Sixteen years before he died of lung cancer in 2003, Warren Zevon recorded a song about a blue-collar worker that pretty much foreshadowed his own death. 'The Factory' appeared on Zevon's 1987 comeback album 'Sentimental Hygiene,' and chronicles the life of a man who grows up to be a factory worker just like his dad.

After Zevon hammers home his point about the uselessness of it all, he ends with these stinging lines: "Kickin' asbestos in the factory / Punchin' out Chryslers in the factory / Breathin' that plastic in the factory." Zevon died of advanced malignant mesothelioma, which is often caused by exposure to asbestos. Thing is, Zevon never worked in a factory, so his odds of developing cancer there were nil. Yet, somehow, a decade and a half before the end, he predicted the cause of his death.

Hear Warren Zevon's 'The Factory'

 

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