Tom Waits

KillyKillall · Aug 6, 2004

Anyone else a fan?

KillyKillall · Aug 6, 2004

hm...guess I'm not as cool as I thought. <shrug> Thanks for letting me know.

Aug 6, 2004

not real familiar with em, but I know who he is from what Rollins has said about him

PowerEngineer · Aug 6, 2004

I guess you can count me as a fan. My favorite is the Heart of Saturday Night.

DaveSimmons · Aug 6, 2004

We sail tonight for singapore,
We?re all as mad as hatters here
I?ve fallen for a tawny moor,
Took off to the land of nod
Drank with all the chinamen,
Walked the sewers of paris
I danced along a colored wind,
Dangled from a rope of sand
You must say goodbye to me

We sail tonight for singapore,
Don?t fall asleep while you?re ashore
Cross your heart and hope to die
When you hear the children cry
Let marrow bone and cleaver choose
While making feet for children shoes
Through the alley, back from hell,
When you hear that steeple bell
You must say goodbye to me

Wipe him down with gasoline
?til his arms are hard and mean
From now on boys this iron boat?s your home
So heave away, boys

We sail tonight for singapore,
Take your blankets from the floor
Wash your mouth out by the door,
The whole town?s made of iron ore
Every witness turns to steam,
They all become italian dreams
Fill your pockets up with earth,
Get yourself a dollar?s worth
Away boys, away boys, heave away

The captain is a one-armed dwarf,
He?s throwing dice along the wharf
In the land of the blind
The one-eyed man is king, so take this ring

We sail tonight for singapore,
We?re all as mad as hatters here
I?ve fallen for a tawny moor,
Took off to the land of nod
Drank with all the chinamen,
Walked the sewers of paris
I drank along a colored wind,
I dangled from a rope of sand
You must say goodbye to me

"Singapore" from Rain Dogs, one of my 100 favorite CDs

GarlicBreath · Aug 6, 2004

Tom Waits is one of my favorites.

I really like "Waltzing Matilda" and "On the Nickel".

DaveSimmons · Aug 6, 2004

Sarah McLachlan does a nice cover of "Ol '55" on Freedom Sessions.
Shawn Colvin's "Heart of a Saturday Night" cover is worth a listen.
Even Rod Stewart couldn't make a bad version of "Downtown Train"

"Tom Waits for no man" - Shawn Colvin (Cover Girl liner notes)

DaveSimmons · Aug 7, 2004

Let me fall out of the window with confetti in my hair
Deal out Jacks or Better on a blanket by the stairs
I'll tell you all my secrets, but I lie about my past
And send me off to bed for evermore
-- "Tango 'til They're Sore" - Rain Dogs

For the curious, Amazon has free MP3 downloads of several of his songs, including "Hold On" from Mule Variations (ASIN # B000059MDT ), give it a listen.

Perknose · Aug 7, 2004

Originally posted by: KillyKillall
Anyone else a fan?

Absolutely! I turned my late wife Jessie onto Tom Waits. Well, actually, she turned herself onto him -- dug out his albums from my collection and soon we were buying all the CD's.

Jessie is still the only woman I've ever known personally who LOVED Tom Waits! Memories, man, memories.

One of her favorite songs was some obscure one -- I don't even remember the album it was on -- but it started off with you hearing knocking noises and other odd sounds from, like, "next door", then Waits saying, "What's he DOING in there" and going on to randomly fantasize in hilarious terms about what his "neighbor" might be up to.

It used to crack Jessie up! You can see why I loved her, no?

I actually got a ride home from the Venice Poetry Workshop the three times Tom Waits showed up. This was in LA in 1973 or 74. We both lived in Hollywood (about as unglamorous as you can imagine). I used to hitchhike down to Venice for the workshop. The Venice Poetry Workshop is still going strong and now semi-famous with it's own building in Santa Monica,* but back then it was in a completely bare and small old storefront on a backwater side street in Venice, accross the street from a wonderfully low-life bar.

Anybody could go. I found it as a one line listing on the events page in the newspaper. There'd only be ten to as many as twenty people there at any one meeting, which was weekly on either Tuesdays or Thursdays. The place couldn't hold anymore, anyway. Just a bare room with an old couch or two and a bunch of completely mismatched chairs roughly arranged in a circle.

Each week, we'd go around the circle and, at your turn, you could either chose to read something you'd written or pass. If you read, then also clockwise, each person in turn could decide to give you feedback, or not. You were not allowed to answer the criticism, even one peep. You just either took it in, or didn't.

Like I said, anyone could show up, but they were seriously working poets there, and their criticism was BRUTAL and unforgiving, and absolutely meant to weed out anyone who didn't have the chops. Wow, the first few times I heard them serially rip people new ones, my mouth was agape. Remember now, the ripee could NOT respond!

I loved it! I felt it was everything higher education should have been, but wasn't. You were there because you wanted to be there, and you learned quickly or left in flames.

Anyway, I'd been going religiously for quite some time when one day Tom Waits showed up. None of us knew who he was at all, hell, I don't even think he'd had his first album out then and so nobody really knew him. He read "In The Heart Of Saturday Night" as a poem and we all stood as one and applauded!

Btw, he talked in a normal voice and not that pseudo, whiskey wracked nighthawk voice he now usually sings and even talks in. I think that's intentionally put on, 100%. Anyway, he came twice more in the next couple of weeks and each time, he gave me a ride home to Hollywood. I lived right off of Sunset Blvd., then on Martel St (ave?), between Fairfax and LaBrea.

And get this! I love cars, and he had a 1955 Mercury Montclair V-8, factory dual exhaust two door hardtop. So, years later when I heard "Ol' 55", I have to think he was talking about this car.

He was just a straight ahead good guy, very down to earth. I remember the first night he drove me home, he asked if I wanted to go out to a local (small but uber trendy) bar/disco. I think because I knew the drinks in that place would be costly and the women in there would never look at me twice (I had no car and I lived in LA!), I said no. We never did go out, and though we talked each time the whole way home, I don't recall him EVER saying he was a musican yadda yadda even once.

So, there 'ya go, that's my Tom Waits story.

*Google informs me that the workshop in now in the Beyond Baroque building (that looks like it). Scroll down to question # 4. That "since 1968" stuff there is a bit misleading because I remember Beyond Baroque being in a different, much smaller, more commercial store building and being mainly just a bookstore back in my time there, though even then they did sponser formal poetry reading "events".

GonzoCircus · Aug 7, 2004

^^Great story, Perknose!

I love Tom Waits. He is one of my all time favorite artists. I think he's brilliant. His last two albums were really really good, some of the best music he's put out. I would actualy recommend someone who hasn't heard him to start with Blood Money, then maybe pick up Rain Dogs and Heart of Saturday Night.

Can't wait for the new album.

DeRusto · Aug 7, 2004

Originally posted by: Perknose

Originally posted by: KillyKillall
Anyone else a fan?

Click to expand...

Absolutely! I turned my late wife Jessie onto Tom Waits. Well, actually, she turned herself onto him -- dug out his albums from my collection and soon we were buying all the CD's.

Jessie is still the only woman I've ever known personally who LOVED Tom Waits! Memories, man, memories.

One of her favorite songs was some obscure one -- I don't even remember the album it was on -- but it started off with you hearing knocking noises and other odd sounds from, like, "next door", then Waits saying, "What's he DOING in there" and going on to randomly fantasize in hilarious terms about what his "neighbor" might be up to.

It used to crack Jessie up! You can see why I loved her, no?

I actually got a ride home from the Venice Poetry Workshop the three times Tom Waits showed up. This was in LA in 1973 or 74. We both lived in Hollywood (about as unglamorous as you can imagine). I used to hitchhike down to Venice for the workshop. The Venice Poetry Workshop is still going strong and now semi-famous with it's own building in Santa Monica,* but back then it was in a completely bare and small old storefront on a backwater side street in Venice, accross the street from a wonderfully low-life bar.

Anybody could go. I found it as a one line listing on the events page in the newspaper. There'd only be ten to as many as twenty people there at any one meeting, which was weekly on either Tuesdays or Thursdays. The place couldn't hold anymore, anyway. Just a bare room with an old couch or two and a bunch of completely mismatched chairs roughly arranged in a circle.

Each week, we'd go around the circle and, at your turn, you could either chose to read something you'd written or pass. If you read, then also clockwise, each person in turn could decide to give you feedback, or not. You were not allowed to answer the criticism, even one peep. You just either took it in, or didn't.

Like I said, anyone could show up, but they were seriously working poets there, and their criticism was BRUTAL and unforgiving, and absolutely meant to weed out anyone who didn't have the chops. Wow, the first few times I heard them serially rip people new ones, my mouth was agape. Remember now, the ripee could NOT respond!

I loved it! I felt it was everything higher education should have been, but wasn't. You were there because you wanted to be there, and you learned quickly or left in flames.

Anyway, I'd been going religiously for quite some time when one day Tom Waits showed up. None of us knew who he was at all, hell, I don't even think he'd had his first album out then and so nobody really knew him. He read "In The Heart Of Saturday Night" as a poem and we all stood as one and applauded!

Btw, he talked in a normal voice and not that pseudo, whiskey wracked nighthawk voice he now usually sings and even talks in. I think that's intentionally put on, 100%. Anyway, he came twice more in the next couple of weeks and each time, he gave me a ride home to Hollywood. I lived right off of Sunset Blvd., then on Martel St (ave?), between Fairfax and LaBrea.

And get this! I love cars, and he had a 1955 Mercury Montclair V-8, factory dual exhaust two door hardtop. So, years later when I heard "Ol' 55", I have to think he was talking about this car.

He was just a straight ahead good guy, very down to earth. I remember the first night he drove me home, he asked if I wanted to go out to a local (small but uber trendy) bar/disco. I think because I knew the drinks in that place would be costly and the women in there would never look at me twice (I had no car and I lived in LA!), I said no. We never did go out, and though we talked each time the whole way home, I don't recall him EVER saying he was a musican yadda yadda even once.

So, there 'ya go, that's my Tom Waits story.

*Google informs me that the workshop in now in the Beyond Baroque building (that looks like it). Scroll down to question # 4. That "since 1968" stuff there is a bit misleading because I remember Beyond Baroque being in a different, much smaller, more commercial store building and being mainly just a bookstore back in my time there, though even then they did sponser formal poetry reading "events".

sweet story, man

Steeplerot · Oct 30, 2004

Tom Waits is amazing if anyone could even come close to carrying on Johnny Cash's legacy in his own kickass way this would be the Man!

thomsbrain · Oct 30, 2004

i heard one of his more recent albums and decided he just isn't for me.

on a side note, though, i just watched the movie "dead man," which has a soundtrack entirely composed and performed by neil young, and it was great stuff.

DaveSimmons · Oct 31, 2004

> i heard one of his more recent albums and decided he just isn't for me.

Try listening to Rain Dogs or Frank's Wild Years before giving up on him.

vrbaba · Oct 31, 2004

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Sarah McLachlan does a nice cover of "Ol '55" on Freedom Sessions. Shawn Colvin's "Heart of a Saturday Night" cover is worth a listen. Even Rod Stewart couldn't make a bad version of "Downtown Train" "Tom Waits for no man" - Shawn Colvin (Cover Girl liner notes)

Eagles does a nice Cover of Ol' 55. I like Tom Traubert's Blues, Jersey Girl (good cover by Springsteen), and The Piano is Has Been Drinking.

vrbaba · Oct 31, 2004

Originally posted by: GarlicBreath
Tom Waits is one of my favorites. I really like "Waltzing Matilda" and "On the Nickel".

Waltzing Matilda is actually called Tom Traubert's Blues.

chuckywang · Nov 16, 2004

Man, I think Small Change is one of the best albums I've ever listened to.

datalink7 · Dec 6, 2004

I just started listening to him. I like the song "Cold Cold Ground."

Modeps · Dec 6, 2004

He played a good part in Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Jzero · Dec 6, 2004

I still get a chuckle out of Step Right Up and The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me), but A Foreign Affair is probably my favorite

Dec 6, 2004

A chick in my hotel (front desk) is a big fan, i mean big. He stay at our hotel a little over a month ago and she was leaving notes asking if he needed anything and she would die for tickets (it was sold out).
She was just about fired after being written up.

Tom Waits

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