Subject: RE: Waits
From: Malcolm Lawrence (Malcolm@wolfenet.com)
Date: Tue Apr 15 1997 - 00:33:19 GMT
>OK Malcolm I'll take your advice and be a little more sociable. For any
Tom
>Waits fans what are your favorite song(s) and why?
Oh Christ on a crutch...favorite Tom Waits song(s)? I cannae do it, lad. I
know too much about him. I could probably write a whole book about ol' Tom,
but I couldn't narrow it down to favorite song or songs.
I think my favorite albums of his are (in chronological order only) The
Heart of Saturday Night, Blue Valentines and Bone Machine (NARROWLY beating
out Nighthawks at the Diner, Small Change and Frank's Wild Years). I really
wish he'd get back in the studio and follow up Bone Machine because I think
on that record he really started to open up some new territory. I
specifically love "Black Wings" where he dealt with as much ambiguity as he
did cinematic detail for once. Same with "In The Coliseum" and "Dirt In The
Ground."
In fact, here's something you can try at home: get a copy of Bone Machine,
The Ramones' Adios Amigo and Holly Cole's Temptation and listen to all
three versions of I Don't Wanna Grow Up back to back. Talk about a durable
song. Three completely different versions of it and each and every one is
completely successful.
And I'll always have a very soft spot in my heart for "Kentucky Avenue" for
purely sentimental reasons. Not only did I discover the song/album when I
first started to drive cab, but a close friend of mine fell three floors
off a building, lived to tell about it and after he got out of the hospital
and we used to wheel him over to the Comet for pints one time the barkeep
put on Blue Valentines/Kentucky Avenue, and when it came to that line:
"I'll take the hacksaw from my dad/and cut the braces from your legs" he so
caught the irony that he did a little wheelie in his wheelchair grinning
along to the song.(and now is married and has a five year old son and you'd
never suspect a thing if nobody told you it happened...but I digress).
Well anything he touches is pure gold. Pound for pound, yeah, Rain Dogs is
a good bet. "Time" is probably his best ballad, it was the first song of
his I taught myself on the guitar...I think he's one of the finest
songwriters of this century, right up there with Dylan and Lennon/McCartney
and Elvis Costello.
I had this one bootleg from Kansas City from 1980 where right at the end of
Baby, Ain't I Good To You he just goes off into one of his patented live
patters. Hysterical stuff:
"Oh baby...I mean...for Christ's sake. Here I am out here playing toilets
and you're back home probably shacking up with my booking agent. Sheila.
Never go out with a girl named Sheila. Sheila means heartbreak. Sheila
means trouble. Sheila means trash day...All right baby, I found out about
you and Hercules Melville. The secrets out of the bag. You might as well
cop to it. Well, me and your sister are through, buddy...Out here working
for nearly nothing, playing the Zebra Room, for shit sake...Well, baby, I'm
afraid our ship will NEVER come in. It's like Vesuvius marching for
Pompeii. Nothing but cinders. Return to cinders. That's my motto. Ashes to
ashes, dust to dust, and that's all there is left of us...But the way I
look at it, well, maybe there's a chance. I don't know. Love is so
peculiar. Love is so strange. I bought you the refrigerator and the
range...Oh, Christ, that's it baby, just a little lower, right there.
That's it. That's the spot. There. No, I don't think we're gonna make it
darlin'. I think we're all washed up. That's it. A little lower. That's it.
Ohhhh, baby. I said geeeeeee baby, ain't I good to youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.
Malcs
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