The Laptop Sessions: “Searching For A Heart” (Warren Zevon Acoustic Cover Song)

Saturday, October 18th, 2008

By Jim Fusco:

**I hit 120,000 YouTube video views today!  It’s another milestone and another testament to the popularity and success of the Laptop Sessions!**

Sorry for the late post tonight, but the video has been up on YouTube now for over 24 hours.  I had to record the video late last night and publish it because I had a very, very busy day today.  At least it wasn’t work!  I had my usual “Luncho Marx”, followed by a trip to Becky’s house, a trip to my cousin Louie’s house, a trip to get my cousin Sarah (and see my cousin Gerry, of course), and then finally a trip up to Mohegan Sun casino for shopping, gambling, and a concert with one of my favorite bands: America!  I got to get a t-shirt signed by Dewey Bunnell and Gerry Beckley- always exciting!

I had fun playing on the new Star Trek slot machines, but not nearly as much fun as Chris “I win at everything I try except for PS2 baseball” Moore, who won big.  I then had the task of dropping everyone off and am finally home.  We had a great dinner tonight, too, at Sol Toro restaurant, which is a great authentic Mexican place.  They have the best guacamole you’ll ever taste.  The lime and the cilantro made it for me.

Tonight’s song is a great, albeit sad, one from Warren Zevon.  Unless you’re a fan of his “Best Of” compilations and some of his albums, you’ve probably never heard of this song.  It’s my favorite from him.  I truly only listened to the “Best Of” CD, but I listened to it a lot.  This song stood out the most.

One thing that I DON’T like about the song is one line in the chorus.  He says, “Searching for a heart…searching everyone…they say love conquers all…you can’t start it like a *****…you can’t stop it with a gun.”

Okay, I bleeped out the word (don’t worry- it’s not a swear).  Now, you would think by reading that line that the words “everyone” and “gun” would rhyme.  They do!  Now, that would leave the other two lines to rhyme: “conquers all” and the word in asterisks.

For me, I always thought that word was “call”.  The idea I had was that love isn’t just something you can start up instantly like making a phone call.  “Call” rhymes with “all”, so I thought it made sense.

As usual, I’m wrong, but I can’t understand why.

Instead, Zevon says, “You can’t start it like a car”.  Same sentiment as mine, right?  You can’t just turn love on like a light switch…or like starting a car…or like picking up the phone.

But it doesn’t rhyme!  Since when does “all” rhyme with “car”?  So, when I found that out, I was a little disappointed.  But, it doesn’t take away the fact that I love this song and that it’s got a great message to it.  Yes, I may have rhymed differently, but no one ever said Zevon was an “ordinary” guy like I’d like to think I am when it comes to matters like this.

Okay, I think I’m making less and less sense now, seeing that it’s 4 am.  It’s time for bed and I have to just pray that tomorrow’s lunch meeting (our usual Burger King lunch today was halted by the fact that they LITERALLY had a sign on the door that read, “No beef or grilled chicken”) doesn’t begin with a call from Stuffy D. Bear at 10:30 am saying, “I’m hungry” over and over again! :-)  See you folks on Tuesday for another great acoustic cover song from yours truly, Jim Fusco.

The Laptop Sessions: “The Envoy” (Warren Zevon Acoustic Rock Cover Song)

Friday, June 6th, 2008

By Chris Moore:

I expect that most people haven’t heard of this song from one of my favorite songwriters, Warren Zevon. “The Envoy” is the title track from his poorly-received 1982 album that led to his record label dropping him. Supposedly, he found out that he had been dropped by reading the article in a magazine. This, of course, led to a period of drinking and self destruction.

But I really love this album! Perhaps it’s because this is one of those albums that I feel very personally about, as though I’m one of the few to ever really appreciate it. The songs may not be his best, but there are certainly some fun ones, like “The Hula Hula Boys” and “Let Nothing Come Between You.”

Without further ado, here’s my acoustic cover song version of “The Envoy,” a song that is sadly still relevant, over twenty-five years later…

See you next session!

The Laptop Sessions: “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner” (Warren Zevon Acoustic Rock Cover Song)

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

By Chris Moore:

My two-session tribute to Warren Zevon rolls on with what is probably my favorite Warren Zevon song of all-time, “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner.” You have to know that I love the song if I’m willing to sing it, mid-song swear and all. I’m not quite certain what it is about this song that I find so appealing; I’ve always found the story mysterious and exciting, and the music fits perfectly with the lyrics. I’ve heard conflicting interpretations of the final line, “Patty Hearst heard the burst of Roland’s thompson gun and bought it.” I thought it meant she was killed, but I’ve heard others read it as her buying the gun at an auction years later.

Regardless of Patty’s fate, this is one of the big check marks on my Laptop Sessions list. You can look forward to many more Zevon tunes in the future! Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for an all-new session from Jeff, whose “Greenlight” EP comes out on February 24th at fusco-moore.com/store!

The Laptop Sessions: “Excitable Boy” (Warren Zevon Acoustic Rock Cover Song)

Thursday, February 7th, 2008

By Chris Moore:

There’s lots of good stuff happening here at LaptopSessions.com! I’ve been spurred on by Jim and Jeff’s recent plans for releases and by all of Jim’s tireless work designing the website, so I have a couple “extra’s” for you today.

First of all, I posted my review of Ringo’s Liverpool 8 album a half hour ago. (Another goal of mine this year is to write at least brief reviews of all the new albums I buy this year.) In the coming days and weeks, you can look for reviews of both Sheryl Crow’s and Jack Johnson’s new albums that came out today.

In addition to the CD review, I have also posted a second “Behind the Scenes” video. I had the idea to make this short film when I was recording the session for Warren Zevon’s “Excitable Boy.” It’s really cheesy, but it was easy and fun to make, and I wanted to share it with you all.

Finally, of course, I have posted my second song from one of my absolute favorite artists, Warren Zevon. You may know him for “Werewolves of London,” but he has written so much more! This is one of his more well-known songs and I hope you enjoy it. It’s somewhat disturbing, but if you think about the overall idea of the song, it’s actually an interesting statement from Zevon.

I hope you enjoy all the new posts to be found on the site today, and you can look forward to all-new material from Jeff and Jim in the days to come as “a session-a-day keeps the viewers…um, coming back to LaptopSessions.com” continues!

The Laptop Sessions: “Looking for the Next Best Thing” (Warren Zevon Acoustic Rock Cover Song)

Friday, November 23rd, 2007

By Chris Moore:

This is a great Warren Zevon song and I really wish I could have included the solo in the middle! Still, I had a lot of fun learning it and am proud to include a Zevon song in my repertoire. As I’ve seen Jim and Jeff build their list of bands/artists that they’ve covered, I’ve definitely begun writing my own list in my head, and this artist is a big check. I’ll definitely be playing more from him, if I could only decide which song I want to play next. Probably “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner”…