Tom Waits

Rickypt · #1 12-12-2006, 01:50 PM

I don't think there has been a thread about him since I've been here.

After seeing his masterful performance on the Daily Show last week, that I have watched over and over, I feel like telling this story:

I am a huge Hedwig and the Angry Inch fan. The play came to San Francisco in November, 2002. I saw it 13 times before it closed in May of 2003. A month after it closed, the bassist from the show was hit by a car while riding his bike to work. He left behind a young bride and a 2 year old girl.

A few weeks after he died, there was a benefit concert/memorial for him, which brought back all the Hedwig performers to perform all the songs as a concert, without costume. I bought a front row ticket. Two days before the show, it was announced that Tom Waits would perform, as the guy had played bass for him on a recent album. I had heard the name Tom Waits, but really didn't know anything about him, so this didn't mean much to me.

When I showed up at the show, there was a swarm of people in the street trying to buy tickets. It was then that I learned he rarely tours and people had come from all over to attempt to see this performance.

When Tom took the stage and starting singing, my first thought was "who on earth is this drunk and what the f*k is that voice about"? For the second song, he went to the piano and sang the most beautiful ballad I've ever heard in my life, "Take It With Me". Even thought he mumbled almost every word, there was more passion in his delivery than almost anything I've ever heard. For the rest of the short performance, I was mesmerized.

I adore him. Since then, I've seen "Black Rider", a play for which he wrote the music and it is one of my favorite plays. I would love to see him live again.

He gave me goosebumps on the Daily Show, and it was the first time that Jon Stewart did nothing but fawn over someone.

Any fans here?

Rickypt · #2 12-12-2006, 01:51 PM

These are the lyrics to "Take It With Me".

Phone's off the hook
No one knows where we are
It's a long time since I
Drank champagne
The ocean is blue
As blue as your eyes
I'm gonna take it with me
When I go

Old long since gone
Now way back when
We lived in Coney Island
Ain't no good thing
Ever dies
I'm gonna take it with me
When I go

Far far away a train
Whistle blows
Wherever you're goin
Wherever you've been
Waving good bye at the end
Of the day
You're up and you're over
And you're far away

Always for you, and
Forever yours
It felt just like the old days
We fell asleep on Beaula's porch
I'm gonna take it with me
When I go

All broken down by
The side of the road
I was never more alive or
Alone
I've worn the faces off
All the cards
I'm gonna take it with me
When I go

Children are playing
At the end of the day
Strangers are singing
On our lawn
It's got to be more
Than flesh and bone
All that you're loved
Is all you own

In a land there's a town
And in that town there's
A house
And in that house
There's a woman
And in that woman
There's a heart I love
I'm gonna take it
With me when I go
I'm gonna take it
With me when I go

ELIUD · #3 12-12-2006, 02:03 PM

I love his voice, but don't own any of his albums. He's also acted a few times even co-starred with Meryl Streep but I can't remember the name of the movie. He played a bum. I have a soundtrack or two with a song of his on it. And I really enjoyed him on The Daily Show and The Late Show with David Letterman.

foxyluva · #4 12-12-2006, 02:10 PM

I have his 'Closing Time' album, but that was before he went all theatrical. I have listened to his 'Alice' and 'Rain Dog' albums as well, and enjoyed them to some degree, but did not like the 'Real Gone' album at all (it kinda made me feel sick). His vocie and style grates on me a little...

ragandbone · #5 12-12-2006, 02:27 PM

I love him, he is an amazing songwriter. I saw him play at the Warfield, in 1987, and it was one of the best shows I have ever been to. I especially liked the stories in between the songs. He is a true storyteller, like few other songwriters.
I have all of his albums—most on vinyl—up to Frank's Wild Years, and then my collection is patchy. The Heart Of Saturday Night is one of my favorites, and then perhaps SwordFishTrombones.

What was the name of the bass player from the Hedwig production, if you remember? I am a big fan of Hedwig, as well, although I have only seen the film.

Rickypt · #6 12-12-2006, 02:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ragandbone

What was the name of the bass player from the Hedwig production, if you remember? I am a big fan of Hedwig, as well, although I have only seen the film.

Matthew Sperry from Oakland.

http://www.matthewsperry.org/

Rickypt · #7 12-12-2006, 02:58 PM

How do I post a video from Youtube? His performance is on there.

ragandbone · #8 12-12-2006, 04:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rickypt

Matthew Sperry from Oakland.

http://www.matthewsperry.org/

Thanks! There are some beautiful performance tributes on that page.
I remember the event (I still lived in the City then) now, but I think it happened the month my son was born and I didn't hear much news that early Summer.

I am going to post a link to a wonderful cover of a T Waits/K Brennan song,
Green Grass

carrie721 · #9 12-12-2006, 04:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rickypt

How do I post a video from Youtube? His performance is on there.

under the description of the video, there are codes for linking to the video & for embedding the video. copy & paste the embedding code, and it'll show up!

Rickypt · #10 12-12-2006, 04:36 PM

Rickypt · #11 12-12-2006, 04:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by carrie721

under the description of the video, there are codes for linking to the video & for embedding the video. copy & paste the embedding code, and it'll show up!

carrie721 · #12 12-12-2006, 04:39 PM

also, tom's orphans trilogy was reviewed in paste magazine this month:

Quote:

When Johnny Cash released his three-CD box set in 2000, he grouped his favorite songs not by chronology but around the three main themes of his career: “Love,” “God” and “Murder.”

Tom Waits has done something similar on his new time-scrambled box set, Orphans, giving each CD a different subtitle: “Brawlers,” “Bawlers” and “Bastards.” Unlike Cash, however, Waits organizes his songs not by the themes in the lyrics but by the differences in sound. His subtitles represent his three main musical approaches: rocking, crooning and weirdness. Waits may be best known for his words, but in organizing these 56 selections (54 listed tracks and two bonus cuts) by sonic style, he forces us to consider the importance of his music.

Many folks assume Waits’ recordings succeed because the terrific songwriting overcomes the liability of his voice—a voice that sounds like there’s a cement mixer lodged in his throat. In fact, as Waits declares in his liner notes, his peculiar voice is his main instrument and best asset, and he has developed three ways of making the most of it. He can reinforce the pugnacious, grating qualities of his voice by shouting over a primal, thumping rhythm. Those are his bluesy, rocking songs, the “Brawlers.” Or he can counterbalance those same qualities by trying to croon in his unlikely, gravelly fashion over a strong melody and relaxed rhythm. Those are his ballads, waltzes and laments, the “Bawlers.” Or he can pull his voice out of pop-music conventions and use it as a poet, actor or monologist might over atmospheric music. Stranded between song and theater, those numbers are the “Bastards.”

Orphans is a peculiar kind of career overview, because not one of these tracks has ever appeared on an official Tom Waits album in the U.S. Twenty-four are from various soundtracks, tribute albums, overseas EPs and multiple-artist compilations, and 32 have never been released anywhere before—some because they’re newly recorded; some because they were written for other singers, and others because they were put aside for a rainy day. Waits wrote or co-wrote just 34 of the songs; the balance includes a Frank Sinatra number, a 1656 British ballad, a 1959 swamp-pop hit, songs by Skip Spence and Daniel Johnston, two songs apiece from Leadbelly and The Ramones, plus the Seven Dwarves’ marching song. And yet the box set manages to summarize his career, because every sonic approach he has ever used is represented here.

You won’t find “Innocent When You Dream”—one of Waits’ greatest songs—on Orphans, but you will find “Shiny Things,” which boasts a similar ramshackle grandeur. This is a “Bawler,” the sound of an exhausted man who hasn’t had a home-cooked meal or a good night’s sleep in a year, who nonetheless tries to bend his ravaged, sandpaper throat to romantic crooning. Over nothing but a piano and a banjo—almost in tune with one another—he sings of crows that fill their nests with shiny dimes and silver twine. Sitting in his own nest of racetrack tickets and glittering bourbon bottles, he recalls the less-than-shiny things he left behind, and his voice fills up with unbearable regret.

You won’t find “16 Shells from a Thirty-Ought Six,” Waits’ memorable description of the outlaw/hobo life, but you will find “Buzz Fledderjohn,” his description of a kid watching the neighbor’s yard, enticed by the guns, dogs, snakes and women there. In both these “Brawler” songs, the allure of life at the margins is bolstered by bluesy slide guitar, the anti-American Idol sound of Waits’ baritone, and percussion that sounds as if it were played on used auto parts in an attempt to duplicate the rhythms of an engine that hasn’t been tuned in seven years.

“Buzz Fledderjohn” is one of four songs on Orphans previously cut by bluesman John Hammond Jr. (on two of his own records) that had never been released by Waits himself before this year. One of those songs, “Fannin Street,” is a stunning lament of regret and warning that takes its title from a Leadbelly song. Waits also sings an actual Leadbelly song, “Ain’t Goin’ Down to the Well,” as if it were a twitchy garage-rock number and The Ramones’ “Danny Says” as if it were a prison folk ballad.

His voice is so compelling he doesn’t even need a song structure to create a successful performance. He can recite a Charles Bukowski poem (“Nirvana”) or one of his own (“Pontiac”) with minimal music and make it work. He can read descriptions of strange insect behavior or riff on bizarre dog toys and hold our attention. He can even deliver two different versions of a song he adapted from a passage in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and make you glad to hear both. He calls these songs “Bastards,” songs so distant from any conceivable radio format that none will claim parentage.

It would be a mistake to dismiss this box set as a bunch of leftovers of interest only to Waits fanatics. There is some filler, it’s true, but there are also more than a dozen songs that rank with his best work. As always, there is a push-and-pull between Waits’ romanticism and his skepticism, between his hope that people’s better instincts will prevail and all the evidence to the contrary. He counteracts this romanticism with the clanging, howling sound of his “Brawlers,” and he counteracts the skepticism with the wistful, yearning sound of his “Bawlers.”

The highlight of Johnny Cash’s first (and best-by-far) Rick Rubin album, American Recordings, was Waits’ “Down There by the Train,” but only now has Waits released his own piano-and-vocal demo. As good as Cash’s raspy version was, there’s something incomparable about the desperation of Waits’ version. Grace and forgiveness, he implies, don’t make regular stops and certainly don’t wait around for you to show up. But like a train that never stops moving, kindness has to slow down where the track makes a sharp turn, and that’s where you can jump onboard if you get a good running start and grab the ladder on the first try.

“I’ve hurt the ones who loved me,” he sings, torn between a growl of suspicion and a mumble of desire, “and I’m still raising Cain. I’ve taken the low road and if you’ve done the same, meet me down there by the train.”