Linda Ronstadt is largely considered a pioneer of country rock by fans and her contemporaries, but even a music icon can have some regrets. For Ronstadt, she laments never covering a Warren Zevon classic from 1978. Zevon’s third album, Excitable Boy, featured a song that Ronstadt wished she had recorded years earlier, but never did.
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“There are some songs of his I really wish I had recorded, especially ‘Accidentally Like A Martyr,’” Ronstadt told Dig! in 2023. “I feel like it was a missed opportunity, but I was a bit overwhelmed by doing it at the time.”
Whether Linda Ronstadt was overwhelmed because of her respect and appreciation for Zevon, or because of the heavily emotional lyrics is unknown. However, it’s clear that Ronstadt felt she was close to Zevon as they ran in the same circles.
“We were always so connected,” she said. “I knew him by reputation, because he was at the Troubadour club a lot. He wrote such beautiful songs.” The song “Accidentally Like A Martyr” is one of those beautiful songs, with gut-wrenching lines like “Never thought I’d pay so dearly / For what was already mine,” and “The hurt gets worse and the heart gets harder.”
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Linda Ronstadt Admits She Wasn’t Ready to Tour With Neil Young
Linda Ronstadt went on tour with Neil Young in 1974, opening for him in stadiums and large venues, and while the tour was an overall success, she later admitted that it was a challenge she initially didn’t feel ready for.
“As a club act, we weren’t really ready for Madison Square Garden, but we did our best,” she told Ultimate Classic Rock in 2019. “They did a pretty good job of trying to make it all work,” she added of the larger venues. “But in those hard, huge cavernous spaces, it’s hard to do really, really quiet, subtle music. You need a small theater for that.”
Still, the tour would help Linda Ronstadt when she released her next album, Heart Like a Wheel, that year. “It was good exposure for me. It really helped the record,” she said. The tour also helped her form a sense of camaraderie with her band and Neil Young’s band, as she would always stay to watch Young perform.
“I stayed every night for [Neil Young’s] show, which was almost two hours long,” she admitted. “He had great players. He had Kenneth Buttrey for part of that tour playing drums, [and] Tim Drummond. It was really a great band.”
Featured Image by Larry Hulst/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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