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tom waits.....

StoneG82StoneG82 Posts: 806
edited May 2006 in Other Music
I just got into this guy. I think he's a genius.

So far the only albums I have are "Bone Machine"......"Rain Dog's"..... and "Frank's Wild Years". Just wondering where I should go next...is his early stuff (like Closing Time, etc.) worth checking out? I'd have to say that "Frank's Wild Years" is my favorite one so far. Cold Cold Ground is worth the price of admission alone.


oh and I don't really care if theres another Waits thread on the front page.
"What’s Orphans? I don’t know. Orphans is a dead end kid driving a coffin with big tires across the Ohio River wearing welding goggles and a wife beater with a lit firecracker in his ear." - Tom Waits
Post edited by Unknown User on

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    NoLongerOverwhelmedNoLongerOverwhelmed Posts: 82
    swordfishtrombones...
    Rock over London... Rock on Chicago... I love what you do for me Toyota - Wesley Willis
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    transplanttransplant Posts: 1,088
    words cannot describe how much I love Closing Time and Heart of Saturday Night. These are 2 CD's that everybody will like. Hell, I think I gave them both to my parents and inlaws. You cannot escape how incredible they are. beautiful pieces of music. They are worlds apart from his other releases but seriously, I think Closing Time and Heart of Saturday Night are as close to a sure thing as you can get.

    If you don't bop you head slowly during the song Heart of Saturday Night, or get a little choked up on Martha, Grapefruit Moon.....

    I would love the opportunity to discover these CD's again.
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    jades23jades23 Posts: 9
    yeah i just got into tom waits about a year ago.

    my favorite albums are blood money, heartattack and vine, and swordfishtrombones.
    "No matter how cold the winter, there's a springtime ahead"

    9/12/05
    5/17/06
    5/22/06
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    StoneG82StoneG82 Posts: 806
    hey everyone - thanks for the recomendations. I'm definitely gonna be checking out Mule Variations next time...a friend just burned me a mix with the song 'Hold On' on it. WOW. What a beautiful song.

    I may have to just start buying all his records chronologically. Every single thing I hear from him I love.

    I heard the record 'Alice' was great, also. anyone heard it?
    "What’s Orphans? I don’t know. Orphans is a dead end kid driving a coffin with big tires across the Ohio River wearing welding goggles and a wife beater with a lit firecracker in his ear." - Tom Waits
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    yerreyyerrey Posts: 183
    "hold on" is such an amazing song!
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    StoneG82StoneG82 Posts: 806
    transplant wrote:
    words cannot describe how much I love Closing Time and Heart of Saturday Night. These are 2 CD's that everybody will like. Hell, I think I gave them both to my parents and inlaws. You cannot escape how incredible they are. beautiful pieces of music. They are worlds apart from his other releases but seriously, I think Closing Time and Heart of Saturday Night are as close to a sure thing as you can get.

    If you don't bop you head slowly during the song Heart of Saturday Night, or get a little choked up on Martha, Grapefruit Moon.....

    I would love the opportunity to discover these CD's again.

    I'm listening to Closing Time for the first time as I type this......


    wow. Ol' 55 just blew my mind.
    "What’s Orphans? I don’t know. Orphans is a dead end kid driving a coffin with big tires across the Ohio River wearing welding goggles and a wife beater with a lit firecracker in his ear." - Tom Waits
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    wavin_goodbyewavin_goodbye Posts: 135
    closing time was my first waits album and it blew me away. every other album after that was harder for me to get into, but with time i saw their brilliance as well.

    he's a genius..

    i've listened to

    closing time
    heart of saturday night
    nighthawks
    small change
    blue valentine
    rain dogs

    all of them fantastic. and many that i haven't heard yet (i'm trying to do it as chronological as possible.. slow process though, started a year ago :D)
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    StoneG82StoneG82 Posts: 806
    wavin_goodbye wrote:
    closing time was my first waits album and it blew me away. every other album after that was harder for me to get into, but with time i saw their brilliance as well.

    he's a genius..

    i've listened to

    closing time
    heart of saturday night
    nighthawks
    small change
    blue valentine
    rain dogs

    all of them fantastic. and many that i haven't heard yet (i'm trying to do it as chronological as possible.. slow process though, started a year ago :D)

    I started off with "Bone Machine" and eventually got "Rain Dogs" and "Frank's Wild Years".

    You should get Frank's Wild Years next. It came out after Rain Dogs and is totally amazing.

    I'm also just going to buy all of his stuff chronologically. Every record I hear from him just blows me away.

    edit: does anyone have any idea what Tom Waits is up to these days? He put out Real Gone a few years ago and we haven't heard from him since. His website hasn't been updated in a while either.

    does he still tour or anything? is there any new album news?
    "What’s Orphans? I don’t know. Orphans is a dead end kid driving a coffin with big tires across the Ohio River wearing welding goggles and a wife beater with a lit firecracker in his ear." - Tom Waits
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    transplanttransplant Posts: 1,088
    StoneG82 wrote:
    I'm listening to Closing Time for the first time as I type this......


    wow. Ol' 55 just blew my mind.

    did you get through the whole thing?
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    scratched vinylscratched vinyl Posts: 742
    Closing Time, Rain Dogs and Bone Machine are my faves. As far as Alice goes, if you liked Blood Money then there's a good chance you'll like Alice, but I'd put alot of his albums before either of those. Alice was written with his wife and was very theatrical, for some reason it just didn't do it for me.

    As far as what he's up to these days, he put out "Real Gone" in 2004, and did a couple shows shortly there after, he doesn't really tour though, more just plays a couple shows when he feels like it. As far as I know he's still with Anti-, I assume at this stage of his career he's just not in a huge rush to get another album out there. But it's only been 2 years, so maybe we will get another album in not too long of a time.
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    Cropduster84Cropduster84 Posts: 1,283
    You cant really go wrong with Tom Waits...the mans a genius...

    Mule Variations and Alice are personal favourites...

    'Take It With Me' off MV is just heartbreakingly beautiful as is 'Georgia Lee'
    'The more I studied religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.' - Sir Richard Francis Burton
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    StoneG82StoneG82 Posts: 806
    transplant wrote:
    did you get through the whole thing?

    yeah I've listened to it all the way through a few times.

    GREAT record.
    "What’s Orphans? I don’t know. Orphans is a dead end kid driving a coffin with big tires across the Ohio River wearing welding goggles and a wife beater with a lit firecracker in his ear." - Tom Waits
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    StoneG82StoneG82 Posts: 806
    picked up ALICE and MULE VARIATIONS this weekend.

    wow. I think I can honestly say at this point that Tom Waits is my favorite songwriter.


    I'M BIG IN JAPAN
    "What’s Orphans? I don’t know. Orphans is a dead end kid driving a coffin with big tires across the Ohio River wearing welding goggles and a wife beater with a lit firecracker in his ear." - Tom Waits
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    FinsburyParkCarrotsFinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Tom Waits is the poor man's Captain Beefheart, but that's not too shabby in the grand scheme of things. I love Tom Waits's music.
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    StoneG82StoneG82 Posts: 806
    I just watched the "Chocolate Jesus" from letterman, and Tom just sprinkled himself with confetti.


    that just sealed the deal. Tom Waits is god.
    "What’s Orphans? I don’t know. Orphans is a dead end kid driving a coffin with big tires across the Ohio River wearing welding goggles and a wife beater with a lit firecracker in his ear." - Tom Waits
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    spnoonespnoone Posts: 626
    i once tried making a best of tom cd. took me 7 cd's.
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    StoneG82StoneG82 Posts: 806
    got Swordfishtrombones over the weekend...falling deeper into my addiction with Tom Waits.....probably gonna pick up Blood Money tomorrow.....

    has anyone read the book "Innocent When You Dream"? It's a collection of articles and interviews. I just got it saturday night and I'm already half-way done. The man is just so interesting.

    I recently started liking Real Gone as well....the first few times I listened to it, I was left in a total state of confusion. While some of the beat-boxing gets repitive, its high points are enough to call it a modern classic. (Make it Rain, Hoist that Rag, Day After Tomorrow, etc.)

    as far as a new record goes, this is all I could dig up:

    Q: How goes the new album?

    A: We're doing a thing called "Orphans,"(5) a lot of songs that fell behind the stove while making dinner, about 60 tunes that we collected. Some are from films, some from compilations. Some is stuff that didn't fit on a record, things I recorded in the garage with kids. Oddball things, orphaned tunes. I think that's going to come out in the fall sometime.

    you can read the whole article here:

    http://www.keeslau.com/TomWaitsSupplement/Interviews/06-apr23-dailynews.htm

    I really hope he actually tours for this record. I'd give my life to see him in concert.
    "What’s Orphans? I don’t know. Orphans is a dead end kid driving a coffin with big tires across the Ohio River wearing welding goggles and a wife beater with a lit firecracker in his ear." - Tom Waits
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    merkinballmerkinball Posts: 2,262
    StoneG82 wrote:
    as far as a new record goes, this is all I could dig up:

    Q: How goes the new album?

    A: We're doing a thing called "Orphans,"(5) a lot of songs that fell behind the stove while making dinner, about 60 tunes that we collected. Some are from films, some from compilations. Some is stuff that didn't fit on a record, things I recorded in the garage with kids. Oddball things, orphaned tunes. I think that's going to come out in the fall sometime.

    Oddball things huh, as opposed to the mainstream stuff he's been known for? Should be a great listen. Toms a genius. Drove my wife nuts when I had my 5 year old son singing "Hey, Hey, the Eyeball Kid" over and over.
    "You're no help," he told the lime. This was unfair. It was only a lime; there was nothing special about it at all. It was doing the best it could.

    http://www.last.fm/user/merkinball/
    spotify:user:merkinball
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    likepilateihaveadoglikepilateihaveadog Posts: 1,083
    I'm big in Japan, I'm big in Japan
    Teamwork. Rawk. Pwnage. Infinite Possibilities. YIELD. Hells yeah.
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    transplanttransplant Posts: 1,088
    StoneG82 wrote:
    I really hope he actually tours for this record. I'd give my life to see him in concert.
    Dylan and Waits are the only 2 people that I feel priviledged to be in the same room. I'll never forget the way I felt when I saw those 2 perform for the first time. Nowhere on the planet would I have rather been.
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    pickupyourwillpickupyourwill Posts: 3,135
    the only song of his I know---one of my faves on the sndtrack (eddie's long road and face of love come first of course)

    Walk Away
    *********

    Dot King was whittled from the bone of Cain
    with a little drop of poison in the red, red blood
    She need a way to turn around the bend
    She said I want to walk away and start over again.

    There are things I've done I can't erase
    I want to look in the mirror, see another face
    I said never would I do it again
    I want to walk away, start over again.

    No more rain
    No more roses
    On my way, shake my thirst in a cool, cool pond.

    There is a (widower/whittler/winner) in every place
    There is a heart that's beating in every page
    The beginning of it starts at the end
    When it's time to walk away and start over again.

    Weather is murder at a hundred and three
    William Ray shot Corabell Lee
    A yellow dog knows when he has sinned
    You want to walk away and start over again.

    No more rain
    No more roses
    On my way, shaking my thirst in a cool cool pond.

    Cooper told Maui the whole block is gone
    They're dying for jewelry, money, and clothes
    I always get out of the trouble I'm in
    I want to walk away, start over again.

    I left my bible by the side of the road
    Carve my initials in an old dead tree
    I'm going away but I'm going to be back when
    It's time to walk away and start over again.
    __________________
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    RAT!RAT! Posts: 115
    Tom Waits is a genius. A brilliant song writer and a really good actor

    Down by Law is my favorite movie and the scenes with tom on Fishing with

    John (Lurie) are Hilarious
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    StoneG82StoneG82 Posts: 806
    his songs on the Dead Man Walking soundtrack are indeed great.

    I find myself going back to his post Swordfishtrombones output more-so than his "Closing Time" era lounge stuff.

    Don't get me wrong, I love Closing Time, but I don't know if Tom would have the same relevance in my musical universe if he did stuff like that over and over again.

    I love his dark shit. Bone Machine, Alice, Mule Variations.......I think that 90's/early 00's period could be my favorite Waits music.
    "What’s Orphans? I don’t know. Orphans is a dead end kid driving a coffin with big tires across the Ohio River wearing welding goggles and a wife beater with a lit firecracker in his ear." - Tom Waits
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    Clifwith1fClifwith1f Posts: 143
    Tom Waits if frickin' brilliant. Rain Dogs and Mule Variations are simply amazing, but I love all his stuff. Everyone should try and listen to his new one, Real Gone.
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    elmerelmer Posts: 1,683
    agree with all of yous.....tom waits is a friggin legend. In my opinion the definitive tom waits are:
    Closing Time
    Heart Of a Saturday Night
    Rain Dogs
    Swordfishtrombones
    Franks Wild Years
    Blue Valentine

    .........at some stage all of the above have been a favourite and to me all are his only albums that I can enjoy all the way through. For me mule variations, alice etc etc can be a little too much in the freakish department.
    .........San Diego Serenade(track2 on Heart of sat night) is perhaps my favourite song, makes me feel very emotional bout my partner
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    harmless_little_f***harmless_little_f*** Posts: 8,005
    Wow. I was inspired by this thread to go and check some Tom Waits out. I went to iTunes and listened to a whole load of clips. IT IS amazing!!! WOW I'm gonna have to get me some of that...
    'We're learning songs for baby Jesus' birthday. His mum and dad were Merry and Joseph. He had a bed made of clay and the three kings bought him Gold, Frankenstein and Merv as presents.'

    - the great Sir Leo Harrison
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    StoneG82StoneG82 Posts: 806
    Clifwith1f wrote:
    Tom Waits if frickin' brilliant. Rain Dogs and Mule Variations are simply amazing, but I love all his stuff. Everyone should try and listen to his new one, Real Gone.

    Real Gone is a grower. How tragic is "Green Grass"

    Lay your head where my heart used to be........

    fuckin unbelievable record. "Make It Rain" is probably one of my top 5 favorite Waits songs.

    I could do without "Top of the Hill" and "Metopolitan Glide", though.
    "What’s Orphans? I don’t know. Orphans is a dead end kid driving a coffin with big tires across the Ohio River wearing welding goggles and a wife beater with a lit firecracker in his ear." - Tom Waits
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    enharmonicenharmonic Posts: 1,917
    Tom has a new album coming out. In the meantime, if you want to hear a new track that he's singing on, you should head over to Myspace and check out The Book of Knots.
    new music: http://www.myspace.com/blackbirdsymphonique

    old music: http://www.myspace.com/slowloader
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    StoneG82StoneG82 Posts: 806
    nvm - found it


    this thing is strange
    "What’s Orphans? I don’t know. Orphans is a dead end kid driving a coffin with big tires across the Ohio River wearing welding goggles and a wife beater with a lit firecracker in his ear." - Tom Waits
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    StoneG82StoneG82 Posts: 806
    Apparently he's got a box set coming out in September.....thats the word on the street.
    "What’s Orphans? I don’t know. Orphans is a dead end kid driving a coffin with big tires across the Ohio River wearing welding goggles and a wife beater with a lit firecracker in his ear." - Tom Waits
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