Let’s Have Sax is our semi-regular column highlighting the lost art of saxophones in rock music – and the pressing need for them to return.
Warren Zevon had a long, winding, and weird career, but he found his biggest commercial and critical success with his 1978 release Excitable Boy. And while everyone knows the great “Werewolves of London,” it’s not the best thing on the album.
That’s reserved for the album’s title track. “Excitable Boy” is a supremely bizarre tale of a sadistic child who, after experimenting with some weird, though somewhat innocent, behavior, graduates to murdering his prom date, Susie, and eventually making a cage out of her bones, as one does.
It’s dark material for sure – and should be an essential deep cut on any Halloween playlist – but what really showcases Zevon’s trademark dark humor is the juxtaposition of his subject matter and the music that accompanies it – in this case the doo-wop feel and upbeat sax he deploys on “Excitable Boy.”
One moment our excitable boy is rubbing pot roasts all over himself and bitting an usherette’s leg in a movie theater, the next we’re treated to a sax solo that feels like it could fit in just as well in a song about sharing milkshakes at the local diner.
But that’s who Zevon always was, a truly unique artist who could combine any and all genres with his gift for storytelling. He always had something different to say, and when it was something truly weird, we all got to benefit from it.
