purchase [Small Change]
SMM has done a fair number of posts of Tom Waits' songs, but to the best of my search-ability, never this one. From the Small Change album, this is classic Waits: sung (if you can call it that) in the rapsy voice with his own piano accompaniment.
Small Change, in my opinion is by far the best of his albums. Just about every track is a winner and SMM has done something about many of them over the years. But never this one - if my searching is right. One online source defined Waits' songs as singing about the "underbelly of society". Love it! The song titles from Small Change are all about the people you see on the street and then cross over to the other side to avoid.
Some folks point to Dylan as a poet. For Waits, the better definition of his word choice is "lyrical poetry". I would agree: Waits' lyrical genius involves the use of known phrases and others that are politically incorrect to the Nth degree: Tom Traubert's Blues/Waltzing Mathilda with its clear uses of the original mixed with Waits' ? perversions? of the lyrics. He says/sings something and you hear something else - he splits the syllabication so that at first you hear one thing and then it resolves to something surprisingly else
Waits's lyrics are often irreverent -or politically incorrect : "the owner is a mental midget", but WTF - that is how he communicates his message
Small Change includes from SMM
I Cant Wait to Get Off Work
http://www.mediafire.com/file/oy8qw74r8mj9prq/Tom_Traubert%27s_Blues_Tom_Waits.mp3
Step Right Up
https://sixsongs.blogspot.com/2017/07/right-tom-waits-step-right-up.html
The One That Got Away
https://sixsongs.blogspot.com/2012/02/spoken-word-one-that-got-away.html
The Piano Has Been Drinking
https://sixsongs.blogspot.com/2011/07/tom-waits-covers-piano-has-been.html
and also
