The Mystery of The French Inhaler

An undecidability between reality and appearance will turn out to be an essential theme of Warren Zevon’s “The French Inhaler,” a theme which will be explored through the song’s complex use of lyric address. Who is addressing whom, and from what perspective are they speaking? Even as the accumulation of detail over the course of the song conjures a narrative which listeners will try to make sense of, the enigmatic immediacy of lyrical address continually interrupts every narrative explanation of what is happening. What is most interesting and complex (and frustrating) about this song is how it raises this tension between lyric and narrative, between the immediacy of direct address and the sequential order of a plot. In this, Zevon’s song can be understood in relation to the account of apostrophe developed by the literary theorist Jonathan Culler.