LISTENING PARTY: Transverse City

I have never wanted an album like I wanted Warren Zevon’s “Transverse City”. I first became a Zevon fan the end of my sophomore year of high school when I picked up his then most recent album, “Mutineer.” In short order (well as short order as a 15 year with no money in the pre-internet days when people had to go to record stores and buy records with money instead of just stealing them off the web) I picked up “Mr. Bad Example”, “Sentimental Hygiene”, “Learning to Flinch”, and “A Quiet Normal Life” (the best-of collection of his 70s work.) I had read somewhere (and where did we learn things before the internet allowed us to just look up whatever we wanted? I think it was from one of the Rolling Stones Album Review Guides) that Zevon released an album between “Sentimental Hygiene” and “Mr. Bad Example.” I had never seen this CD at any of the record stores I frequented (although I feel like I made a lot of my CD purchases at places like “Circuit City” and “Lechmere’s” at the time) and when my friend Kris told me that she had tried to order the CD for my birthday and was told by our local record shop that the title was unavailable I learned a terrible, horrible phrase: Cut-out. I was never going to be able to find “Transverse City.”
It was about 10 months later (an eternity when you are 15-16) that I learned of a second phrase: Cut-out bin. And in this cardboard bin filled with cassette tapes with their spines sliced, I found a $2.99 copy of Warren Zevon’s “Transverse City.” It was at an old music store frequently found in malls called “The Wall” and I was with my friend Kris, who lent me the $3 I needed to pick up the tape, bringing the whole thing full circle. It is hardly the best Warren Zevon record, but it is my favorite. You can probably make an argument that it is not as warm sounding as the best of his 70s records, or that it lacks the punch of its predecessor, “Sentimental Hygiene.” And that it points the way towards the more simultaneously garish and cheap-sounding production of his 90s work. You may complain, like Zevon’s mother did, that there are no funny songs. But I rejoinder with three simple words:
CYBERPUNK. ROCK. OPERA.

“Transverse City”- I feel like Zevon has been listening to lots of Kraftwerk before recording this song. Or maybe that Taco guy. There’s something so German and Math-y about the way this song opens. Luckily he brought Jerry Garcia to play lead guitar on the track. That’s right, the leader of the Grateful Dead is playing on German Synth-Rock. Did they have to give Garcia a B-12 shot before he started playing? The lyrics sounds like they come from Blade Runner: The Opera. He keeps singing to some girl named Pollyanna, and if I were him I would’ve invited Haley Mills to appear in a music video where she dances around a bank of computer screens and slow dancing with robots. But maybe that’s why Virgin has never offered me a record contract.

“Run Straight Down”- I want to be a chemist so I can make what ever compound Zevon is naming under the music of this song. I bet whatever it is could eat through a safe door. Listen to the video clip. He sounds like he’s naming the ingredients in “Fruity Pebbles” after sugar and rice. Continuing the guest-guitarists-from big-bands theme he’s got going, Dave Gilmour from Pink Floyd plays lead guitar on this track. At least Gilmour has experience playing guitar on inscrutable concept albums. I can totally see Gilmour just nodding as Zevon explained his idea. “It’s going to be a concept album about a dystopian future in which people are controlled by chemicals and consumerism.” Gilmour: “One of our albums had a pig singing through a vocoder.” Point: Pink Floyd.


“The Long Arm of The Law”- Zevon is great at dropping completely disarming details into his lyrics. The song just kind of details somebody who is a criminal, and most of the lyrics are pretty generic “When I was born, times were bad, when I got older, they got worse. First words I ever learned were ‘Nobody moves nobody gets hurt.’” But then he has one verse in the middle that talks about a war in Paraguay back in 1999. This album came out in 1989. He’s talking about the future! I love reading about futures that have already passed. Like how Logan’s Run took place in like 1992. “We’ll all be wearing shiny uniforms by then, and they’ll kill all the old people!” Guest star for this track: Jazz pianist Chick Corea, who doesn’t seem to do anything that worth bringing in a jazz great for. Maybe it’s part of Zevon’s theme: in the future, there will be jazz pianists, but they’ll only be able to play on MOR radio albums, way, way down in the mix.

“Turbulence”- This song is about a Russian secret agent. My favorite lines? “Well, I’ve been fighting the mujahaddin, Down in Afghanistan. Comrade Gorbachev, can I go back to Vladivostok, man?” I love that he refers to Gorbachev as “man.” If Zevon had had another verse where he had somebody say to Khrushchev “Bummer, dude” I think it would be the best song of all time. Also, I had to consult the lyric sheet for the spelling of Vladivostok, and there’s a verse that Zevon sings in Russian, and in the lyric book it says [there is Russian lettering here] [unable to re-type] [what should we do?] Guest star: JD Souther on harmony vocals. We’re a long way from the Hotel California, JD.

“They Moved the Moon”- I really like this song. It’s more of a mood piece. Jerry Garcia’s back on guitar for this one. I like to pretend that they just couldn’t get Garcia out of the studio. He just kept on hanging around. It sounds like he was just noodling around, and Zevon puts a bunch of post-processing on the guitar to make it sound like different things. Like outer-space machines. Or something. The song really is pretty awesome, although I like to pretend that the chorus is literal. Or like, if the guy in the song met up with a third grader. “They moved the moon, when I looked down. When I looked away, they moved the stars around.” “Yeah, mister. It’s called the Earth’s rotation.”

“Splendid Isolation”- This song doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the tracks. It’s also the only song that anybody who doesn’t own this album may have ever heard. It’s all about going off to live in the desert like Georgia O’Keefe. Or Michael Jackson in Disneyland. Best line ever: “Lock the gates, Goofy, take my hand. And lead me to the world of self.” This song is really a classic. Bonus: harmony vocals by Neil Young, and a great harmonica solo by Warren Zevon. Although that may be a liner notes error, because I know how much Neil Young loves the harmonica. And because it doesn’t sound like the voice harmonizing with Zevon is that of a sick Canadian bobcat. God, how could I be so cruel to Neil Young? Now that I listen to it, the harmonica is most likely not Young, because it doesn’t do that thing that Neil Young harmonica solos do, where it sounds like he just thought that all you had to do to play the harmonica was breath in and out of it really hard. There are individual notes, Neil!


“Networking”-This song brings back the sound effects, where we open with the sounds of people eating lunch. This song utilizes a number of Heartbreakers, so it has a nice organ sound on it courtesy Benmont Tench. And apparently since Zevon had his own bass player, Howie Epstein gets to play the banjo. I think that’s buried way down in the mix. My fiancee loves this song, especially the chorus where Zevon tells you that you upload him and he’ll download you. She always sings along with that part. I love imagining that for many people back in 1989, those two words meant nothing. Oh, Warren, you were so ahead of your time. Open question: is upload/download supposed to be a sexual thing?

“Gridlock”- Alright, we’re never going to make it to the 1999 War in Paraguay if we can’t through this traffic! God, it sucks to think that in the future we’re still going to be sitting around , bumper-to-bumper. Where are our jetpacks and flying cars, Warren? I think Warren must’ve been kicking himself when he realized that by 1999 we eliminated the need to physically move ourselves around at all, able to teleport our minds and communicate telepathically. Man, Gorbachev, let’s just get out and walk. Neil Young on guitar, this time.

“Down at the Mall”- Wait. Americans are consumerist freaks? We like to buy stuff? Malls are really big? After you’re done recording this song, Warren, I have the broad side of a barn I need hit. Would you mind coming down? There are a few nice touches, like when he’s naming all the stores he’s going to go to, and there’s a second voice talking over the list, and it says that they’re going to stop to buy some oriental imports. I like that. Also, I like that he let Howie Epstein play bass, instead of giving him a banjo and telling him to sit in the corner and shut up. At this point I should probably point out that both Warren Zevon and Howie Epstein are dead, which makes me a very insensitive person.

“Nobody’s In Love This Year”- I love this song, and it’s one of the great Zevon love songs. I’m sorry, one of the great Zevon we’re-not-in-love songs. This might be my favorite song title of all time. Guest appearance by Mark Isham on flugelhorn. . Zevon was a great writer, if he wasn’t always a great performer of his own material. Case in point: the “orchestra-hit” keyboard line throughout the song. But the guy is all class, because he pronounces maturity as “ mah-tour-ity” as opposed to “match-err-ity.” He’s like Frasier.

(There is no live version of "Nobody's In Love This Year" I could find, so here is his great we're-not-in-love song from "Mr. Bad Example" instead. "Searching for A Heart")

This album was reissued on CD in 2002 to capitalize on…I’m sorry, commemorate Zevon’s passing. And as such they dug up probably the only bonus track they could find, a demo of “Networking” which frankly ruins my listening experience, because “NILTY” is such a great album closer, and they only include one bonus track? I’m listening to it, because I said I would, but it really cheeses me off.

The album cover is Zevon surrounded by a fractured background of cars and stores and other signs of the capitalistic black spot on the soul of America. I used to think his hair was deliberately styled to make him look like a mad scientist or like Renfield from Dracula, but looking at video performances from the time, this was apparently how Zevon wore his hair. Two years later he would show up with a beard, and I think I can say on behalf of people who look at faces everywhere, it couldn’t have come a moment too soon.