in 1978 In 1973, American musician
Warren Zevon met David Lindell in
Sitges,
Catalonia, where Lindell operated a bar named "The Dubliner" after working as a
mercenary in Africa. Inspired by Lindell's stories of his career as a mercenary, Zevon decided to collaborate with him in making a song about a left-wing mercenary. The resulting song Zevon and Lindell produced, "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner", describes the life of fictional Norwegian mercenary Roland. In Denmark, a
Thompson submachine gun–equipped Roland agrees to join the
Biafran Armed Forces as
a mercenary and fight in the
Nigerian Civil War. Roland then decides to leave for the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he joins the
Congolese military and fights against "the
Bantu". Eventually, the
Central Intelligence Agency decides to assassinate Roland, and pays one of his comrades, Van Owen, to kill him on their behalf. Van Owen shoots him in the head and he becomes a vengeful ghost. His comrades still see "his headless body stalking through the night". The headless Roland searches Africa for Van Owen, eventually finding him drinking
gin in a
Mombasa bar and killing him. After killing Van Owen, Roland continues to work as a mercenary in
Ireland,
Lebanon,
Palestine, and
Berkeley. The song concludes by claiming that Roland played a role in the 1974 kidnapping of
Patty Hearst by the
Symbionese Liberation Army. According to the album's liner notes, musicians on the track were Zevon (vocals, piano, organ);
Waddy Wachtel (guitar);
Bob Glaub (bass guitar); and
Russell Kunkel (drums), and backing vocals were provided by an ad-hoc ensemble called The Gentlemen Boys, which included Zevon, Wachtel,
Jackson Browne,
Jorge Calderón,
Kenny Edwards, and
JD Souther. ==Film reference==