Song of the Day 4/12: Warren Zevon, “The Envoy”
The adage “never send a boy to do a man’s job” seems to have originated in the 1850s and gained wide circulation during the American Civil War. It still applies today, as we’re reminded by Donald Trump sending JD Vance to hold peace talks with Iran. Vance failed, of course, in large part because he has no experience at all in negotiating anything. What the administration sorely lacks is an experienced diplomat – someone like “The Envoy.”
Warren Zevon wrote the title song to his 1982 album about Philip Habib, an old State Department hand who helped negotiate the Camp David Accords under Jimmy Carter in 1978. He retired after suffering a serious heart attack later that year, but Ronald Reagan called on him to act as special envoy to the Middle East from 1981 to 1983, where he negotiated several cease-fire agreements between the battling parties in the Lebanese Civil War. He later convinced Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines to enter a power-sharing agreement. That there’s nobody like this within a thousand miles of the Trump administration shows how far the Republicans have fallen since the Reagan era.
The musical tribute didn’t do much for Zevon’s career. When the album flopped he was dropped from his record company and didn’t record a new LP for five years. The song was never released as a single, but it shows up on many of his greatest hits albums.
