Linda Ronstadt : POOR POOR PITIFUL ME
What did David Geffen see in the pulpy, alcoholic musings of a former student of Ogor Stravinsky? Aside from the fact that Geffen signed Warren Zevon to his Asylum label, Frank isn't quite sure. At that time, Asylum was a vibrant home for artists like Linda Ronstadt, J.D. Souther, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits, and Glenn Frey (whom Geffen encouraged to form Eagles).
Maybe the question should be, what did Linda Ronstadt see in a Warren Zevon song?
Linda covered several of Warren’s songs — HASTEN DOWN THE WIND and CARMELITA, as well as updating POOR, POOR PITIFUL ME. Obviously, she recognized a terrific tunesmith tapped into a dark edge of the zeitgeist.
In 1976, while cutting his second album for Geffen, Warren Zevon penned POOR POOR PITIFUL ME. Over the years, it has been rumored that the song was a friendly jab at his producer on this project, Jackson Browne. Browne had a tendency to write songs that were somewhat depressing and downright dreary. So, Zevon decided to poke fun at the “oh woe is me” school of songwriting with a piece that describes a miserable man who, soon after failing at suicide, gets involved with two more women (who are, of course, up to no good.)
It may sound bleak, as explained here by Frank, but with lines like this, the song is quite loveable:
She really worked me over good
She was a credit to her gender
She put me through some changes, Lord
Sort of like a Waring blender…
That Waring blender line gets Frank every time.
And maybe it worked for Linda Ronstadt as well. Because two years later, here she comes. With so many of her hits covers of pop songs that would end up in the Great American Songbook (likely due to her covers), Linda was a master songstress who could hue close to the original (HEATWAVE) or create her unique take (TUMBLING DICE). For this, she revved up the song with a slightly harder and crisper sound.
In addition to switching the gender of our hero from male to female, she didn’t want to sing the third verse as it was originally written.
Warren’s original third verse went like this:
I met a girl at the Rainbow Bar
She asked me if I’d beat her
She took me back to the Hyatt Hotel
I don’t want to talk about it, hey…”
Even though it was nearly a half-century ago, it easy to see why she wouldn’t want to talk about hitting women. So, Linda changed the lyrics:
Well, I met a boy in the Vieux Carres
Down in Yokohama
He picked me up and he threw me down
He said, “Please don’t hurt me, mama”
Listeners agreed.
Warren’s version, featuring vocal arrangements by Beach Boy Carl Wilson, never reached the charts.
But, Linda’s hard-rocking rendition of POOR, POOR PITIFUL ME peaked at #31 on the Billboard Hot 100, #26 on the Cash Box Top 100, and #27 on Billboard’s Easy Listening list. It also landed at #46 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. All of this is pretty impressive for a song whose initial intent was to poke fun at Jackson Browne.
By the way, fast forward two decades, and in September of 1996, Terri Clark recorded her own slightly countrified version of POOR, POOR PITIFUL ME, using Linda Ronstadt’s lyrics. Terri’s version was the best-performing of all, shooting all the way to #5 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart.
