warren Zevon Recorded by Warren Zevon From Warren Zevon, 1976 (Also recorded by Linda Ronstadt, 1978) Sort of like a Waring blender: