Leftovers: Break/Broken: Bad Liver and a Broken Heart

 

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKK2OykL9hg

HIDDEN PLACES: SOMEWHERE (A PLACE FOR US)

So who has listened to the original of this recently? Or seen the film? Decades ago would be my answer, it, West Side Story, being a staple on the sunday afternoon film rota, bought in by my school to entertain the confined pre-teens. Yup, the great old UK tradition of sending kids away to boarding school, at the personal expense of the parents and the psychological expense of their children. Explains how I react so well to the rigours of lockdown. Or would to prison, I gather. Anyway, even in the late 60s,  I recall it all seemed desperately dated and I never quite bought the idea of teen hoodlums bursting into either song or dance, let alone both. Especially when so well groomed and clearly in their 30s. But, as it turned out, not such a bad song, and notorious pants-splitter, P.J. Proby took it high in the UK charts. I remember finding his kitschy take astonishingly awful as a boy. Now it just has me howling.

And the theme? Another kinda sorta one, I'm afraid, as I know only too well the sort of "place for us" Tony might have had in mind, very much doubting Maria would find much lasting joy there, her mind thinking more of a whole different setting, of more lasting promise. But I detract from the incisive commentary around the plight of young love in the urban jungle. Maybe. And, yes, I get it that she dies, so rendering my remarks cheap and ignorant, but given the where isn't ever discerned, that makes it, ergo, hidden. Possibly backstage, in a poky dressing room, between scenes.

Being an erudite lot, you'll know the melody isn't an original, nicking parts from both Beethoven and Tschaikovsky, who, together, had designed the New York Subway signature screech. Covered innumerable times, the purpose of this post is to demonstrate some of the less well known versions, a gig I tend more to occupy in another guise, over at Cover Me. Of course there are also innumerable stinkers, every two-a-penny talent show competitor dredging up a version for "show night". Or even their judges....

I'm going to skim over this one, it's the one I'm "expected" to post, Tom Waits being a poster boy for the serious music nerd. To be honest, I find his voice just toooooo much, although, as I get older, I find I can dip my ears in his earlier stuff. Later stuff still defeats me, but the whole grand guignol of this demolition appeals to my sense of the absurd enough to allow it. And the trumpet is really rather good.

Talking of kitsch, as we were earlier, PSB are never afraid to embrace their inner divas, and this is a song ripe for their everything and the kit(s)chen sink OTT overkill, and this is ticking most of their boxes. Sumptiously overproduced, this only lacks the chorus of the Red Army guard. As here. 

I hadn't known Aretha had done a version, this stemming from 1978, where she deconstructs most of the additional arrangements, here in background reminder only, as she swoops and soars around the melody, possible accompanying herself on piano, instilling a blast of gospel hued R&B, even as it then morphs into a jazzier vibe altogether, with a glorious walking bass line and some classy sax noodles, before returning, to finish, in the chapel.

Another welcome deconstruction, Hem transferring the song off Broadway to the Catskills, all tinkling mandolin, dreamy steel and the soothing benevolence of a pipe organ and clarinet combo. Touching on tweeness in the middle eight, the vocal charm of Sally Ellyson is sufficient to swiftly dismiss that thought.

Finally, and not without some internal dialogue, an "interesting" duet version between Marianne Faithfull and Jarvis Cocker. As with the commentator who originally put the song up on youtube, I am uncertain if it deeply awful or just plain disturbing. The arrangement is quite something, a sophisticated supper club shuffle. But the singing? Neither orthodox vocalists, rather than playing to their strengths, as, arguably, did Waits, here they seem to be playing their weaknesses. But I still felt drawn to post it. Put me under undecided.

Sorry, no time for Dee Snider, Phil Collins or the Bee Gees, for which you should thank me. Really. In the meantime and in anticipation of your plaudits, I'm off to my somewhere. To hide.........

Relive the past in olde Manhattan.

Valentines: Blue Valentines

purchase [ Blue Valentines ]

I've been turning this idea over in my head for 10 days: do... don't do .. do. I can't believe that SMM hasn't previously hit this one: it seems so obvious.

30-40 years ago, Waits was a lot rougher (around the edges - edges being the area he staked out with his style - a gravely voice and his choices of themes and lyrics). Where most of us paint our valentines red, he painted his blue. Blue as in blues? Blue as in the pained psychology of his protagonists.

The commercialization of valentines (yes, my family also bought those poke out valentine albums of the 60s, and I still buy my wife Hallmark cards marked <For Her> before February 14th so that I am "armed" for the day) has jaded the meaning of sending a valentine.

Do you remember the Peanuts/Charlie Brown's where he never got a card and/or debated the risk of sending <the read haired girl> a card? The anguish? I remember actually making my own - paper, scissors and colored pens. And searching for the "right" message for each person. Days gone by.

history.com has an interesting (well ... I like history) article about the history of the day, if you want to pick up some trivia facts.

So ...Tom Waits' pointed themes and lyrics tend to cut deep. A valentine meant/not sent... or sent and lost to time or without heartfelt value. A blue valentine. (He's also got a song called "Christmas Card ...", too.)
More poet than "vocalist", he sings:

Baby, it's the thistle in the kiss
It's the burglar that can break a rose's neck
It's the tatooed broken promise
I gotta hide beneath my sleeve
I'm going to see you every time I turn my back

Billys Band does it, too:

SPIRIT: SPIRIT DITCH/SPARKLEHORSE

Some might say I am, again, entirely missing the point of this theme, submitting posts around arcane or unknown musicians, rather than jolly japes around the spirit world that befit the feast of St Michael (Myers). So be it, my defence arguably resting on the deceased nature of the musicians concerned. In this case, rather than the takentoosoon of cancer, this time it was the at least as ghastly act of suicide that took Mark Linkous, singer, songwriter and, in reality, the end-all and be-all of Sparklehorse.

Spirit Ditch

I would expect most readers of this site to know the name, even if little known in the civilian world of charts and videos. His band, which lasted between 1995 and his death, 15 years later, gave us 6 albums, including collaborations. These are a scatter shot of styles and influences, possibly denoting the scatter shot status of his brain waves, he having been no stranger to the use of mind-altering drugs, not least in their life-changing capabilities. And not in a good way, as you may below follow. They're good records, though. Spirit Ditch is from the first, vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot, and is as good a place as any to get to grips with his impossibly fraught vocals, a whispered scream of frailty. With stream of consciousness lyrics, it is hard to say quite what it is about, but the lifted transcript from a(n actual) phone call with his mother, she talking of a bad dream he had described her, gives a clue to the mindset. I like what I see as a lyrical nod to After the Goldrush: "I woke up in a burnt out basement", sensing some psychological kinship with Neil Young. Having said, he is just as capable, like Young, of a raucous wig-out like Someday I Will Treat You Good.

I first came across the band for their second outing, having read of the horrendous incident that pre-ceded its release, widely felt to preface much of the material. This was later denied by Linkous, saying it had already been written. (Musicians traditionally always deny any obvious inspirations to their muse, whether Bob Dylan or Nick Cave, mind.....) But I am drawn to such, and found the slightly more synth embellished textures of Good Morning Spider being to my taste. (Below I shoehorn in a track, later covered by Susanna Hoffs, if unreleased, in a lame attempt to fit in with the theme.)

Ghost of His Smile

Next album, the was it ironically entitled It's a Wonderful Life, is said to be more straight ahead, made without added stimulants (or downers). Ditching any firm concept of a band, it is rammed full with collaborations, from PJ Harvey and Nina Persson, to, Linkous' hero, Tom Waits. Whilst some of these extra voices add to the overall, largely I feel they detract, the earlier shambolic being key to my enjoyment. These songs are just too conventional. (Don't get me wrong, they're fine, it's the comparison. And the Waits' one is shit.)

Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse, the now big name influential game changer for Michael Kiwanuka and Karen O, and electronic ambient artist Fennesz now entered Linkous' orbit, both and/or either intrinsically involved with the rest of the Sparklehorse canon. Firstly with Dreamt For Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain, which comes across as a bit of a muddle, with tracks redolent of each of their stylistic tropes, together with a leftover or two from the earlier album. Again, don't ignore it, just don't seek it first.

Getting it Wrong(?)

Chronologically the next should be In the Fishtank, Vol. 15, jointly credited with Fennesz, but delayed in release until after his death. I guess you have to be in the mood, but it smacks to me of too much self-indulgence. It looks a whole lot better live. So I will move swiftly to the last, this time a direct 3 way credit with both Danger Mouse and with David Lynch, the film maker, for his photography. Too many egos?  I don't know, but legal difficulties delayed the release by a year, during which Linkous took his own life. Designed as a feature for songs Linkous felt uncomfortable singing himself, this features an array of bussed in vocalists, some of whom work better than others.

I would prefer it to have been Linkous, personally, and, thankfully, he features on a couple. It works best when similar voices are used, like Grandaddy's Jason Lyttle, less when a different atmosphere is sought, like with Iggy Pop. A sum less of its parts, it features the song below, almost clairvoyant in mood, featuring vocals shared with Linkous and, again, Nina Persson. Because, all too soon, he was.

Daddy's Gone

Here's his obituary.

Finally, back to where I began, with the realisation of his talent bearing fruit, here is a remarkable cover version of Spirit Ditch, made by Nadine Khouri, the up and coming UK based melancholist.

Spirit Ditch

Spirit Ditch here, or, with and in respect to the relative newness of the cover version, AND here.

TRAIN: DOWNTOWN TRAIN/ROD STEWART

WhaaaaatTF? Surely a serious muso (sic) site like this wouldn't mess up so big time as the above heading? Rod bloody Stewart, fer chrissake... But hang on, hold that thought for a moment. And of course I know it isn't the original, but, whisper, it's better, an unpopular viewpoint, but still mine. Plus  it came at a time when there was still, just, a smidgeon of credibility in the Stewart cache. I think it initially appeared as a new song on the 'Greatest Hits' compilation of 1989, one of the first CDs I ever bought. A massive worldwide hit as a single, it probably introduced the name of its writer, Tom Waits, to many and certainly then to me. Like many, I then sourced the original, finding Waits' voice a step too far for my sensibilities, a situation that remains to this day, no matter how hard I have tried. But Stewart glides his rasp effortlessly through the sweeping chorus, deservedly winning the Grammy for best male vocalist that year, the richly layered backing pepped by Stewart's one-time boss, in his eponymous group, Jeff Beck on slide guitar.

So what is it with Stewart, a man whose music I had earlier loved, both with the Faces and alone? If 'Greatest Hits' was one of my first CD purchases, 'Sing It Again, Rod' had been one of my first on vinyl. My generation had been endeared of his boozy and shambolic persona, with the uncanny knack of both having a way with his own words and music, and being able to pick plum covers. The rot had seemed to set in with his transatlantic crossing, SWIDT, to be with Britt Ekland. As ever is the way, the fickle british uber-fans took umbrage with his fame and fortune and left him to their wives and girlfriends to enjoy, whose patronage lingers to this day, as my elder sister can testify. The odd gem could still be cherry-picked from his catalogue: the boy could still know a good song when he heard one, although that tolerance became ever more strained by his discovery of the great american songbook. Was he the first rocker to plough this lucrative furrow? Though I doubt we would have been spared Mr Dylans's forays into similar territory, I can think of many who might not have had that thought had Stewart, or his bank-manager, not had that thought first. ( I lie awake in dread of the forthcoming Seal tux'n'tapdancing travesty 'Standards.')

So, too, what is it with Waits, a supremely talented songwriter, whose songs, when covered by other voices, I adore? Am I alone in finding his corncrake throat-clearing anaethema? I sometimes think I must be, my friends and peers all seemingly in awe of him and his deranged Charlie Chaplin meets Charles Bukowski image, with his musical arrangements more of the foundry than the footlights. Or do I troll? (No, which is why I also include, for balance, or proof as I call it, his version of 'Downtown Train' below, with a couple more to take away the taste.)

Everything But The Girl

and Mary Chapin Carpenter

Get some versions here.

Me? I'm heading back under my bridge.

Down: Way Down In The Hole

Tom Waits: Way Down In The Hole
[purchase]
[purchase The Wire soundtrack, with 4 of the 5 versions used in the credits]

This year, it seems like I’m writing more about television related music. I watch an enormous amount of television, and I do think that there is so much great stuff to watch these days. In fact, there’s a ton of shows out there now that I would like to check out, but there are just so many hours in the day. In addition, there are a bunch of older shows, often considered to be among the medium’s best, that I have never seen. Some, I’m not interested in, like Game of Thrones, but mostly it is because I didn’t start watching them during their initial run, such as The Sopranos (80 episodes), or Mad Men (92 episodes), or Breaking Bad (62 episodes, plus I’d have to watch Better Call Saul), and their multi-season runs make binge watching difficult.

A few years ago, when I started my own practice, there wasn’t much work right away. I decided to binge watch one of the shows that I had missed, and hit upon The Wire. It was only five seasons (and 60 episodes), it was supposed to be great.  Also, I was a big fan of Homicide: Life On The Streets, which shares significant creative DNA with The Wire.  And my wife wasn’t interested in it. Perfect. (I also watched the 24 episode British show The Thick of It, which was amazing, and easily the most profane program I have ever watched).

The Wire was, in fact, great, and harrowing, and depressing and brilliant. The way that it dissected the Baltimore of its era by focusing on the decay of its major institutions—the police, the unions, the government, the schools, the press, and even the street gangs—was remarkable. The narrative style was groundbreaking, and the performances, by actors who rarely, if ever, have reached the same level of quality since, were stunning. And there was Omar.

But, as I so often have to remind myself, this is a music blog. The credits for the first season ran over a cover of Tom Waits’ “Way Down In The Hole,” recorded by the Blind Boys of Alabama. At the time, I didn’t know that it was a cover, because I’m not that big a Waits fan. The second season, they used the original. For season three, it was a Neville Brothers cover, and in season 4, they commissioned a version, credited to DoMaJe, sung by Baltimore middle schoolers, which related to the season’s focus on the public schools. The final year, they used a cover by Steve Earle, who also acted in the show. Here are all of the credit sequences, conveniently edited into one video:



If you’d like to read more about the credits, go here.

David Simon, the creator of The Wire, followed up that show with a number of well-received television projects.  Generation Kill, which I haven't seen, was about the 2003 invasion of Iraq.  Tremé, which I loved, taught me an enormous amount about post-Katrina New Orleans, and that amazing city's culture, particularly its music. After that, he adapted my friend Lisa Belkin's book Show Me A Hero into a gripping miniseries about zoning (cheap joke--it was about race, and politics and ambition and much more).  A couple of weeks ago, his new show, The Deuce, focusing on the sex and pornography industry in New York in the 1970s, debuted to critical acclaim.  So far, I think it is good, but, and I bet Simon gets tired of hearing this phrase, it isn't The Wire (but is it more like that show than the other Simon projects?).

Right: Tom Waits - Step Right Up

purchase [Step Right Up]

SMM has posted about Tom Waits in the past (link to those posts), but Step Right Up isn't one of them. The album from whence it appeared, Small Change, has so many of my favorite Waits' pieces that I could choose almost any one of them. The album comes from his darker days, likely influenced by the too many days on the road - with repeated references to the seamier side of life.

It wasn't just the man's gravel-ly voice that piqued my interest; it was partially the minimal musicality of that style (something as simple as a lone bass accompaniment) and partially his way of twisting a word half way through such that it changed meaning from what you thought it was going to say. The song is like a rap before rap was conceived and the words just go on an on and on - no 2 and half minute Beatles pop lyrics here!
Sample: 
it's effective, it's defective, it creates household odors,
It disinfects, it sanitizes for your protection
It gives you an erection, it wins the election

Step Right Up is an indictment of commercialism/advertising and so it is informative that Waits has had to resort to the legal system to keep marketers at bay (see Frito Lay).

Incidentally, there's also a tribute to Waits album by the same name.

BLOOD: Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet

A title as above will either send you screaming for the hills or you will know of it already. Of course, I maybe underestimate the number of actively fundamentalist Christians possibly reading, none of whom I would wish to offend. Be that as it may, if intrigued by such a heading, and I dare say it is true, within these largely secular scribblings, please read on.

Gavin Bryars is an English composer, best known for his pieces within the oxymoron of contemporary classical music. Always a champion of the accident of creative expression, he was a founder member of the Portsmouth Sinfonia, an extraordinary ensemble whose membership demanded little or no pre-existing competence in the playing of any instrument. Whilst some, like Bryars, had skills and experience, many did not, resulting in sometimes the triumph of enthusiasm over accuracy. And sometimes not. Another member was erstwhile Roxy Musicman, latterday U2 (and others) producer and composer, Brian Eno, under whose patronage Bryars later developed a more orthodox career, albeit one that owed a fair bit to John Cage and his uneasy compositional style. Prior to that he had been a jazz bassist alongside another free spirit, Derek Bailey, so you could argue his chosen oeuvre became the meeting of improvised free jazz with orchestrated found sound.

The piece celebrated here has a glorious evolution, almost apocryphal, and is best described in Bryar's own words here. I remember hearing this for the first time and being astonished, as the repetition and ritualistic build of tension worked a spell I would encourage you to become entranced by. Don't rush. Leave yourself plenty of time. Turn off outside distractions.

This was the original recording, from 1971, with a later revised version appearing 20 years later, with the added delight, if he is your bag, of vagrant faux Tom Waits joining in toward the end. (An unnecessary addition in my ear, but I am not a fan. And apologies to those who, on sight of the picture at the top were expecting something overall Jethro Tullier, but the image seemed apt.)

Buy the original here. (The lesser Waits "enhanced" version is also available, at considerably less a price, but, hey, that's commercialism for you!?)

IT'S ELEMENTAL: Part 2

What fun! Against sense or justification I find myself with time to continue a trawl through some more of the elements. I am intrigued by still how potent a source of lyrical stimulation the periodic table is proving, even as we leave the everyday names behind. Naturally the temptation to use some of the more arcane names of elements for band names, especially if ‘heavy metals’, is too much to resist, for example the well-known(?) bands Nobium, Cobalt, Xenon, C(a)esium 137 and even Barium, hoping the latter haven’t made too much of a meal of it. Sorry to any of them, hoping for a tag to their latest, but I am sticking to the words in songs.

Buy Titanium
First off is dancemaster David Guetta, who, in 2011, produced this little number, featuring go-to girl in this genre, Sia. I find it fascinating that the video seems to display a girl with supernatural forces running from the Police, not least as the opening bars of the tune seem a lift from Sting’s finest? All a bit generic and by numbers for me. Understandably not in the Greatest Hits that crept onto my shelves last year.

Buy Vanadium, but you will need i-tunes
Unbelievable! Vanadium I had never even heard of, yet clearly a part of the essentials for this gloomy and never more industrial gothic sounding outfit, from their 1983 album "Zeichnungen des Patienten O.T.", or Drawing of Patient O.T., which isn’t a huge help. The name of the group I knew, but this was my very first earburst of them, reading that their thing is the use of non-musical machinery as part of their instrumentation. Resisting the obvious cynical riposte, I am minded of the more recent Fuck Buttons, who similarly invoke noise as music. Oddly I can see an appeal, but maybe I have had too many MRI scans. Erstwhile member Blixa Bargold, guitar/vocals, later became a member of Nick Cave band The Birthday Party and then a Bad Seed.

Buy Chromium (electric)

The Church are, of course, world famous in Australia, with a lineage stretching back decades up into the present day: they have recently performed a few bijou gigs in the U.K. I think they should and could have been better known, tending towards a tuneful jangliness, reminiscent of Teenage Fanclub.This is the 2^nd version of the song, appearing on a 2005 acoustic rehash of back-catalogue, ‘El Momento Descuidado, an LP I picked up cheap in Melbourne, whilst visiting my daughter, a couple of years back. I prefer it to the electric version here.

Buy Iron
Who could resist and who does not know this song? An astonishing 45 years old, or will be in a month, astonishingly simple and astonishingly effective. I forgive them for the successive waves of noisy tosh produced within their invented genre, if only for the joy of air-guitar aged 13. And all still alive and squabbling. Wonderful.

Buy Nickel
So, as stated, no room for Nickelback, thank the Lord, or Nickel Creek, mores the pity, here, so it’s the marmite man himself, Tom Waits. Fabulous songwriter, of which I have no doubt, it’s just his unusual corncrake grate of a voice. Sometimes, just sometimes, it works for me, and, by jingo, this is one of those times, the contrast with the strings imparting a pathos I didn’t know he had in him. OK the odd guttural hawk as it continues, making me wince and the front row of any audience duck. Nearly as good as Over the Rainbow.

Buy Copper
Confess I only know the W.O.L.D.(ee ee ee) song for this lauded writer, deceased many a long year. Not my proverbial, I fear, being too M.O.R. (ah ah ah). Cheap gag, move on.

Buy Zinc
I wanted, I really wanted to give this a chance, trying to forget the years of horror when T. Rex were a fixture on UK TV chartshow 'Top of the Pops', my mother unfailingly asking me who he, Bolan,  was, with my stock answer being that I didn’t know. In case she though it indicative of my taste. Best thing, as ever, is the Taylor/Volman backing vocals, fresh from their stint with the Mothers of Invention, with me never understanding quite why. Shame the Turtles never sang a song about, o, I don’t know, Tungsten. (Is tungsten even an element?)

Buy Arsenic
Unfamiliar with these guys, and, at my first wiki I was pleasantly surprised, preparing to give this formulaic pop-punk a second chance, mistaking the noughties Philadephia “punks”, the Loved Ones, with the Australian garage band of the same name, 40 years earlier. What is yawn now would be somewhatground-breaking in ’65. But it wasn’t to be. File under old lace.

Buy Molybdenum, sorry, Nobelium
Mindful of 3 spiteful comments in a row, I really need one to like, and this, I thought, was definitely the one. The sheer unlikeliness of a song called Molybdenum automatically excused any need to consider its value. But, frustratingly, not on the youtube……. But, they did do one called Nobelium, which is, even if straying from the order I had been seeking. In fact they have more, with songs Iodine, Uranium, two Oxygens, another Titanium, Selenium and Nitrogen, all on a 2000 LP called, with little surprise, elements. Who they? Noxious Emotion is the name. I applaud the idea more than its fruition, but it’s OK. Clearly a leader in what amazon call EBM. (No, me neither, so back to wiki….) Whatever. It's OK. Really.

Buy Iodine
Now I can imagine Leonard Cohen stumbling down a track on some obscure greek island, knees smeared with iodine, having fallen from a scooter after a liason with his latest olive hued muse. Which seems actually to fit the gist of the lyric. Maybe not his pinnacle. Produced, doncha know, by Phil Spector, giving some down time fun imagining the same song sung by the Ronettes. (Works for me!)

I think we are both tiring……

Shutdown: Closing Time

Tom Waits: Closing Time

[purchase]

Our current theme is rich with possibilities, but they require some creative thought to tease out. Shutdown. All kinds of things can be shut down. It may be permanent, or very temporary. One example happens every night, and it has been a great inspiration to songwriters. I‘m talking about closing time. You went out to a bar for an evening. You had certain hopes and intentions. Now the bar is closing, and you are still there. How did those expectations turn out? Songwriters have answered that question in a wide variety of ways. To hear some of those answers, try searching for the words “closing time“ in the Amazon mp3 store. Three completely different songs bear that title, and many other song titles contain the phrase.

One Closing Time song holds my attention here. On an album of mostly vocal tracks, Tom Waits made the instrumental song Closing Time the title track of his 1973 release. The song, appropriately, closes the album. When Sting made the instrumental The Dream of Blue Turtles the title track of his first solo album, he was taking a tune that was the result of an impromptu jam session in the studio, and using it as a declaration of personal and musical freedom. Tom Waits is after something completely different here. The song Closing Time is a mood piece that sums up the emotions of the entire album. The song could just as easily have opened the album and served as a sort of overture. The album Closing Time is one of Waits’ most lushly romantic works. Waits is known for his portrayal of down-on-their-luck men who have turned to alcohol to dull the pain, with varying degrees of success. What is remarkable is how Waits makes us sympathize with these men by showing us that, even at their lowest, these men still dream of better things. The album Closing Time focuses less on how low these characters have fallen, and instead is about those dreams. Here are some of Waits most unabashed and beautiful love songs. Still, at the end of the night, the lights come up, and these characters leave alone. So the song is still lush and sweet, but it also has a melancholy strain. Nobody balances these emotions better than Tom Waits, and here he doesn’t even need words to do it.

Suites and Medleys: Jack & Neal / California, Here I Come

Tom Waits: Medley: Jack & Neal / California, Here I Come

[purchase]

Sometimes you don't have to be in the gutter to be looking at the stars.  And sometimes, when you look at the stars it's only because you're winking at them as you give the moon the finger.

Beautiful losers making the ultimate road trip, New York to California.  Searching for something.  God, maybe, or maybe just a good time.  Cigarettes, cheap booze, benzedrine and girls who want all of those things, and are happy to share. You dream of Bird, even though Wilson Pickett's voice tells you that you're neither Kerouac nor Cassady, you've just borrowed their shoes for a while. Forget for a moment Dean Moriarty standing alone by the side of the road, that there is precedent and that these things never end well.  These things never end. Sometimes it's best not to sweat the big stuff.

Open up that Golden State, California here I come!

Spoken Word: The One That Got Away

Tom Waits: The One That Got Away

[purchase]

Billed primarily as a piano player, Tom Waits is also a poet who - in my opinion - rivals the likes of Dylan. Now, I don't know that you can call some of his work "song lyrics", but the definition of the word lyric is "having the form and musical quality of a song, and especially the character of a songlike outpouring of the poet's own thoughts and feelings" (dictionary.com). That fits the man and his work, for, in addition to his musical skills, a poet he is for sure.

Raspy and gritty, Waits' voice conveys the atmosphere of the smoky bar whence his music comes and where it best belongs. In the best tradition of the barroom piano player, Waits provides us with a glimpse of the seamier side of life that is a deep down part of all of us, but which most of us shy away from out of fear of the dark side.

His 1976 album Small Change is one of my favorite albums of all time. There are a number of pieces on this album where Waits talks us through this story, as opposed to singing a song. A number of the songs from the album have been included here before on StarMaker, by Darius and Boyhowdy: among others I Can't Wait To Get Off Work (Aug 31, 2008), Tom Traubert's Blues (Sept 15, 2010), and Step Right Up (Mar 27, 2011)

The One That Got Away and Pasties and a G-String both fit the bill for this week's theme. Line after line of the words should give pause: just what on earth does he mean? (for me, there are so many lines that carry some connotation, worthy of an extra minute's pondering):

half past the unlucky, the hawk's a front row seat

I've lost my car key, my equilibrium and my pride

Herewithin, one of them. I strongly recommend that you go out and purchase the whole album so that you can get the full sense of this, his best work.

Guest post by KKafa

Dishonesty & Lies: Step Right Up

Tom Waits: Step Right Up

[purchase]

Boyhowdy is responsible for the pictures on the sidebar that accompany our themes. When I saw this week’s, I knew what my first song had to be. Step Right Up is Tom Waits’ brilliant send-up of late night TV advertising pitches. These contain, in the words of Douglas Adams, “much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate.” Tom Waits takes this to its logical extreme. Since Tom Waits wrote this song, these kinds of pitches have moved from late night TV to cable infomercials. So the song is at least as relevant now is it was then. Ironically, a version of Step Right Up with different lyrics was once used as an advertising jingle by Enron. In the company’s messy collapse, the only tape of this version known to exist mysteriously vanished.

Actually, I know of no one who ever tried to use Step Right Up for any sort of jingle. This was my first lie of the week.

I Have a Dream: Innocent When You Dream

Tom Waits: Innocent When You Dream

[purchase]

There is a history of other artists missing the point when covering the songs of Tom Waits. I love Bruce Springstein’s version of Jersey Girl, but it has a completely different backstory from Waits’ original. As for Rod Stewart’s Downtown Train, don’t get me started. There are a scattering of covers of Innocent When You Dream as well. Probably the best known artists to try the song are Great Lake Swimmers and Mark Ereli. Something very strange happens in these versions: the narrator sobers up! No! Innocent When You Dream starts with the line, “The bat’s are in the belfry.” Here is a guy who lost his love through his own mistakes, and he is drinking himself into oblivion, trying to forget. And that’s not beer either, it’s the strongest whiskey he can find. Tom Waits has portrayed characters like this throughout his career. They scrape the bottom of society, but Waits has always been able to find the beauty in their lives. That is his particular genius, and it is also the quality that is missing in so many covers of his songs.

Blank and Blues: Tom Traubert’s Blues

Tom Waits: Tom Traubert‘s Blues

[purchase]

In the mid 1970s, I hated strings. They were all over the place, sugar-coating songs that didn’t need it and would have been better off without it. I didn’t forgive some of my favorite artists for doing this, notably Jackson Browne on his album The Pretender. But there were two artists whose string arrangements were as lush ad romantic as anyone’s, but who I did forgive. Randy Newman really orchestrated his songs, and showed how creative string arrangements could be. And then there was Tom Waits, and especially Tom Traubert’s Blues.

Waits has always been the troubadour of the unfortunate. His characters have been brought low before we meet them, and now they seem to live on discarded cigarette butts and cheap whiskey. Most people walk through a city, and there are these people, begging for what ever they can get, and most people ignore them as best they can. Tom Waits has the gift of seeing them, and seeing fellow human beings with hopes and dreams. And Waits has the further gift of being able to bring these people to life, and making us care about them. The strings here help carry those dreams to the stars, while Waits’ gravelly voice and evocative lyrics remind us of whose dreams these are. This is a delicate combination, and it makes this song almost impossible to cover properly.

Tom Traubert’s Blues incorporates the traditional Australian song Waltzing Matilde for two reasons that have nothing to do with the meaning of the original song. First, as rendered here, Waltzing Matilde sounds like something a person might sing in a drunken stupor. And second, Waits is remembering meeting Danish singer Mathilde Bondo. They apparently had a night on the town together, winding up very drunk in his hotel room. Bondo later acknowledged this meeting in an interview.

Street Names: Virginia Avenue

Tom Waits: Virginia Avenue

[purchase]

There are plenty of Virginia Avenues in the U.S. and for the longest time I, for some reason, thought this song referred to the Virginia Avenue in Washington D.C.

But with Columbus Avenue being name-dropped as well, you'd think I would've realised Tom Waits was actually serenading Los Angeles, his hometown at the time. Or is he singing about San Francisco, which also has a Virginia Avenue and a Columbus Avenue?

'Cause he's not referring to the Virginia Avenue in Hagerstown, Maryland, is he? Or the one in Atlanta? Perhaps the one in Portland, Oregon or the one in Atlantic City? Fort Pierce, Florida? Lexington, Kentucky?

Oh hell, let's just say it's the one in Chicago and never discuss the matter again.

Instrumentals: Tom Waits Edition

Tom Waits: Cinny's Waltz

[purchase]


Tom Waits: Rainbirds

[purchase]


Tom Waits: Good Old World (Gypsy Instrumental)

[purchase]


Tom Waits: Knife Chase

[purchase]


Isn't that an amazing photo at the top of this post? I don't think I've ever seen a picture of Tom Waits that looks exactly the way his music sounds. A hobo breaking into a carnival in the middle of the night, having the time of his life.

At first glance it might look like an odd choice for Instrumentals Week to pick an artist who's so known for his voice, but his wordless pieces are not to be missed. He (and his wife/collaborator Kathleen Brennan) have always had a knack for creating haunting images with their sonic landscapes.

It's no wonder he's contributed to so many movies over the years, both as a songwriter and as an actor - a more cinematic performer is hard to find.

Retrospective: Looking For The Heart Of Saturday Night

Tom Waits: Looking For The Heart Of Saturday Night

Purchase


My first post on SMM was as a guest on March 8th, 2008. I had no idea what I was getting into! As time has passed I have been surrounded by bloggers who are much better writers than I am and who have much deeper music libraries than I do. But, even though I feel outclassed most of the time, I cherish my opportunity to occasionally contribute here. I'm so happy to have been a part of something so positive, open-minded, and spirited. Thank you, Paul, for the initial invitation to join.

It may be so obvious that it doesn't even need to be said, but my favorite moments from my time here have been when I have been introduced to music and artists who I had previously either not known about or who I had ignored.

I knew a guy in high school who was really really into Tom Waits. I hated that guy! Because this particular Tom Waits fan was such a distasteful human being, I never gave Tom Waits himself a chance. That all changed on April 11th, 2008 when Paul wrote about Waits here on this blog. I found the song he posted to be so compelling and so beautiful that I immediately began the process of filling out my own Tom Waits collection.

I'm so glad to have been introduced to him as an artist. He is one of my favorite discoveries of the last several years.

Thanks for the introduction, Paul - and thanks to all of my blogging colleagues for Starmaker Machine.

Gender Benders: Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis

Tom Waits: Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis

[purchase]

In every Tom Waits song, there's always (at least) one killer line, like "Never drive a car when you're dead" or "I got a hole in my roof, the shape of a heart".
My favorite one in this song : "Hey Charlie I think about you/Everytime I pass a fillin' station/On account of all the grease/You used to wear in your hair"

The first words, "Hey Charlie I'm pregnant", make no doubt. The narrator is a woman, and despite Wait's voice, we buy it. A beautiful story from one of his greatest albums, one that reads like a hard boiled novel. Sad, poignant of course, but beautiful.

Hope and Change: Hold On

Tom Waits: Hold On

[purchase]

I thought that was a good thing to say in a song. Hold on. We're all holding onto something. None of us want to come out of the ground. Weeds are holding on. Everything's holding on. I thought that was a real positive thing to say. It was an optimistic song. Take my hand, stand right here, hold on. We wrote that together, Kathleen and I, and that felt good. Two people who are in love writing a song like that about being in love. That was good."

I flipped the channel away from the endless inauguration news yesterday to find myself hit in the heart by the unspeakably aching hopefulness of Hold On -- a song which I have heard covered so well, and so many times, I plumb forgot the sheer raw power of the original broken-voiced ballad.

We're fans of Tom Waits here, but there's always room for more, and this Grammy nominated cut, which forms the core and cornerstone of 1999 release Mule Variations, is a stellar addition to the mix. It's a good reminder, I think, that not all the things we hope for have come to fruition. Thanks, universe, for reminding me that there is always farther to go, always more to hold on to, always more to hope for.

Oh, and the covers? Here's two of my favorites:

Hold On: Redbird

[purchase]

Hold On: The Cottars

[purchase]