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
Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner then "thought it would be fun to make his nemesis' last name Van Owen, like in the song." Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" is a song composed by Warren Zevon and David Lindell and performed by Zevon. It was first released on his 1978 album "Excitable Boy." It was the last song that he ever performed in front of an audience, on the "Late Show with David Letterman", before his death in 2003. Zevon met co-writer Lindell in Spain, where the latter was running a bar after a stint working as a mercenary in Africa.