What do you make of Tom Waits? I'm only three albums into my Waits collection, his '73 debut "Closing Time", the live album "Nighthawkes At The Diner" from '75 and one of the finest albums of the 1980's, "Swordfishtrombones" 1983. Swordfishtrombones was the first I got, knew very little about him when my friend dropped it off one day. I'd heard nothing like it before! Some very strange music on there indeed. Pretty clear he's a hell of a songwriter though, and funny as the day is long
Listening to 'Swordfishtrombones' at the moment, s'why I made the post. Thought I'd share some of those day long funny lyrics... Frank settled down in the Valley, And hung his wild years on a nail that he drove through his wife's forehead. He sold used office furniture out there on San Fernando Road and assumed a $30,000 loan at 15 1/4 % and put down payment on a little two bedroom place. His wife was a spent piece of used jet trash made good bloody marys kept her mouth shut most of the time, had a little Chihuahua named Carlos that had some kind of skin disease and was totally blind. They had a thoroughly modern kitchen self-cleaning oven (the whole bit) Frank drove a little sedan they were so happy One night Frank was on his way home from work, stopped at the liquor store, picked up a couple Mickey's Big Mouths drank 'em in the car on his way to the Shell station, he got a gallon of gas in a can, drove home, doused everything in the house, torched it, parked across the street, laughing, watching it burn, all Halloween orange and chimney red then Frank put on a top forty station got on the Hollywood Freeway headed north Never could stand that dog
Rain Dogs is another fantastic album... very much in the same style as swordfishtrombones... some fantastic lyrics... its got his original version of Downtown Train which unsurprisingly shits all over Rod Stewart's cover version... Just got another Tom Waits goody... called Bone Machine... fucking brilliant stuff... He is unique... Fly... .
absolute genius... 'dirt in the ground' alone would be enough to seal that for me...one of my favourite songs of all time
