I had Christian peers who were nasty little proselytizers but my dad was a very different person than them. If he had been, it would not necessarily have driven any sort of wedge between us. When I first heard I Was In The House When The House Burned Down, I wondered if my dad was reconnecting with Methodism. For a million good reasons, of course- both spirituality and death are encounters with the unknown. Warren Zevon being Warren Zevon, he could not separate spirituality from its relevance to death.
Death was on my dad’s mind for one reason and it was on my mind for another, but it was in both of our thoughts.Īnd it was in Warren’s thoughts because of cancer. Those events happened about a year after dad discovered Life’ll Kill Ya but both dysphoria and insomnia hallucinations were present well before that year. Broaching these topics with them never helped. I had already been aware of how news like this impacted them both and I had developed a sense of responsibility about it. Including the more gruesome intrusive thoughts.ĭoctor told mom and mom told dad. I spoke plainly about gender dysphoria and constant sleep deprivation. Once, when a psychiatrist asked the right question in the right way, I became unusually open. My parents had shared custody so I spent time with both of them. Dad had just discovered Life’ll Kill Ya, which was probably Zevon’s most recent album at the time. The van was also where I heard most of his music. Between errands in town, he would often take naps in his van. Consequently, he slept during the day more often and was forced to economize his energy. He began working at the printing press at the local newspaper, sorting papers and delivering them at night in his van. This was an intense time for my dad and I but also a precious time. He was open about how much the inevitability of death weighed on his thoughts. My mom was approaching her late thirties and my dad was almost forty. My parents got divorced just before my eleventh birthday.
My father was raised with a soft Methodist emphasis but has been an agnostic for as long as he’s been making his own decisions. This tradition came down through my mother’s side of the family. I was raised with an ethnic spirituality in a heavily Christian environment. It’s the reason why we expect to hear Christianity more often in country and in the roots of R&B. It’s a strummy, acoustic folk song and when Warren sang those particular lyrics he affected a whoop-like blue-grass vocalization.Īmerican folk music evolved alongside American gospel music. The Christian references sound natural for a reason. I helped him carry his cross through town I was in the house when the house burned down
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