Backstage Pass: Pete Yorn

I want to live alone in the desertI want to be like Georgia O’Keefe
I want to live on the Upper East Side
And never go down in the street

Splendid Isolation
I don’t need no one
Splendid Isolation

Warren Zevon wrote Splendid Isolation, but I associate it with Pete Yorn. I can’t remember what year it was, but I was in Harrisonburg, Virginia visiting friends. Or it may have been while they still lived in northern Virginia. It doesn’t matter. They gave me two mix CDs. Pete Yorn’s version of Splendid Isolation was on one of them. It was my first introduction to Pete Yorn, and maybe even to Splendid Isolation. I’ve listened to it hundreds of times since then. Pete Yorn played Splendid Isolation at his show at Seattle’s The Crocodile last night. Incredible show. Once he started playing, he just kept going. Bittersweet night. In the early morning hours I read about Chris Cornell’s death in Detroit. “…As seasons roll on by.”