THERE WAS A DANGEROUS SNARL IN HER VOICE. SHE TOOK “POOR POOR PITIFUL ME” AND REMOVED ALL THE “PITY.” WHAT SHE LEFT BEHIND WAS SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY. Let’s be honest. When Warren Zevon wrote it, it was a clever, ironic little tune. A guy feeling sorry for himself. Then Linda Ronstadt got her hands on it for Simple Dreams. And she didn’t just “cover” it. She gutted it. She walked in and threw out all that male irony, replacing it with pure, crackling electricity. You know the sound. Those guitars don’t just play; they snarl at you. The drums don’t just keep time; they stomp like boots on a dusty barroom floor. And then her voice… riding right on top of that chaos, half confession, half rebellion. This wasn’t a woman asking for sympathy. This was a woman turning self-pity into a shout you could dance to. The way she changed that song… it was fearless. But it’s the ending that always gets you. The music fades, but the story she injected into it doesn’t settle. It just hangs in the air, daring you to figure out what just happened.
Linda Ronstadt’s “Poor Poor Pitiful Me”: Turning Heartache into Empowerment When Linda Ronstadt released “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” in 1977 as part of her acclaimed album Simple Dreams, she once…