Little Black Book: Martha

Tom Waits: Martha

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Most people divide up Tom Waits' career into two sections: the drunken barroom crooner and the whacked-out noisy badass. This song, however, predates both...it's the sober barroom crooner. Moreover, all your assumptions about Tom are headed out the window when you hear this voice, so different than the one he cultivated for the rest of his career. Less distinctive, perhaps, but certainly easier on the ears.

The topic of the song is much more complicated than the syrupy strings and wishy-washy melody might indicate. Just as Randy Newman did twenty years later in "I Miss You," Waits sings to a girlfriend/wife that he hasn't talked to in decades. But damn, that's a hell of a torch he's carrying.