Tom Waits
Thomas Alan Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by one critic as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months and then taken outside and run over with a car." With this trademark growl, his incorporation of pre-rock styles such as blues, jazz, and Vaudeville, and experimental tendencies verging on industrial music, Waits has built up a distinctive musical persona. Waits has also worked as a composer for movies and musical plays and as a supporting actor in films, including The Fisher King, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Short Cuts. He has been nominated for an Academy Award for his soundtrack work on One from the Heart.
Lyrically, Waits' songs are known for atmospheric portrayals of bizarre, seedy characters and places, although he has also shown a penchant for more conventional ballads. He has a cult following and has influenced subsequent songwriters, despite having little radio or music video support. His songs are best known to the general public in the form of cover versions by more visible artists — for example "Jersey Girl" performed by Bruce Springsteen, "Downtown Train" performed by Rod Stewart, and "Ol' '55" performed by the Eagles. Although Waits' albums have met with mixed commercial success in his native United States, they have occasionally achieved gold album sales status in other countries. He has been nominated for a number of major music awards, and has won Grammy Awards for two albums, Bone Machine and Mule Variations.
“I've lost my equilibrium, my car keys, and my pride.”
“The large print giveth and the small print taketh away.”
“I ain't got no spare/I ain't got no jack/I don't give a shit/I'm not going back”
“When the weather's rough and it's whiskey in the rain it's best to wrap your savior up in cellophane.”
“I've never been a fan of personality-conflict burgers and identity-crisis omelets with patchouli oil. I function very well on a diet that consists of Chicken Catastrophe and Eggs Overwhelming and a tall, cool Janitor-in-a-Drum. I like to walk out of a restaurant with enough gas to open a Mobil station.”
“A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion, but doesn't.”
“My kids are starting to notice I'm a little different from the other dads. "Why don't you have a straight job like everyone else?" they asked me the other day. I told them this story: In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, "Look at me...I'm tall, and I'm straight, and I'm handsome. Look at you...you're all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you." And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, "Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest." So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day.”
“the earth is not my home, I'm just passing by”
“Q: What’s hard for you?A: Mostly I straddle reality and the imagination. My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane. Math is hard. Reading a map. Following orders. Carpentry. Electronics. Plumbing. Remembering things correctly. Straight lines. Sheet rock. Finding a safety pin. Patience with others. Ordering in Chinese. Stereo instructions in German.”
“There ain't no devil, only God when he's drunk.”
“Oh I don't mind going to weddings, just as long as it's not my own...”
“I don't have a drinking problem 'Cept when I can't get a drink.”
“and the earth died screaming, while I lay dreaming...”
“and when they pulled her from the wreck, you know, she still had on her shades”
“The ship is sinkingThe ship is sinkingThere's leak, there's a leak,in the boiler roomThe poor, the lame, the blindWho ore the ones that we kept inchargeKillers, thieves, and lawyersGod's Away, God's awayGod's away on Business”
“Well I got a bad liver and broken heart, yeah,I drunk me a river since youtore me apart”
“Oh, I'm not a percussionist, I just like to hit things.”
“slept all night in the cedar grove,i was born to ramble, born to rove,some men are searchin' for the holy grail,but there ain't nothin' sweeterthan ridin' the rails”
“Not the kind of wheel you fall asleep at.”
“The Music was like Electric Sugar”
“I walked 500 miles just to see a halo, when I opened my eyes I was blind as can be.”
“I've seen it all through the yellow windows of the evening train... ”
“Well you say that it's gospel,But I know that it's only church.”
“I've made a profound transformation. I've fashioned some cyber-underwear. I'm not scared of anything! Actually, I am scared of a few things. Cyber world is a world of adventure, a new galaxy. I'm big on adventure. But I don't assume that just because the word cyber is being used as a prefix, doesn't give it anymore value or credence. Cyber relationships have the illusion of intimacy, sometimes with the absence of intimacy. Is it better to have a conversation in a café or on the telephone?”
“I don't go to church on Sunday, don't get on my knees to pray, or memorize the books of the Bible, I got my own special way”
“Your old home town's so far away, but inside your head there's a record that's playing, a song called 'Hold On”
“I've been riding on the crest of a slump lately.”
“Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends.”
“Well, it's either kiss me or kill me, that's how I see it.”
“I hate Disneyland. It primes our kids for Las Vegas.”
“The big print giveth and the small print taketh away. ”