Song Review: Warren Zevon, Mark Edmundson, and "Mohammed's Radio"

Critically acclaimed songwriter Warren Zevon only had one hit of his own:  1978's "Werewolves of London", which he considered to be a practical joke on the record company.  Although his albums have been produced by Jackson Browne, his songs have been recorded by Linda Ronstadt, and his music has been promoted by David Letterman, Zevon's writing is just off kilter enough to scare listeners away.  His songs evoke the cinematic scope of old Western novels doused in a heady cocktail of psychoanalytic theory.

As I was driving home from South Haven last night following a long day of magazine distribution with my ipod on shuffle, "Mohammed's Radio" captured my attention. For Zevon, the song is relatively tame and uncharacteristically straightforward.  The radio has a divine presence in the lives of listeners, who range from the working class to sheriffs and even "the village idiot."  Just as people often turn to religion for comfort and security, turning on the radio can have an effect just as powerful as an organized mass or a solitary prayer.  Interestingly, instead of using a Christian figure as a metaphor for radio, Zevon chose the Islamic prophet Mohammed.

Let's take a look at the people mentioned in the song. "Everybody" refers to the working class, who are "restless" while "trying to make ends meet."  In the first verse, these people are frustrated with having to spend all of their waking hours working, or perhaps even with the failure of religion to bring them peace.  They feel trapped, which angers them and stirs feelings of self pity, or "anger and resentment."  Later in the song, Zevon reveals that their lives are unfulfilled because of the persistent struggles for livelihood and self realization.  This phenomenon is described with typical Zevon callousness as a failure to pay for "gasoline and meat."

The next verse could easily be set in the local bar, where sheriffs wait in the parking lot and watch patrons enter and exit, breaking up any fights that may begin.  The "village idiot" may be a troublemaker or one of the working class, from the sheriff's point of view, or he could represent an entirely different demographic, content in his obliviousness.  Either way, "the sheriff's got his problems too," and all anyone in town can do to ease their pain is to listen to the radio...Mohammed's radio.

The narrator in the chorus is distracted from his problems by a voice on the radio.  The fact that this voice is referred to only as "somebody" implies both separation and closeness.  Somebody apart from the people in the song, but at the same time, somebody that may represent the fully realized versions of each person in the song.  Why else would the voice captivate them so completely?  The voice on the radio is motivating, enticing listeners to "stay up all night listening" as if worshiping the radio in the church of night where it is permissible to escape and to dream, a place where life makes sense.

But the listeners are warned to "be watchful for Mohammed's lamp," because dreaming too much will only make facing reality more difficult, and staying up all night listening is probably not advisable for people with jobs to keep.  This idea, that music's powers are limited and possibly even detrimental to listeners, reminds me of an essay by Mark Edmundson entitled "Can Music Save Your Life?".  In the essay, Edmundson credits Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" with making him "feel like life was larger than I thought and making me feel like I wanted to find out what I was missing."  Well, what if the idea that you're missing something had never occurred to you before?  On one hand, you'd be stunned and possibly intimidated.  On the other, your potential as a human being just multiplied exponentially.

Alternately, Edmundson acknowledges that he used music to "tune out his moods," and asks a timeless question:  "Do we sometimes go to music to hide from our fears that the world makes no sense at all?"  The same question could be asked with "religion" in place of "music."  At the end of a night listening to the radio, to put it frankly, nothing has been accomplished and no questions have been answered.  The illusion of self-help, or even of a deeper connection with mankind, can be explained by what Edmundson recognizes as a fabrication of experience.  Music can only be a savior if it moves us to action, and if we take care to avoid living vicariously through music while constantly facing dissatisfaction with our own respective realities.

"The best thing hearing music can do for you is make you want to make your own," wrote Edmundson, and he is correct.  For me, music sparked an intense desire to create and a motivation to succeed and to never stop trying, a thirst that could not be quenched by listening to more music.  I wanted to be that "soulful voice" not literally, but fundamentally, through writing.  I still have the desire to inspire people in the way that I have been inspired so many times it seems impossible to repay the debt.

But maybe the song shouldn't be interpreted so seriously, seeing as the songwriter wrote it after he spotted a mentally handicapped man dressed as a Sheikh on Halloween, holding a radio.  And maybe we shouldn't take ourselves so seriously.  Anything in life has the power to inspire, as Zevon has proven, but only we have the power to create.

Images:
http://www.last.fm/music/Warren+Zevon/+images/157016
http://www.freewebs.com/oldradios/galleryno2.htm
http://chronicle.com/article/Can-Music-Save-Your-Life-/132040/