Spare Parts: Warren Zevon: Jeannie Needs a Shooter

This is an odd one.

“Jeannie Needs a Shooter” isn’t entirely a Springsteen original, and it’s certainly not a cover. Bruce doesn’t perform on the track, either, so how are we to classify it? Good thing we have a “Spare Parts” category!

If only we could authoritatively unravel Bruce’s specific contributions we’d be set, but accounts of the creation of Warren Zevon’s “Jeannie Needs a Shooter” are both colorful and contradictory.

Let’s see how we do.

Bruce recorded a song called “Janey Needs a Shooter” in early 1973, and he’s only just now getting around to releasing it on Letter to You, 47 years later (albeit as a new 2019 recording with the E Street Band).

“Janey Needs a Shooter” is a terrific early (and now recent) E Street Band performance, and if you’d like to read my full analysis of it, check out my earlier article here.

Suffice to say, it’s a great song with many fans, including one Warren Zevon.

Well, sort of.

Turns out Zevon never actually heard the song–just the title, which Jon Landou had mentioned off-hand in a conversation with Zevon during the period between Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town. But as far as Zevon was concerned, it was love at first sight; he was completely ensorcelled by the title, envisioning an Old West tale of an outlaw courting the sheriff’s daughter.

Of course that wasn’t remotely what “Janey Needs a Shooter” was about, but Zevon’s obsession was off and running. To be fair, he did try to wheedle and cajole Bruce into playing the song for him, but Bruce never obliged. Given Bruce’s liberal use of Western imagery in his early songwriting, it’s hard to fault Zevon for his assumption.

Here’s where the story may start to verge into apocryphal territory.

Reportedly, Bruce grew so tired of Warren’s incessant pleas to hear the song that in exasperation, he finally told Warren to go write it himself.

Zevon did just that. He got as far as the first verse and the title (which he’d misheard the entire time as “Jeannie” instead of “Janey”) before excitedly dashing over to Bruce’s house, waking him up from a nap on the sofa in order to play it for him. (Other accounts have Warren inviting Bruce over to his own house for the reveal.)

Bruce complimented Warren on the verse and asked where the rest of the song was. He soon found out: with a fish on his hook, Warren reeled in Bruce’s help to finish the song.

Just how extensive that help was varies by account from a collaborative effort to Bruce simply finishing the song on his own.  To the best of my knowledge, I’ve not seen a first-hand account that definitively answers the question.

For what it’s worth, though, Bruce is listed first on the songwriting credit, although that may simply be an alphabetical matter.

Zevon released “Jeannie Needs a Shooter” on his fourth album, Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School, and it quickly became a fan favorite.

Oh, and Bruce finally did play the original “Janey Needs a Shooter” for Warren once they’d finished their collaborative version, and only then did Warren sheepishly realize how far afield he’d strayed in his interpretation.

And that’s (more or less) the story of how we ended up with two very different but similarly named songs with some common DNA between them, recorded by two different legendary artists in their own particular style, with both songs turning out spectacularly.

I gotta say, though: for two reportedly good friends, if the story above is anywhere close to true, that young Bruce Springsteen was either a really annoying friend (like, just play the song, dude!) or a really good mentor.

It’s hard to say which.