"All I can tell you after all these years," Zevon said, "is if people think it’s funny I tell ‘em they’re wrong; if people think it isn’t funny I tell ‘em they’re wrong. On one level, for me, it’s supposed to be ennobling, about dealing with keeping your chin up through the human condition. If I have a philosophy, it’s that life is a very rough deal, a very unforgiving game, but people do the best they can.’’

In another interview, discussing the title of an acoustic live album in 1993, he said he’d settled on "Learning to Flinch." From what? I asked. "Well, the particulars of world touring and life itself," he said.

Zevon, who played piano and guitar, died at 56 of lung cancer, and the third anniversary of his death is around the corner. (September 7.) Smoking was the one vice he’d not been able to conquer.

He’d had a fairly public bout with alcoholism, once telling a magazine he was wrestling with the drinking and driving issue … deciding he’d have to give up driving. As it turned out, he quit the bottle – vodka was his main vice, Stolichnaya once wanted him to do ads for them – and in 1981 told he Rolling Stone there was nothing heroic about that reckless lifestyle, and to die of it would be "a coward’s death." He once told his son Jordan that he spent the first half of his life as Jim Morrison and the second half as Ward Cleaver. He wrote the best song I’ve heard about substance abuse, "Detox Mansion." It was serious stuff, but it was not unfunny, with him meeting up with Liz and Liza and raking leaves together.

In the late ‘80s we were having dinner at Musso & Frank’s in Los Angeles and when the waiter came I ordered a beer. A few seconds after doing so, I flinched. Was I being disrespectful of one in recovery?

Zevon looked at me with a wry smile. "Yeah, Jim, all these years of sobriety tossed away because I’m watching you drinking a beer."

I liked that.

Now, after Zevon didn’t stay sober. I didn’t know that until I read Crystal Zevon’s book about Warren, "I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead." Warren had asked her to write it, to compile the stories about him from all sides of the fence, friends, friends he’d fallen out with. Noble behavior. Not-so-noble behavior. (Yes, substance abuse came back toward the end in a rather messy fashion, and throughout his career Warren seemed to be the typical rock ‘n’ roll horndog. Again, nothing I ever gleaned from our discussions. The book is unsettling, but it’s what Warren Wanted. Warts and all.)

A lot of people, including some rather famous rockers, liked Zevon. Over the years, Zevon had collaborated with a number of them: Dylan, David Gilmour, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, George Clinton, Henley, three of the guys in R.E.M. (as a unit known as Hindu Love Gods), the Everly Brothers, the Turtles, Graham Nash, Tom Petty, many more. He co-wrote with authors Tom McGuane, Hunter S. Thompson and Carl Hiaasen. The Zevon-Hiaasen song "Basket Case’’ is both the title of a Hiaasen novel and a song on Zevon’s final album, "The Wind.’’

Zevon, as a songwriter, was big on irony, but not without a romantic streak. These songs, however, avoided cliché and treacle – they captured the complexity and passion of relationships. But, of course, he was best known for "Werewolves of London," the jovial, violent hit that put him on the map in 1978. Once, we were discussing that fact and the likelihood that when he died "Werewolves" would be right up in the first paragraph of the obituary. (When I wrote his obituary for the Boston Globe, where I worked for 17-plus years as a pop music and pop culture writer, I honored it – "Werewolves" was in the first sentence.) It was, really, a simple song – just three chords and somewhat of a novelty with that "ah-ooo!’’ howl. Not his most profound effort, certainly.

When I asked Zevon about it - when he was quite alive, of course - he said he was OK with that reality. "Maybe," he said, "you don’t want to die and have it say ‘This guy wrote some really sensitive, intellectual, literate songs that put everybody to sleep – this was one pretentious guy." Of course, he wrote sensitive, intellectual and literate songs, too – they just didn’t put anybody to sleep. The Village Voice’s Robert Christgau called him rock ‘n’ roll’s equivalent of Raymond Chandler and Sam Peckinpah.

His forte was writing songs with intertwining conflicting emotions, songs which swum amidst comedy and tragedy. Consider "Lawyers, Guns and Money’’ – the title of which is now a pop culture staple, a cry for help from anyone in deep shit – and "Ain’t That Pretty At All," which both celebrates and undercuts nihilism. Zevon’s character hurls himself against a wall and reflects, "I’d rather feel bad than not feel anything at all.’’

"It has so much to do with what I enjoy and appreciate,’’ he told me, about what he writes. "I keep saying ‘Why can’t I be one of those famous, humorless, self-important songwriters of which our culture is so littered?’’’

His answer: "I like things that are funny. A lot of things that aren’t supposed to be funny strike me as funny.’’

Over the years, Zevon became not just somebody I covered and reviewed, but a friend. We had one spat. It was over whether something he’d said was on the record or not. Don Henley had joined a Zevon bill and turned it into a benefit for saving Walden Woods; Zevon told me about it and said he wasn’t happy Henley’s co-option – Warren kinda needed the cash, too. He was candid about it. But was not overjoyed to read his quote. Nor, evidently, was Henley. Zevon thought it was off the record; I thought not. Tape rolling, no on-off discussion. Maybe he just thought it would be off the record as a courtesy. Maybe I should have granted him that. Anyway, we both maintained our stances. After a couple of years, I think we subtly agreed to disagree. Steve Morse, a fellow Globe critic, helped mediate a truce, and when Zevon and I met hugs were exchanged, current authors were discussed, the decline of western civilization undoubtedly was touched upon, and jokes were made.

It was early in the fall of 2002 when Zevon’s publicist gave me the news about his inoperable lung cancer. I don’t cry a lot, but I cried then. At the time, doctors said he had very little time left. As it turned out, he had nearly a year and recorded "The Wind," an incredibly moving farewell disc, where you couldn’t help read Zevon’s situation into the song choices and his own lyrics. In "Keep Me in Your Heart," he sang "Shadows are falling and I’m running out of breath/Keep me in your hear for a while.’’ You want to hear someone really mean it when they sing Bob Dylan’s "Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door?’’ Listen to this version.

I tried contacting him but he was unavailable. I learned out from Crystal’s book much later why. I wasn’t the only one he was out of contact with. He was both shutting down and going crazy.

After Zevon died, Dylan played three of his songs at his next concert. Not bad.

Zevon was a favorite of David Letterman – Zevon was always the substitute band leader when Paul Shaffer was away – and on Oct. 30, 2002 Zevon made his final appearance. Both Zevon and Letterman knew it was the last time. Zevon was the only guest. He played unprecedented three songs. It was the most poignant hour of TV I’ve ever seen.

There was humor, of course; Letterman and Zevon often rode along the same sardonic wavelength. But when Letterman asked him about his diagnosis, and if there was something Zevon knew about life that others didn’t because of that, if there was any advice he could offer, Zevon considered it all for a moment before answering, "Enjoy every sandwich.’’

It took me a minute to figure it out exactly what he meant, but then it came: Live in the moment, live for the moment. Treasure everything; even something that may seem mundane.

Jordan Zevon assembled a tribute album to his father with stars like Dylan, Springsteen, Jackson Browne, the Pixies and Steve Earle doing Zevon’s songs. It was released in the fall of 2004 and called "Enjoy Every Sandwich: The Songs of Warren Zevon."

After his death, Zevon’s ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean.

It’s a better ocean for it.