Warren Zevon humor to wed geopolitical subtexts to hard-boiled narratives. Tracks from this album received heavy FM airplay, and the single release "Werewolves of London", which featured Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, was a relatively lighthearted version of Zevon's signature macabre outlook and a No. 21 success. The critic Dave Marsh, in "The Rolling Stone Record Guide" (1979), called Zevon "one of the toughest rockers ever to come out of Southern California". "Rolling Stone" record reviews editor Paul Nelson called the album one of the most significant releases of the 1970s and placed him alongside Neil Young, Jackson Browne, and Bruce Springsteen
Warren Zevon the collection's second disc. "", a biography by his ex-wife, Crystal Zevon, was published in 2007 by Ecco Books. The book consists mostly of interviews with many of Zevon's friends and associates and extracts from his diaries; it is notable for its unvarnished (at his request) portrayal of Zevon. George Plasketes, a professor at Auburn University, wrote a critical study of Zevon's music in 2016, "Warren Zevon, Desperado of Los Angeles". Zevon was also the subject of Michael Flood's essay "Lord Byron's Luggage: Warren Zevon and the Redefinition of Literature Rock". A collection of short stories by Kelly Lynn Thomas,