Rain Dogs, 1985

9th & Hennepin

Well, it's 9th and Hennepin

All the donuts have names that sound like prostitutes

And the moon's teeth marks are on the sky

Like a tarp thrown all over this

And the broken umbrellas are like dead birds

And the steam comes out of the grill

Like the whole goddam town is ready to blow

And the bricks⁽³⁾ are all scarred with jailhouse tattoos

And everyone is behaving like dogs

And the horses are coming down Violin Road

And Dutch is dead on his feet⁽⁴⁾

And all the rooms they smell like diesel

And you take on the dreams of the ones who have slept there

And I'm lost in the window

And I hide in the stairway

And I hang in the curtain

And I sleep in your hat

And no one brings anything small into a bar around here⁽⁵⁾

They all started out with bad directions

And the girl behind the counter has a tattooed tear

One for every year he's away she said

Such a crumbling beauty

Ah, there's nothing wrong with her a hundred dollars won't fix

She has that razor sadness that only gets worse

With the clang and the thunder of the Southern Pacific going by

And the clock ticks out like a dripping faucet

Till you're full of rag water and bitters and blue ruin⁽⁶⁾

And you spill out over the side to anyone who'll listen

And I've seen it all

I've seen it all through the yellow windows of the evening train

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Jalma Music (ASCAP), � 1985

Official release: Rain Dogs, Island Records Inc., 1985

Also included in Big Time movie (1988). Further reading: Big Time full story

Known covers:

The Silverhearts Play Raindogs. The Silverhearts. October 5, 2005. Banbury Park Records

<object height="344" width="425"></object> 

"9th And Hennepin" as featured in the Big Time concert video. 

Not recorded before a live audience

PolyGram Video (Island Visual Arts)/ Fries Home Video (Fries Entertainment Inc.), 1988.

With: Michael Blair, Ralph Carney, Greg Cohen, Marc Ribot and Willy Schwarz.

Stage show concept: Kathleen Brennan & Tom Waits. Directed by Chris Blum.

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ 9th and Hennepin: Hennepin Avenue and 9th Street Minneapolis, Minnesota

- Tom Waits (1985): "New York is really stimulating. You can get a taxi and just have him drive and start writing down words you see, information that is in your normal view: dry cleaners, custom tailors, alterations, electrical installations, Dunlop safety center, lease, broker, sale...just start making a list of words that you see. And then you just kind of give yourself an assignment. You say, "Im going to write a song and I'm going to use all these words in that song." That's one way. Or you can get in character, like in acting, and let the character speak. The song "9th and Hennepin" came out like that. GB. Where's Hennepin? TW. Minneapolis. But most of the imagery is from New York. It's just that I was on 9th and Hennepin years ago in the middle of a pimp war, and 9th and Hennepin always stuck in my mind. "There's trouble at 9th and Hennepin." To this day I'm sure there continues to be trouble at 9th and Hennepin. At this donut shop. They were playing "Our Day Will Come" by Dinah Washington when these three 12-year-old pimps came in in chincilla coats armed with knives and, uh, forks and spoons and ladles and they started throwing them out in the streets. Which was answered by live ammunition over their heads into our booth. And I knew "Our Day Was Here." I remember the names of all the donuts: cherry twist, lime rickey. But mostly I was thinking of the guy going back to Philadelphia from Manhattan on the Metroliner with the New York Times, looking out the window in New York as he pulls out of the station, imagining all the terrible things he doesn't have to be a part of." (Source: "Tom Waits for no man". Spin Magazine: Glenn O'Brien. November 1985)

- Tom Waits (1987): "I haven't been around 9th and Hennepin in a while, and I only know these things from my own experience. Though I think there must be a place where it all connects. I like where Bukowski says "I'm not quoting exactly"... "It's not the big things that drive men mad. It's the little things. The shoelace that breaks when there's no time left." It makes it very difficult for me to drive, you know. 'Cause I'm always looking around. It makes for a very dangerous ride with the family." (Source: "Tom Waits is flying upside down (on purpose)". Musician (a Billboard publication) Mark Rowland October, 1987)

- Tom Waits (1993): "An all night donut shop at Ninth and Hennepin in Minneapolis. Chuck Weiss and I are having coffee at the counter, late, caught in the middle of a pimp war between two 13-year-old kids. One outside on the street, firing live ammunition, the other running into the cafe, diving behind the counter, unarmed, and screaming, "Leon you're a dead man!" A toothpick dispenser hurls toward the street, the beater of a blender, a spatula, and a handful of forks. Bullets hit the stove, a framed dollar bill, a china dog. Chuck and I drop to the floor while the jukebox pounds out "Our Day Will Come" by Dinah Washington. Each bullet changes the selection on the Wurlitzer to a different song, each more poignant than the one before." ("Tom Foolery - Swapping stories with inimitable Tom Waits". Buzz Magazine: May, 1993)

- Jon Bream (1999): "Then there was the time Waits was in a late-night cafe in Minneapolis and "I got in the middle of a pimp war. There was like this 11-year-old pimp defending himself with a handful of silverware against live ammunition, which was rather dramatic. He would reach into the drawer and grab a handful of forks and hurl them out into the street and then he'd duck behind the counter, and then you'd hear like an automatic weapon, and the mirror inside would crack and hit the ground. None of us were armed. And on the jukebox they were playing 'Our Day Will Come.' " (Source: "Beatnik Bard Waits Uses Twin Cities As Source For Songs, Stories" Star Tribune (Minneapolis/ USA), by Jon Bream. Date: New York. August 27, 1999)

- Tom Waits (introducing "Ninth & Hennepin", 1999): "This is about a scary corner... It's a place called "Ninth & Hennepin". The ironic thing about this is, that it's no longer scary. That's how long I've been around. It went from scary... to kinda fun! And it really kinda upset me. Eh, you know, now they've got the unisex hair parlor there and eh,... you know the yogurt ehm... the eh... the funny shoes with eh... you know. But in the old days, it was no place you wanted to be. It was a little donut shop, a 12-year old pimp came in one night. I was in the middle of a war. Another guy firing live ammunition outside. All he had was knives and forks and spoons. And he incorporated the donut shop as his... barricade. And I just happened be... well having a donut. I haven't had my donut since... . (laughter). Cause I know where donuts lead! On the jukebox it was playing "Our Day Will Come". It was too perfect. Well it's "Ninth & Hennepin". (Source: SxSW festival. Paramount Theater, Austin. March 20, 1999)

⁽³⁾ Bricks

- n.: The pavement or sidewalk; the street

- The world outside prison walls. Prison use (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner).

- Also mentioned in "Little Boy Blue" (Don't sit home and cry on the Fourth of July, Around now you're hittin' the bricks)

⁽⁴⁾ Dead on one's feet: phr. [late 19C+] utterly drained, exhausted (Source: "Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang". Jonathon Green. Cassel & Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-304-35167-9)

⁽⁵⁾ Nobody ever brings anything small into a bar: "I happened to be watching the 1950 movie "Harvey" yesterday. There's one good scene well into the film where Jimmy Stewart explains what he does all day (that is, go to bars with his invisible rabbit friend to wet their whistles and talk to strangers). In this scene, Stewart says: "Nobody ever brings anything small into a bar." (Submitted by Matt Garretson. Raindogs Listserv discussionlist. April, 1997)

⁽⁶⁾ Blue ruin/ rag water 

- Blue ruin: Utter ruin; also, gin (Eng. slang) - Carlyle (Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, � 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.). Gin. Called blue from its tint, and ruin from its effects. (Source: "The First Hypertext Edition of The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable", E. Cobham Brewer. � 1997-99 Bibliomania.com Ltd). Inferiour liquor, esp. gin (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner)

- Rag water: Gin, or any other common dram: these liquors seldom failing to reduce those that drink them to rags (Source: “Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue”, Francis Grose 1811). Whisky. (Thieves’ jargon.) (Source: “Dictionary of Phrase and Fable”. E. Cobham Brewer, 1898).

Anywhere I Lay My Head

My head is spinning round

my heart is in my shoes⁽²⁾, yeah

I went and set the Thames on fire⁽³⁾, oh

now I must come back down

She's laughing in her sleeve⁽⁴⁾ boys

I can feel it in my bones

Oh, but anywhere, anywhere I'm gonna lay my head

I'm gonna call my home

Well I see that the world is upside-down

Seems that my pockets were filled up with gold⁽⁵⁾

And now the clouds, well they've covered over

And the wind is blowing cold

Well I don't need anybody

because I learned, I learned to be alone

Well I said anywhere, anywhere, anywhere I lay my head, boys

Well I gonna call my home

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Jalma Music (ASCAP), � 1985

Official release: Rain Dogs, Island Records Inc., 1985

Arrangement and lyrics published in "Tom Waits - Beautiful Maladies" (Amsco Publications, 1997)

Known covers:

Blue-Eyed Fool. Sugartown. November 2000. Self-released

Ain't Even Lonely. Brian Keane. May 20, 2005. Mix-O-Rama Records

Shoreline. Anna Ternheim. June 1, 2005. Self-released (EP CD, Sweden)

The Silverhearts Play Raindogs. The Silverhearts. October 5, 2005. Banbury Park Records

Goodbye Cool World. Bomb The Music Industry. June 18, 2006. Self-released

20 Jahre Saxuelle Befreiung. K�lner Saxophon Mafia. January 6, 2006. Jazz Haus Musik (NRW)

Live From Momo�s. The Band Of Heathens. October 1, 2006. Fat Caddy records (USA)

Bobby Dazzler's Different Guns. Bobby Dazzler. March 21, 2007. Unicornsounds

Anywhere I Lay My Head. Scarlett Johansson. May 20, 2008. Atco Records

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Anywhere I Lay My Head

- Tom Waits (1985): "Anywhere I Lay My Head is a gospel thing, the Uptown Horns played on that" (Source: "Rain Dogs Island Promo Tape". Date: late 1985)

⁽²⁾ Heart is in my shoes: Experiencing great fear. (Source: "2,107 Curious Word Origins, Sayings and Expressions" by Charles Earle)

 ⁽³⁾ Thames on fire, set the:

- To build up a reputation for oneself; to do something wonderful (Submitted by Cheryl Dillis, Tom Waits eGroups discussionlist. October, 2000. From "2,107 Curious Word Origins, Sayings and Expressions" by Charles Earle)

- phr. [18C+] to accomplish a noteworthy feat (cf. Set the Hudson on fire) (Source: "Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang". Jonathon Green. Cassel & Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-304-35167-9)

- To make a figure in the world; plant one's footsteps on the sands of time. The popular explanation is that the word Thames is a pun on the word temse, a coru-sieve; and that the parallel French locution He will never set the Seine on fire is a pun on seine, a drag-net; but these solutions are not tenable. There is a Latin saw, "Tiberim accendere nequaquam potest, " which is probably the fons et origo of other parallel sayings. Then, long before our proverb, we had "To set the Rhine on fire" (Den Rhein anz�nden), 1630, and Er hat den Rhein und das Meer angez�ndet, 1580. "There are numerous similar phrases: as "He will never set the Liffey on fire;" to "set the Trent on fire;" to "set the Humber on fire;" etc. Of course it is possible to set water on fire, but the scope of the proverb lies the other way, and it may take its place beside such sayings as "If the sky falls we may catch larks." (Source: "The First Hypertext Edition of The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable", E. Cobham Brewer. � 1997-99 Bibliomania.com Ltd) 

⁽⁴⁾ Laugh in one's sleeve: To ridicule a person not openly but in secret; to conceal a laugh by hiding your face in the large sleeves at one time worn by men. The French is: "Rire sous cape, " or "Rire sous son bonnet. " The German is: "Ins fa�stchen lachen. " The Latin is: "In stomacho ridere. " These expressions indicate secret derision: laughing at one, not with one. But such phrases as "In sinu gaudere " mean to feel secret joy, to rejoice in one's heart of hearts. (Source: "The First Hypertext Edition of The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable", E. Cobham Brewer. � 1997-99 Bibliomania.com Ltd) 

⁽⁵⁾ Pockets filled with gold: Notice the same phrase being used in More Than Rain, 1987: "None of our pockets are filled with gold, nobody's caught the boquet."

Big Black Mariah

(Raindogs studio version, 1985)

Well, it's cuttin' through the cane break⁽²⁾, rattling the sill⁽³⁾

Thunder that the rain makes when the shadow top the hill

Big light on the back street, hill to Evermore⁽⁴⁾

Packin' down the ladder⁽⁵⁾ with the hammer to the floor

Here come the Big Black Mariah

Here come the Big Black Mariah

Here come the Big Black Mariah

I see the Big Black Ford

Well, he's all boxed up⁽⁶⁾ on a red bell dame

Hunted Black Johnny with a blind man's cane

A yellow bullet with a rag⁽⁷⁾ out in the wind

An old blind tiger⁽⁸⁾ got an old bell Jim

Here come the Big, yeah, Black Mariah

Here come the Big, yeah, Black Mariah

Here come the Big Black Mariah

Here come the Big Black Ford

Sent to the skies on a Benny Jag Blue⁽⁹⁾

Off to bed without his supper like a Lindabrides⁽¹⁰⁾ do

He got to do the story with the old widow Jones

He got a wooden coat⁽¹¹⁾, this boy is never coming home

Here come the Big, yeah, Black Mariah

Here come the Big, yeah, Black Mariah

Here come the Big Black Mariah

I see that Big Black Ford

Cut through the cane break...

Oh yeah

Oh yeah

Well, he's all boxed up on a red bell dame

Fat Blue Charlie with a blind man's cane

A hundred yellow bullets, shook a rag out in the wind

An old black tiger on a pair of blue wings⁽¹²⁾

Here come the Big, yeah, Black Mariah

Here come the Big, yeah, Black Mariah

Here come the Big, yeah, Black Mariah

Here come the Big, yeah, Black Ford

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Jalma Music (ASCAP), � 1985

Official release: Rain Dogs, Island Records Inc., 1985

Arrangement and lyrics published in "Tom Waits - Beautiful Maladies" (Amsco Publications, 1997)

Big Black Mariah

(Big Time live version, 1988)

I'm cutting through the cane break⁽²⁾, rattling the sill⁽³⁾

Thunder that the rain makes when the shadow tops the hill

Big light on the back street, hill to Evermore⁽⁴⁾

Packing down the ladder⁽⁵⁾ with the hammer to the floor

Here come the Big Black Mariah, here come the Big Black Mariah baby

Here come the Big Black Mariah, here come the big black Ford

Well I'm all boxed up⁽⁶⁾ on a red belle dame

Flat Blue Johnny with a blind man's cane

A yellow bullet with a rag⁽⁷⁾ out in the wind

That old blind tiger⁽⁸⁾, an old bell

Here come the Big Black Mariah, here come the Big Black Mariah

Here come the Big Black Mariah baby, here come the big black Ford, yeah

Now we're all boxed up on a red belle dame

Flat Blue Johnny with a blind man's cane

A yellow bullet with a rag out in the wind

That old blind tiger, an old bell

Here come the Big Black Mariah, here come the Big Black Mariah baby

Here come the Big Black Mariah, here come the big black Ford

Oh yeah, Big Black Mariah, here come the Big Black Mariah

Here come the Big Black Mariah

Here come the Big Black Mariah

Here come the Big Black Mariah

Here come the Big Black Mariah

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Jalma Music, Admin. by Ackee Music, Inc. (ASCAP), � 1985-1988

Official release: "Big Time", � Island Visual Arts Inc. (P) Island Records Inc., 1988

Arrangement and lyrics published in "Tom Waits - Beautiful Maladies" (Amsco Publications, 1997)

Also included in Big Time the Movie. Further reading: Big Time full story

Known covers:

Wicked Grin. John Hammond. March 13, 2001. Emd/ Virgin

The Carnival Saloon Live. The Carnival Saloon. October, 2001. Self-released (Ireland)

The Silverhearts Play Raindogs. The Silverhearts. October 5, 2005. Banbury Park Records

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Big Black Mariah/ Black Maria, Black Mariah

- n.: A police wagon or truck used to take arrested persons to jail (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner, 1975)

- The black van which conveys prisoners from the police courts to jail. The French call a mud-barge a "Marie-salope." The tradition is that the van referred to was so called from Maria Lee, a negress, who kept a sailors' boarding house in Boston. She was a woman of such great size and strength that the unruly stood in dread of her, and when constables required help, it was a common thing to send for Black Maria, who soon collared the refractory and led them to the lock-up. So a prison-van was called a "Black Maria." (Source: "The First Hypertext Edition of The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable", E. Cobham Brewer. � 1997-99 Bibliomania.com Ltd). 

- n.: A hearse (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner, 1975)/ Cassel's Dictionary of Slang. Jonathon Green 1998. Cassel & Co., 2000)

- "We can dispose of the fashionable London lady straightaway, as the expression for a police or prison van is quite certainly American in origin. The Boston story is about Maria Lee, a large black woman who kept a boarding house in the 1820s with such severity that she became more feared than the police, who called on her to help them catch and restrain criminals. The story almost certainly became attached to her much later because she was well-known, black, and was named Maria, but there's no evidence that she was actually the source of the name for the police vans. The first reference we have to such a vehicle in Boston is dated 1847, which might seem to be rather too long after her heyday for there to be a direct connection. The book that Eric Partridge mentions is Peter Ploddy, and Other Oddities of 1844, by Joseph Clay Neal, a well-known American journalist and humorist of the period. It contains the story The Prison Van; or, The Black Maria, whose title was until recently thought to be the first known use of the term. In it, the author wrote: "In Philadelphia ... the popular voice applies the name of 'Black Maria' to each of these melancholy vehicles". However, we now know, as the result of research by George Thompson, that the term was in use in New York about a decade earlier, since the term was used in at least two newspaper reports, one of 1835 and the other of 1836. The former was in the New York Transcript of 24 Dec 1835 and said "A man named Henry Stage ... contrived to make his escape on Saturday last while on his way from Bellevue prison to the city in the carriage generally known as 'Black Maria' ". One sidelight on the term which many World Wide Words subscribers have pointed out is that it is universally pronounced (as in "I call the wind Maria"), and not the more common American (as in "Ave, Maria"). This is probably a perpetuation in this fixed phrase of a way of saying the name that was once more common than it is now. Douglas G Wilson has suggested a possible association with a famous black racehorse of the period, also named Black Maria, which was foaled in Harlem, New York, in 1826. She won many races (her purse winnings alone amounted to nearly $15,000, a very large sum for the period), but it seems that her most famous exploit was on 13 October 1832, when she won the race for the Jockey Club purse of $600 at the Union Course. In 1870, an article about her in Harper's New Monthly Magazine noted that "The track was heavy, and yet, to achieve a victory, twenty miles had to be run. We wonder if there is a horse on the turf to-day that could stand up under such a performance as this?". The dates are highly suggestive. Here is a black racehorse whose most famous exploit is in New York in 1832, and only three years later her name is used for a police van in the same city. There can be no proof without further evidence-which may never be forthcoming-but like her many admirers, I'd put my money on her to be first past the post." (Source: World Wide Words is copyright � Michael Quinion, 1996-2004)

- The different explanations of "a Black Maria(h)" being either a police wagon or a prison van or a hearse (or even an ambulance) have led to different interpretations of the song. 1. An arrested person being taken to jail. 2. A prisoner being taken to death row. 3. A deceased person being driven to the graveyards. Though the first interpretation (police wagon/ paddy wagon) is most common, there's several clous in the song that seem to suggest this is about a black hearse (Boxed up, Sent to the skies, Of to bed without his supper, Do the story with the old widow Jones, He got a wooden coat, This boy is never coming home) (Thanks to Fran Mironchik for pointing to these alternative interpretations. September 17, 2003)

- Tom Waits (1985): "A Mariah is - originally it was the woman that ran some kind of a cathouse in New Orleans I guess and every time it got popped they figured she was the one that blew the whistle so the paddy wagon pulled up out in front and down through the years they started referring to it as the Black Mariah. Now it's the hearse or whatever." (Source: "Rain Dogs Island Promo Tape" (taped comments on songs as sent to radio stations). Date: late 1985)

- Rip Rense: "One on which Richards appears is a menacing thing called "Big Black Mariah," which was explained as being about (take your pick) a fabled New Orleans madam, the police, a hearse or Mr. Death" (Source: "Enigmatic Waits survives, thrives" The San Diego Union-Tribune. By Rip Rense. November 1, 1985)

- Tom Waits (1986): "There was something in there that I thought he {Keith Richards] would understand. I picked out a couple of songs that I thought he would understand and he did. He's got a great voice and he's just a great spirit in the studio. He's very spontaneous, he moves like some kind of animal. I was trying to explain Big Black Maria and finally I started to move in a certain way and he said, "Oh, why didn't you do that to begin with? Now I know what you're talking about.' It's like animal instinct." (Source: "Waits Happening" Beat magazine 1986, by Pete Silverton)

- Notice the excessive use of words starting with the letter "B": cane Break, Big light, Back street, Big Black Mariah, Big Black Ford, Boxed up, Bell dame, Black Johnny, Blind man's cane, yellow Bullet, Blind tiger, Bell Jim, BigBlack Mariah, Big Black Ford, Benny jag Blue, off to Bed, Linda Brides, this Boy, Big Black Mariah, Big Black Ford, cane Break, Boxed up, Bell dame, Blue Charlie, Blind man's cane, yellow Bullets, Black tiger, Blue wings, Big Black Mariah, Big Black Ford

⁽²⁾ Cane break n.: A field that is not planted between two fields that are planted with sugar cane. (Source: Tom Waits Digest, Seth Nielssen)

⁽³⁾ Sill n.: The shaft or thill of a carriage (Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, � 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.)

⁽⁴⁾ Evermore (ever more?): Might be quoting from Tolkien's trilogy The Lord Of The Rings. "The Battle of Evermore" is an acoustic guitar and mandolin track from Led Zeppelin's album: "Four Symbols, Runes, Zoso", 1971. It is based on events in the third of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books, The Return of the King

⁽⁵⁾ Ladder: n. [16C] the gallows (Source: Cassel's Dictionary of Slang. Jonathon Green 1998. Cassel & Co., 2000)

⁽⁶⁾ Boxed up: 1. adj. [20C.] (N.Z.) imprissoned (Source: Cassel's Dictionary of Slang. Jonathon Green 1998. Cassel & Co., 2000) 2. v. enclosed or confined as if in a box/ coffin

⁽⁷⁾ Rag n.: A flag. (Source: "The First Hypertext Edition of The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable", E. Cobham Brewer. � 1997-99 Bibliomania.com Ltd)

⁽⁸⁾ Blind tiger: [1920s] the owner of an illicit bar. (ety. unknown) (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner, 1975). Though this is the common explanation found in dictionaries, it doesn't seem to be the right interpretation for this song

⁽⁹⁾ Benny Jag Blue:

- Benny: 1. Any amphetamine pill, esp. benzedrine. Addict and student use since c1945. (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner, 1975) 2. Intoxication as a result of using Benzedrine, a trade name for an amphetamine. Drug culture. (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner, 1975) Benny/ Bennie/ Bennies n. [1940s] (orig. US drugs) Benzedrine, thus Benny-head, a benzedrine user (Source: Cassel's Dictionary of Slang. Jonathon Green 1998. Cassel & Co., 2000)

- Jag: -jag. Similar to -fest, -jag = any session or period of uniterupted and unrestrained activity. The connotation however, is of a fit rather then a feast. the suffix word conveys a suggestion of compulsion (crying jag, candy jag, cigarette jag). (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner, 1975). Jag n. 1. A spree, usu. a drinking party. 2. Fig., a spree or splurge, a spell of unrestrained activity of any kind. (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner, 1975). 3. [1950s+] the taking of a drug, usu. narcotic, but also cannabis or LSD. (Source: Cassel's Dictionary of Slang. Jonathon Green 1998. Cassel & Co., 2000) 4. [late 19C+] (US) a period of indulgence, a fit, a spree of any kind. [1910s+] (orig. US) a breakdown, an emotional collapse, often as a crying jag, lenghty and profound sobbing (Source: Cassel's Dictionary of Slang. Jonathon Green 1998. Cassel & Co., 2000)

- Blue: 1. Drunk (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner, 1975). 2. Melancholy; sad; depressed. Colloq. n. (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner, 1975). 3. n. [1900s - 30s] a spree (Source: Cassel's Dictionary of Slang. Jonathon Green 1998. Cassel & Co., 2000) 4. (drugs) [1960s] usu. in pl. an amphetamine 5. [early 19C] (orig. US) a general intensifier, e.g. blue murder, scared blue  6. adj. [1910s-60s] euph. for BLOODY adj. (Source: "The First Hypertext Edition of The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable", E. Cobham Brewer. � 1997-99 Bibliomania.com Ltd)

⁽¹⁰⁾ Lindabrides: a euphemism for a female of no repute, a courtezan. Lindabrid�s is the heroine of the romance entitled The Mirror of Knighthood, one of the books in don Quixote's library (pt. I. i. 6), and the name became a household word for a mistress. It occurs in two of sir W. Scott's novels, Kenilworth and Woodstock (Source: Brewer's Readers Guide, revised edition, 1898)

⁽¹¹⁾ Wooden (over)coat: = wooden kimona. A coffin. Some underworld and fictional use since c1920 (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner, 1975)

⁽¹²⁾ The last verse is not included in the lyric sheet (transcription by Ulf Berggren as sent to Raindogs Listserv discussionlist, November 1, 1999).

Blind Love

Now you're gone

It's hotels and whiskey and sad-luck dames

And I don't care if they miss me

I never remember their names

They say if you get far enough away

You'll be on your way back home

Well, I'm at the station

And I can't get on the train

Must be blind love

The only kind of love is stone blind love

Blind love

The only kind of love is stone blind love

With your blind love

Oh, it's blind love

Stone blind love

It's your stone blind love

Now the street's turning blue

The dogs are barking and the night has come

And there's tears that are falling

From your blue⁽²⁾ eyes now

I wonder where you are

And I whisper your name

The only way to find you

Is if I close my eyes

Find you with my blind love

The only kind of love is stone blind love

The only kind of love is stone blind love

The only kind of love is stone blind love

With your blind love

Oh, your blind love

Your stone blind love

It's your blind love

The only kind of love is stone blind love

Stone blind love

The only kind of love is stone blind love

With your blind love

The only kind of love is stone blind love

Stone blind love

Stone blind love

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Jalma Music (ASCAP), � 1985

Official release: Rain Dogs, Island Records Inc., 1985

Known covers:

Fjorton S�nger. Bad Liver & Hans Brustna Hj�rtan. 1989. Nonstop Records (1989), City Records (re-release May, 1993) NSM 33-15 (in Swedish: "Blind k�rlek")

The Fire Inside. Bob Seger, 1991. Capitol

The Silverhearts Play Raindogs. The Silverhearts. October 5, 2005. Banbury Park Records

West Of The West. Dave Alvin. May 30, 2006. Yep Roc Records

Diamonds In The Dark. Sarah Borges. June 12, 2007. Sugarhill

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Blind Love

- Tom Waits (1985): "Blind Love is one of my first country songs. I like Merle Haggard, most of those other guys, though, sound like they're all just drinking tea and watching their waist and talking to their accountant. This one I think subscribes to some of that roadhouse feel." (Source: "Rain Dogs Island Promo Tape" (taped comments on songs as sent to radio stations, late 1985)

- Tom Waits (1985): "That's a Country song, yeah! My first! (laughs) My firstborn countrysong I think really. With violins and everything... I like Merle Haggard and those guys y'know? Those roadhouse guys, I like... Robert Quine played on that. He saved the song for me. I was about ready to dump it. Eh Quine plays on albums y'know? He plays with Lou reed. And he came in and gave it that Jimmy Reed kind of a... a little bit of Jimmy Reed in there. And I was just "Goddamn, that's alright, cause I didn't know what the hell to do with it." It just had a bass and a guitar You know, I figured "Well maybe we ought to open this up and put a little story in here." You know, a little spoken (laughs) spoken part. And I thought I just played it a little straight. I thought it came off real straight. Cause I was down in Nashville and asked them down there and they said: "Forget it pall!" Y'know? You know: "You never get on the radio around here pall!" So eh, I don't know, I missed the mark. I thought ghee, I thought: "Ghee I've finally done it, we're gonna break out here and eh... " You know all these [...?...] you hear in the song. He said "No, It's a little tighter down there then you might... It's like "Jingles" y'know?" (Source: "Nightlines Interview" Nightlines on CBC Stereo (Canada) conducted by Michael Tearson. Date: New York. Late 1985) 

⁽²⁾ Blue eyed

- adj. Drunk. c1850; obs. Innocent, gullible; idealistic; unworldly. (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner).

- Blue: adj. 1. [late 18C-19C] confused, terrified, disappointed. 2. [late 18C+] miserable, depressed (Source: Cassel's Dictionary of Slang. Jonathon Green 1998. Cassel & Co., 2000)

Cemetery Polka

Uncle Vernon⁽²⁾, Uncle Vernon

Independent as a hog on ice⁽³⁾

He's a big shot⁽⁴⁾ down there at the slaughterhouse

Plays accordion for Mr. Weiss

Uncle Biltmore and Uncle William

Made a million during World War II

But they're tightwads⁽⁵⁾ and they're cheapskates⁽⁶⁾

And they'll never give a dime to you

Auntie Mame has gone insane

She lives in the doorway of an old hotel

And the radio is playing opera

All she ever says is go to Hell

Uncle Violet flew as pilot

And there ain't no pretty girls in France

Now he runs a tiny little bookie joint

They say he never keeps it in his pants

Uncle Bill will never leave a will

And the tumour is as big as an egg

Has a mistress, she's Puerto Rican

And I heard she has a wooden leg

Uncle Phil can't live without his pills

He has emphysema and he's almost blind

And we must find out where the money is

Get it now before he loses his mind

Uncle Vernon, Uncle Vernon

Independent as a hog on ice

He's a big-shot down there at the slaughterhouse

He plays accordion for Mr. Weiss

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Jalma Music (ASCAP), � 1985

Official release: Rain Dogs, Island Records Inc., 1985

Arrangement and lyrics published in "Tom Waits - Beautiful Maladies" (Amsco Publications, 1997)

Known covers:

Fjorton S�nger. Bad Liver & Hans Brustna Hj�rtan. 1989. Nonstop Records (1989), City Records (re-release May, 1993) NSM 33-15 (in Swedish: "Farbror G�sta")

Kazik Staszewski "Piosenki Toma Waitsa". Kazik Staszewski. March, 2003. VIP Production / Luna Music: LUNCD 093-2 (in Polish)

The Silverhearts Play Raindogs. The Silverhearts. October 5, 2005. Banbury Park Records

Bye-Bye. Anne B�renz. October, 2006. Stalburg Theater (Germany)

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Cemetery Polka

- Tom Waits (1985): "Cemetery Polka - someone once said that the living are just the dead out on holidays and this is as if all your dead relatives came back from the grave and you owed them all money." (Source: "Rain Dogs Island Promo Tape" (taped comments on songs as sent to radio stations). Date: late 1985)

- Tom Waits (Live intro from 1985 in New York): "I want to do something about all my relatives - everybody's relatives - actually, on my mother's side we have all the professors and the attorneys and on my dad's side we have all the psychopaths and the alcoholics. This is kind of a family reunion right in here, it's the only time they've ever really spoken to each other" (Submitted by Gary Tausch. Listserv Raindogs discussionlist. December, 1999)

- Tom Waits (1985): "Cemetery Polka" is a family album, a lot of my relatives are farmers, they're eccentric, aren't everyone's relatives? Maybe it was stupid to put them on the album because now I get irate calls saying, Tom how can you talk about your Aunt Maime and your Uncle Biltmore like that? But Mum, I say, they did make a million during World War Two and you'll never see any of it. It's time someone exposed them." (Source: "Hard Rain". New Musical Express: Gavin Martin. October 19, 1985)

- Tom Waits (1985): "Never talk about your family in public! That's... I learned my lesson, but I keep putting my foot in my mouth. And eh I'm gonna get calls from my auntie Mame. I gonna get calls from... uncle Biltmore, eh uncle William, uncle Vernon. All of them and eh... You know: "Your uncle Phil" y'know. It always happens, so... "Uncle Phil can't live without his pills/ He has emphysema and he's almost blind/ And we must find out where the money is/ Get it now before he loses his mind". That's something I heard from the dining room eh during a family reunion and I never forgot it..." (Source: "Nightlines Interview" Nightlines on CBC Stereo (Canada) conducted by Michael Tearson. Date: New York. Late 1985)

- Tom Waits (1986): "This is dedicated to all my dead relatives - who are still arguing from the grave with each other. On my father's side we had all the psychopaths and alcoholics and on my mother's side we had all the evangelists so they were finally united at the grave - this is a little family tree really." (Source: "WXRT-FM Radio Interview" Date: Chicago. July 11, 1986)

- Tom Waits (1987): "But that "Cemetery Polka" was ah, discussing my family in a way that's difficult for me to be honest. The way we talk behind each other's backs: "You know what happened to Uncle Vernon." The kind of wickedness that nobody outside your family could say. That kind of stuff." (Source: "Tom Waits Is Flying Upside Down (On Purpose)" Musician magazine (USA), by Mark Rowland. Date: Traveler's Cafe/ Los Angeles. October, 1987) 

⁽²⁾ Uncle Vernon

- Tom Waits (1993): "There's no one really in show business in my family but there were two relatives who had an effect on me very young and shaped me in some way. They were Uncle Vernon and Uncle Robert. I always hated the sound of my voice when I was a kid. I always wanted to sound more like my Uncle Vernon, who had a raspy, gravelly voice. Everything Uncle Vernon said sounded important, and you always got it the first time because you wouldn't dare ask him to repeat it. Eventually, I learned that Uncle Vernon had had a throat operation as a kid and the doctors had left behind a small pair of scissors and gauze when they closed him up. Years later at Christmas dinner, Uncle Vernon started to choke while trying to dislodge an errant string bean, and he coughed up the gauze and the scissors. That's how Uncle Vernon got his voice, and that's how I got mine- from trying to sound just like him." (Source: "Tom Foolery - Swapping stories with inimitable Tom Waits". Buzz Magazine: May, 1993) 

⁽³⁾ Hog on ice, independent as a

- To be idiotically independent. That a man THAT independent was getting himself nowhere, like a spread eagled hog. The origin of this phrase is unknown but one theory traces it back to the game of curling(invented in the 17th century),a Scottish game played on ice, the word "hog" used to describe a curling stone under certain conditions,that is, when a player fails to slide the stone past a certain distance, when it comes to rest it's called a "hog"(although no explaination for this). It's thought that someone suggested the stone be allowed to stay where it was as an extra hazard in the game. It then came to be seen as "independent". (Submitted by Cheryl Dillis, Tom Waits eGroups discussionlist. October, 2000. From "2,107 Curious Word Origins, Sayings and Expressions" by Charles Earle)

- Like a hog on ice: phr. [late-19C] (US) unsteadily, clumsily (Source: "Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang". Jonathon Green. Cassel & Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-304-35167-9) 

⁽⁴⁾ Big shot: n. [1920s] (orig. US) a superior person or one who claims to be. [the term began as a positive ref. to a major criminal, but by the 1930s it was mainly used ironically and implied that the individual in question was rather too pleased with themself] (Source: "Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang". Jonathon Green. Cassel & Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-304-35167-9) A very important person, usu. one who is highly sucessful and famous in a specific field, or one who is an executive or person in authority; esp. a very influential person in politocs, crime, business, society, or the like. The term often implies dislike or distrust, and that the person has gained his importance through unethical or aggresive practices, motivated by a love of power.

⁽⁵⁾ Tightwad n.: A miser; one who has money and does not readily part with any of it. From the tightly folded wad of money (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner) 

⁽⁶⁾ Cheapskate n.: A stingy, niggardly person; a person who seeks cheap goods or pleasures; a person who attempts to avoid his share of expenses. Now standard. (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner)

Clap Hands

(Rain Dogs studio version, 1985)

Sane, sane, they're all insane

Fireman's blind, the conductor is lame

A Cincinnati jacket and a sad luck dame

Hangin' out the window with a bottle full of rain

Clap hands

Clap hands

Clap hands

Clap hands

Said roar, roar, the thunder and the roar

Sumbitch is never comin' back here no more

The moon in the window and a bird on the pole

We can always find a millionaire to shovel all the coal⁽²⁾

Clap hands

Clap hands

Clap hands

Clap hands

Said steam, steam, a hundred bad dreams

Goin' up to Harlem with a pistol in his jeans

A fifty dollar bill inside a Paladin's⁽³⁾ hat

And nobody's sure where Mr. Knickerbocker's⁽⁴⁾ at

Roar, roar, the thunder and the roar

Sumbitch is never comin' back here no more

Moon in the window and a bird on the pole

Always find a millionaire to shovel all the coal

Clap hands

Clap hands

Clap hands

Clap hands

I said steam, steam, with a hundred bad dreams

Goin' up to Harlem with a pistol in his jeans

A fifty dollar bill inside a Paladin's hat

And nobody's sure where Mr. Knickerbocker's at

Shine, shine, a Roosevelt dime⁽⁵⁾

All the way to Baltimore and runnin' out of time

Salvation Army seemed to wind up in the hole

They all went to Heaven in a little row boat

Clap hands

Clap hands

Clap hands

Clap hands

Clap hands

Clap hands

Clap hands

Clap hands

Oh clap hands

Oh clap hands

Oh clap hands

Clap hands

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Jalma Music (ASCAP), � 1985-1998

Official release: "Rain Dogs", Island Records Inc., 1985 &

"Beautiful Maladies", Island Records Inc., 1998

Arrangement and lyrics published in "Tom Waits - Anthology 1983-2000" (Nuova Carisch s.r.l. Milan/ Italy, 2001)

Clap Hands

(Big Time live version, 1988)

Wine, wine, why the goose drank wine⁽¹⁾

And the monkey chewed tobacco on a streetcar line

Now the line broke and the monkey got choked

And they all went to heaven in a little row boat

Clap hands

Sane, sane, they're all insane, fireman's blind, the conductor's lame

A Cincinnati jacket and a sad-luck dame

Hang out the window with a bottle full of rain

Clap hands, oh clap hands, oh clap hands, well clap hands

I said roar, it's the thunder and the roar

I ain't never coming back no more

There's a moon in the window, a bird on the pole

I can always find a millionaire to shovel all the coal⁽²⁾

Well clap hands baby, well clap hands, clap hands

I said dream, it's a hundred bad dreams

Going up to Harlem with a pistol in my jeans

A Cincinnati jacket and a sad-luck dame

Hanging out the window with a bottle full of rain

Now it's roar, it's the thunder and the roar

I ain't coming back no more

I got a moon in the window, a bird on the pole

I can always find a millionaire to shovel all the coal

Clap hands, well clap hands baby, well clap hands

Clap hands, clap hands

Shine, shine, a Roosevelt dime⁽³⁾

All the way to Baltimore and running out of time

Salvation Army seemed to wind up in the hole

All went to heaven in a little row boat

It's roar, it's the thunder and the roar

I ain't coming back no more

I got a moon in the window, a bird on the pole

I can always find a millionaire to shovel all the coal

Clap hands, well clap hands, clap hands

Clap hands, clap hands, clap hands

Clap hands, clap hands, clap hands

Clap hands, clap hands, clap hands

Clap hands, clap hands, clap hands

Clap hands, clap hands, clap hands

Clap hands, clap hands, clap hands

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Jalma Music, Admin. by Ackee Music, Inc. (ASCAP), � 1985-1988

Official release: "Big Time", � Island Visual Arts Inc. (P) Island Records Inc., 1988

Also included in Big Time movie (1988). Further reading: Big Time full story

Known covers:

Fjorton S�nger. Bad Liver & Hans Brustna Hj�rtan. 1989. Nonstop Records (1989), City Records (re-release May, 1993) NSM 33-15 (in Swedish: "Sl� dank")

The Piano Has Been Drinking. The Piano Has been Drinking (Gerd K�ster). April, 1990 Chlodwig (BMG Germany). Performed in German/ K�lsch (Maat H��sch)

Live 1989-1993. The Piano Has Been Drinking (Gerd K�ster). November 15, 1993. Chlodwig (BMG/ Germany). Performed in German/ K�lsch (Maat H��sch)

Bo Ramsey And The Backsliders Live. Bo Ramsey And The Backsliders. June, 1995. Trailer

Tanz Um Den Heiligen Bim Bam. Gerd K�ster. October 30, 1995. Chlodwig (BMG). Performed in German/ K�lsch (Maat H��sch)

What's All These Blues About? Lex Romane & Joe Riillo. June, 1996. Self-released

Deep Blue. Peter Mulvey. 1997. Eastern Front Records

Whispers Of Time. Toxic Blues Again. December, 1999. Self-released

Wits End Sessions. Big Skin and Gary Knowlton. 2000. Self-released

Bukowski Waits For Us - Vol. 1. Michael Kiessling. September 25, 2000. Buschfunk (Germany)

Metropolis. Caravane de Ville. 2001. Mescal/ Sony

Saving All My Love For You (a tribute to Tom Waits). Claudia Bettinaglio. January, 2001. Taxim Records (Germany)

Wicked Grin. John Hammond. March 13, 2001. Emd/ Virgin

Dancing With St. Peter. Sign Of 4. October 7, 2002. Track Records

Kazik Staszewski "Piosenki Toma Waitsa". Kazik Staszewski. March, 2003. VIP Production / Luna Music: LUNCD 093-2 (in Polish)

In Cattivit�. Quintorigo. March, 2003. Universal Italia

Dancing With St. Peter. $ign Of 4. April, 2003. Track (Navarre)

Pornoshow - Laura Fedele Interpreta Tom Waits. Laura Fedele. May, 2003. Auditorium, AUD 00902 (in Italian)

God Is A Tom Waits Fan. The Box Spring Hogs. May 2004. Self-released demo

The Silverhearts Play Raindogs. The Silverhearts. October 5, 2005. Banbury Park Records

El Mundo Es Plano. Purple Sex Heads. 2006. Valve Records

Lucky To Be Alive. Various artists. May 19, 2006. Dossier Records (Germany) benefit sampler (performed by Carsten Klatte)

Keys to the Castle. Mare Edstrom. September 15, 2006. Spiritone Records

Guitar Screams Live. Jeff Kollman. October, 2006. Marmaduke

Steve Evans Quartet, 2 Sets. Steve Evans. December 4, 2006. Self-released

Blue Whisper. The Headhunters. April 3, 2007. Self-released (Italy)

<object height="344" width="425"></object> 

Waits performing "Clap Hands" taken from the Big Time concert video.

Recorded live at the Wiltern Theatre. Los Angeles/ USA. November 7/8, 1987.

PolyGram Video (Island Visual Arts)/ Fries Home Video (Fries Entertainment Inc.), 1988.

With: Michael Blair, Ralph Carney, Greg Cohen, Marc Ribot and Willy Schwarz.

Stage show concept: Kathleen Brennan & Tom Waits. Directed by Chris Blum.

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Clap Hands

- Tom Waits (1985): "Well I just kinda embedded a nursery rhyme. Just a eh... You know, eh: "Wine, wine, why the goose drank wine/ the monkey chewed tobacco on the streetcar line/ The line broke the monkey got choked/ we all went to heaven in a little row boat" yeah. "Shine, shine, a Roosevelt dime/ All the way to Baltimore and running out of time." Same meter, same... I just tried to imagine all these eh... these guys going up the A-train. All the millionaires in tuxedos shoveling all the coal into the... y'know? Everyone's hanging out of the window, y'know? Just kind of a little... dark little... kind of a Ralph Steadman eh drawing." (Source: "Nightlines Interview" Nightlines on CBC Stereo (Canada) conducted by Michael Tearson. Date: New York. Late 1985)

- Tom Waits (1985): "As you get older, the things it was once important to have around you become less so, especially with children. New York is like a weapon, you live with all these contradictions and it's intense, sometimes unbearable." "It's a place where you think you should be doing more about what you see around you, a place where the deadline to get the picture of the bum outside your apartment becomes more important than his deadline to get a crust or a place to sleep, which is a real deadline." "You see things like the $400 shoe followed by the $500 ball gown stepping into the pool of blood from the bum that was killed the night before. That's what I was trying to get in that song 'Clap Hands' - "You can always find a millionaire to shovel all the coal" because millionaires like to go places that are downbeat, that aren't so chi chi." (Source: "Hard Rain". New Musical Express: Gavin Martin. October 19, 1985) 

- Wine, wine, why the goose drank wine. Quoting: American jump rope rhyme/ children's clapping song. Sometimes called "A Rubber Dolly".

- Version 1: A Rubber Dolly "My mommy told me If I was goodie That she would buy me A rubber dolly My auntie told her I kissed a soldier. Now she won't buy me A rubber dolly Ohhhhh...3..6..9.. The goose drank wine, The monkey spit tobacco, On the streetcar line, Line broke, The monkey got choked, And they all went to heaven in a little row boat. Clap-Clap!"

- Version 2: Untitled jump rope rhyme "Three, six, nine, the goose drank wine, The monkey chewed tobacco on the street car line The lion choked, the monkey croaked, And they all went to heaven in a little row boat, Clap-Clap! Clap-Clap!"

⁽²⁾ A millionaire to shovel all that coal:

- Tom Waits (1985): "New York is like a weapon, you live with all these contradictions and it's intense, sometimes unbearable... It's a place where you think you should be doing more about what you see around you, a place where the deadline to get the picture of the bum outside your apartment becomes more important than his deadline to get a crust or a place to sleep, which is a real deadline. You see things like the $ 400 shoe followed by the $500 ballgown stepping into the pool of blood from the bum that was killed the night before. That's what I was trying to get in that song 'Clap Hands' - "You can always find a millionaire to shovel all the coal" because millionair es like to go places that are downbeat, that aren't so chi chi." (Source: "Hard Rain". New Musical Express: Gavin Martin. October 19, 1985)

⁽³⁾ Palladin's hat: Palladin (Richard Boone) was a character in the 'Have Gun Will Travel' CBS television series in the '1950s/ 1960s. "The hit CBS series aired from 1957 to 1963 and was centered on Paladin, an educated knight-errant gunslinger who, upon payment of $1,000, would leave his well-appointed suite in San Francisco's Hotel Carlton to pursue whatever mission of mercy or justice a well-heeled client commissioned. A gourmet and connoisseur of fine wine, fine women, and Ming Dynasty artifacts, Paladin would quote Keats, Shelley, and Shakespeare with the same self-assurance that he brought to the subjugation of frontier evildoers. Unlike the archetypal western hero, Paladin wore black rather than white, complete with an ebony hat embellished by a band of silver conches and a holster embossed with a silver chess knight. He sported a villain's mustache and wasn't enamored of his horse; declining even to justify its existence with an appealing name. And he seemed to relish the adventures of the mind--his chess matches and library--far more than the frontier confrontations from which he drew his livelihood." (Source: "Have Gun Will Travel" by Peter Orlick. The Museum of Broadcast Communications � 2003 Copyright)

⁽⁴⁾ Knickerbocker: In the New York of the 1830's this was the popular name for the wealthy descendant of Dutch immigrants. At the time the expression gained popularity through the humoristic book "History of New York" (seen through the eyes of the main character Diedrich Knickebocker). Later on the name was also used for bibliophiles or "bookworms"

⁽⁵⁾ Roosevelt dime: U.S. coin denomination: 10-cent. All of the U.S. coins currently minted portray past U.S. Presidents. They are the Lincoln one-cent piece, adopted in 1909; the 25-cent piece portraying Washington, first minted in 1932; the five-cent piece honouring Jefferson, adopted in 1938; the Franklin D. Roosevelt dime, introduced in 1946; and the Kennedy half-dollar, which appeared in 1964. Coin denominations: 25-cent, 10-cent, five-cent, and one-cent pieces, are familiarly known as the quarter, dime, nickel, and penny

Diamonds And Gold

One two three

One two three

One

Broken glass, rusty nails, where the wild violets grow

Say goodbye to the railroad, and the mad dogs of summer

And everything that I know

What some men will do here for diamonds

What some men will do here for gold

They're wounded but they just keep on climbin'

They sleep by the side of the road

There's a hole in the ladder, a fence we can climb

Mad as a hatter⁽¹⁾, you're thin as a dime

Go out to the meadow, the hills are a-green

Sing me a rainbow, steal me a dream

Small time Napoleon's⁽²⁾ shattered his knees

But he stays in the saddle for Rose

And all his disciples, they shave in the gutter

And they gather what's left of his clothes

What some men will do here for diamonds

What some men will do here for gold

They're wounded but they just keep on climbin'

They sleep by the side of the road

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Jalma Music (ASCAP), � 1985

Official release: Rain Dogs, Island Records Inc., 1985

Known covers:

Pornoshow - Laura Fedele Interpreta Tom Waits. Laura Fedele. May, 2003. Auditorium, AUD 00902 (in Italian)

Songs We Should Have Written. Firewater. January, 2004. JetSet/ Rough Trade

The Silverhearts Play Raindogs. The Silverhearts. October 5, 2005. Banbury Park Records

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Mad hatter

- Someone who sells drugs and other illegal substances. ("I'm going to go pick some stuff up from the madhatter up on Main."). (Source: The Online Slang Dictionary, Walter Rader).

- Mad as a hatter phr. [mid-19C] very mad, utterly insane. [the use in 18C of mercurous nitrate in tanning of felt hats. This was absorbed by the hatters, in whom the effects could produce mental problems]. (Source: "Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang". Jonathon Green. Cassel & Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-304-35167-9).

- Might also refer to the Alice character. Also mentioned in "Singapore": "We sail tonight for Singapore, we're all as mad as hatters here."

⁽²⁾ Napoleon

- On "The heart of Saturday night" Napoleon is credited for the cover illustration. According to Cal Schenkel Napoleon is the guy on the floor in front of the diner on the cover of "Nighthawks at the diner".

- Also mentioned in Time (Raindogs, 1985): "And Napoleon is weepin' in a carnival saloon."

Downtown Train

(Rain Dogs studio version, 1985)

Outside another yellow moon

Has punched a hole in the nighttime

Yes I climb through the window and down to the street

I'm shining like a new dime

The downtown trains are full with all those Brooklyn girls

They try so hard to break out of their little worlds

Well, you wave your hand and they scatter like crows

They have nothing that will ever capture your heart

They're just thorns without the rose

Be careful of them in the dark

Oh, if I was the one

You chose to be your only one

Oh yeah

Can't you hear me now

Can't you hear me now

Will I see you tonight

On a downtown train

Every night it's just the same

You leave me lonely

Now I know your window and I know it's late

I know your stairs and your doorway

I walk down your street and past your gate

I stand by the light at the four way

You watch them as they fall

Oh baby, they all have heartattacks

They stay at the carnival but they'll never win you back

Will I see you tonight

On a downtown train

Every night, every night it's just the same

Oh baby

Will I see you tonight

On a downtown train

All of my dreams they fall like rain

Oh baby, on a downtown train

Will I see you tonight

On a downtown train

Every night, every night it's just the same

Oh baby

Will I see you tonight

Oh, on a downtown train

All of my dreams just fall like rain

All on a downtown train

All on a downtown train

All on a downtown train

All on a downtown train

On a downtown train

Downtown train

Ooooh, baby

All on a downtown train

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Jalma Music (ASCAP), � 1985-1998

Official release: "Rain Dogs", Island Records Inc., 1985 &

"Beautiful Maladies", Island Records Inc., 1998⁽¹⁾

Arrangement and lyrics published in "Tom Waits - Beautiful Maladies" (Amsco Publications, 1997)

Downtown Train

(NME alternate mix, 1986)

Outside another yellow moon

has punched a hole in the nighttime, yes

I climb through the window and down to the street

I'm shining like a new dime

The downtown trains are full with all those Brooklyn girls

They try so hard to break out of their little worlds

Well, you wave your hand and they scatter like crows

They have nothing that will ever capture your heart

They're just thorns without the rose

Be careful of them in the dark

Oh, if I was the one

You chose to be your only one

Oh yeah

Can't you hear me now

Can't you hear me now

Will I see you tonight

on a downtown train

Every night, it's just the same

You leave me lonely, now

I know your window and I know it's late

I know your stairs and your doorway

I walk down your street and past your gate

I stand by the light at the four way

You watch them as they fall

Oh baby, they all have heartattacks

They stay at the carnival but they'll never win you back

Will I see you tonight

On a downtown train

Every night, every night it's just the same

Oh baby

Will I see you tonight

On a downtown train

All of my dreams they fall like rain

Oh baby, on a downtown train

Will I see you tonight

On a downtown train

Every night, every night it's just the same

Oh baby

Will I see you tonight

Oh, on a downtown train

All of my dreams just fall like rain

All on a downtown train

All on a downtown train

All on a downtown train

On a downtown train

Downtown train

Ooooh, baby

All on a downtown train

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Jalma Music (ASCAP), � 1985

Official release: NME's Big Four (New Musical Express), 1986

Given free with New Musical Express magazine (UK). 4-Track 7" EP

(exclusive NME version produced by Tom Waits, 1985)

Known covers:

Hometown Girl. Mary-Chapin Carpenter. February, 1987/ 1989. Sony Music (1987). Columbia (1989)

Never Enough. Patty Smyth. January, 1987. Sony Music

Road to Bayamon. Tom Russell. 1988. Philo Records

Storyteller (Complete Anthology). Rod Stewart. October, 1989. WEA/ Warner Bros. Records (25987)

Downtown Train. Rod Stewart. March, 1990. WEA/ Warner Bros

The Piano Has Been Drinking. The Piano Has been Drinking. April, 1990 Chlodwig (BMG Germany). Performed in German/ K�lsch

Acoustic. Everything But The Girl. June, 1992. WEA/ Atlantic

Nada Suena Igual. Los Hermanos Dalton. 1994. Dro East West (CD single and cassette)

If We Fall In Love Tonight. Rod Stewart. November, 1996. WEA/ Warner Bros

Greatest Hits. Patty Smyth. September, 1998. Sony Music

Krams - Das Letzte Konzert. Gerhard Gundermann. November 1, 1998. Buschfunk (Germany)

Live At Pastabilities. Gary Frenay And Arty Lenin. December 1, 1999. Vector

The Way I Feel. Erik Carlson. 2001. Self-released

Bring It On. Clelia Adams. 2001. Self-released (Australia: re-released in 2004)

Plays the Hits Made Famous by Rod Stewart. The Starsound Orchestra. February 13, 2001. Delta

The Great City. Touchwood. October, 2001. Self-released

The Very Best Of Rod Stewart. Rod Stewart. November, 2001. Warner Bros. Records

Sparks Of Passion - Rarities. The Rocking Chairs. 2002. River Nile Records

Train Songs. Spring String Quartet. 2002. CCn'C Records (instrumental)

Never Give Up Never Give In. Zoe McCulloch. 2003 Label: Mustang Music (instrumental)

Greetings From Hell - The Tom Waits Songbook, Hell Blues Choir. September, 2003. Tylden & Co (Norway)

Bukowski Waits For You. Michael Kiessling. June 14, 2004. Buschfunk (Germany)

The Silverhearts Play Raindogs. The Silverhearts. October 5, 2005. Banbury Park Records

Now Then & Forever: a salute to Rod Stewart. Dameon Styles. September, 2006. Razor Productions

Pengabrorsan. MoneyBrother. December 6, 2006. Hacka Skivindustri (Sweden). In Swedish: "T�get Som G�r In Till Stan"

The Blue Rose Christmas Party 2006. Blue Rose Rockestra. July 1, 2007. Blue Rose Records

First Class Fools. Blues Package. January 28, 2008. Moonsound Records

Scheißkerl. Shawue. September 19, 2008. death-online.com

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Promo video for "Downtown Train" (Island, 1985)

Directed by Jean Baptiste Mondino. October 18, 1985.

Video blocked in Germany by Universal Music Group (UMG).

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Downtown Train

- Michael Tearson (1985): "Downtown Train" Tom Waits: Yeah, that's kind of a pop song. Or an attempt at a pop song (laughs). You know? (sings: la-la -la-la-laaa). MT: It's got some other people playing on it. G.E. Smith from the Hall and Oats band, Tony Levin on bass... TW: Yeah... Ehhh... all nice guys. MT: How did you bring those particular players into this one? TW: Ehm... Well, they were all well paid... MT: That helps... TW: ... believe me... (laughs) A triple scale. All real nice guys. I tried that song with the other band and then... It just didn't make it. So you can't get the guys to play like this on some of the stuff. I just couldn't find the right guys. MT: It also gives the album a different kind of dimension there. TW: Mmm... MT: A little bit of a different sound. TW: Yeah a little bit. Yeah, that was hard to do cause I wasn't sure where I was going. It was kinda unfamiliar. (Source: "Nightlines Interview" Nightlines on CBC Stereo (Canada) conducted by Michael Tearson. Date: New York. Late 1985)

Gun Street Girl

(Rain Dogs studio version, 1985)

[One two three]

Fallin' James⁽²⁾ in the Tahoe mud

Stick around to tell us all the tale

Well, he fell in love with a Gun Street girl

Now he's dancin' in the Birmingham⁽³⁾ jail

Dancin' in the Birmingham jail

Well, he took a hundred dollars off a Slaughterhouse Joe⁽⁴⁾

Bought a brand new Michigan twenty gauge

He got all liquored up⁽⁵⁾ on that roadhouse corn⁽⁶⁾

Blew a hole in the hood of a yellow Corvette⁽⁷⁾

A hole in the hood of a yellow Corvette

He bought a second hand Nova from a Cuban Chinese

And dyed his hair in the bathroom of a Texaco

With a pawnshop radio quarter past four

He left Waukegan⁽⁸⁾ at the slammin' of the door

Left Waukegan at the slammin' of the door

I said, John, John, he's long gone

Gone to Indiana, ain't never comin' home

I said, John, John, he's long gone

Gone to Indiana, ain't never comin' home

He's sittin' in a sycamore⁽⁹⁾ in St. John's Wood

Soakin' day old bread in kerosene⁽¹⁰⁾

Well, he was blue as a robin's egg and brown as a hog

He's stayin' out of circulation till the dogs get tired

Out of circulation till the dogs get tired

Shadow fixed the toilet with an old trombone

He never get up in the morning on a Saturday

Sittin' by the Erie⁽¹²⁾ with a bull-whipped dog

Tellin' everyone he saw, 'They went thatta way, boys'

Tellin' everyone he saw, 'They went thatta way'

Now the rain like gravel on an old tin roof

The Burlington Northern pullin' out of the world

Now a head full of bourbon and a dream in the straw

And a Gun Street girl was the cause of it all

A Gun Street girl was the cause of it all

Get ridin' in the shadow by the Saint Joe Ridge

And the click clack tappin' of a blind man's cane

And he was pullin' into Baker on a New Year's Eve

With one eye on the pistol and the other on the door

One eye on the pistol and the other on the door

Miss Charlotte took her satchel down to King Fish Row

Smuggled in a brand new pair of alligator shoes

With her fireman's raincoat and her long yellow hair

Well, they tied her to a tree with a skinny millionaire

Tied her to a tree with a skinny millionaire

I said, John, John, he's long gone

Gone to Indiana, ain't never comin' home

I said, John, John, he's long gone

Gone to Indiana, ain't never comin' home

Bangin' on a table with an old tin cup

I sing, I'll never kiss a Gun Street girl again

I'll never kiss a Gun Street girl again

I'll never kiss a Gun Street girl again

I said, John, John, he's long gone

Gone to Indiana, ain't never comin' home

I said, John, John, he's long gone

Gone to Indiana, ain't never comin' home

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Jalma Music (ASCAP), � 1985

Official release: Rain Dogs, Island Records Inc., 1985

Arrangement and lyrics published in "Tom Waits - Beautiful Maladies" (Amsco Publications, 1997)⁽¹³⁾

Gun Street Girl

(Big Time live version, 1988)

Falling James⁽²⁾ in the Tahoe mud

Stick around to tell us all the tale

Well he fell in love with a Gun Street girl

Blew a hole in the hood of a yellow Corvette

Blew a hole in the hood of a yellow Corvette

John, John, he's long gone

Well he's gone to Indiana, he ain't never coming home

John, John, he's long gone

Well he's gone to Indiana, he ain't never coming home

Well he took a hundred dollars off a slaughterhouse Joe⁽⁴⁾

Bought a brand new Michigan twenty-gauge

He got all liquored up⁽⁵⁾ on the road house corn⁽⁶⁾

Blew a hole in the hood of a yellow Corvette⁽⁷⁾

A hole in the hood of a yellow Corvette

John, John, is long gone

Why he's gone to Indiana, he ain't never coming home

John, John, is long gone

Why he's gone to Indiana, he ain't never coming home

Miss Charlotte took her satchel down to King Fish Row

smuggled in a brand new pair of alligator shoes

With her fireman's raincoat and her long yellow hair

They tied her to a tree with a skinny millionaire

They tied her to a tree with a skinny millionaire

John, John, he's long gone

Why he's gone to Indiana, he ain't never coming home

John, John, he's long gone

Why he's gone to Indiana, he ain't never coming home

John, John

John, John

My papa was a rollin' stone

My papa was a rollin' stone

Wherever he hung he said was his home

When he died all he left us was alone

John, John

John, John

John, John

Now I was banging on a table with an old tin cup

Sing I'll never kiss a Gun Street girl again

I will never kiss a Gun Street girl again

I will never kiss a Gun Street girl again

John, John

John, John

John, John

John, John

John, John

John, John

John, John

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Jalma Music, Admin. by Ackee Music, Inc. (ASCAP), � 1985-1988

Official release: "Big Time", � Island Visual Arts Inc. (P) Island Records Inc., 1988

Arrangement and lyrics published in "Tom Waits - Beautiful Maladies" (Amsco Publications, 1997)

Further reading: Big Time full story⁽¹³⁾

Known covers:

Reheated. Canned Heat. 1988. SPV Records (Germany). Produced by Larry Taylor

Burnin' Live. Canned Heat. 1990. AIM Australia/ Spv Germany. Re-released in 2003 (Spv Records, UK)

Outlaws (Live & Unreleased). Luke Doucet. September, 2004. Six Shooter Records

The Silverhearts Play Raindogs. The Silverhearts. October 5, 2005. Banbury Park Records

Bangin' On The Table With An Old Tin Cup. Pascal Fricke. April 12, 2007. Self-released (Germany)

<object height="344" width="425"></object> 

Waits performing "Gun Street Girl" taken from the Big Time concert video.

Recorded live at the Warfield Theatre. San Francisco/ USA November 5, 1987.

PolyGram Video (Island Visual Arts)/ Fries Home Video (Fries Entertainment Inc.), 1988.

With: Michael Blair, Ralph Carney, Greg Cohen, Marc Ribot and Willy Schwarz.

Stage show concept: Kathleen Brennan & Tom Waits. Directed by Chris Blum.

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Gun Street Girl

- Tom Waits (1985): "Gun Street Girl is about a guy who's having trouble with the law and he traces all of these events back to this girl he met on Gun Street right there on Center Market right in Little Italy there." (Source: "Rain Dogs Island Promo Tape", taped comments on songs as sent to radio stations, late 1985)

- Tom Waits (1985): "I tried to make it a tale in a tale, y'know? Where is the end of this tale? Y'know? There's: "Telling everyone they saw the went thataway". There's this girl tied to a tree with a skinny millionaire and a guy coming into Baker with a pistol and a... So I just tried to throw it all in there and make it like eh... "What the hell's going on around here?!" Y'know? It's like when you wake up in the middle of the night and you try to remember something that you don't, you remember just pieces of things? Y'know?" (Source: "Nightlines Interview" Nightlines on CBC Stereo (Canada) conducted by Michael Tearson. Date: New York. Late 1985) 

⁽²⁾ Falling James

- Falling James is a real person. He is a transvestite guitarist who plays with a rock band called "Leaving Trains". Waits was apparently amused by some of the anecdotes that Falling James might have told over the years, one of which could have included something about slipping in the mud in the Lake Tahoe area (Submitted by: Gary Duncan. Raindogs Listserv discussionlist. September, 2000. Drew Slayton. E-mail message to Tom Waits Library. October, 2001). Further reading: Leaving Trains site

⁽³⁾ Joe, a: n. [20C] 1. A generic name for a person, e.g. joe average, joe citizen, the average man in the street; also one who has a job or position, e.g. joe plainclothes, a plain clothes policeman, working joe one who is employed etc. 2. a stupid or offensive person (Source: "Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang". Jonathon Green. Cassel & Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-304-35167-9) 

⁽⁴⁾ Birmingham: Also mentioned in Swordfishtrombones, 1983: "Some say they saw him down in Birmingham, sleeping in a boxcar going by."

⁽⁵⁾ Liquored up: adj. [1920s+] (US) drunk (Source: "Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang". Jonathon Green. Cassel & Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-304-35167-9) 

⁽⁶⁾ Corn n.: Liquor, esp. corn whisky, home made or illegally sold (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner) 

⁽⁷⁾ Corvette

- American sportscar produced by Chevrolet.

- Corvette: also mentioned in: A Nickel's Worth Of Dreams, 1977: "And take that Corvette Stingray with a four-on-the-floor.", 16 Shells From A Thirty Ought Six, 1983: "And I tore out the buckets from a red Corvette."

⁽⁸⁾ Waukegan: Waukegan is situated north of Chicago, right on Lake Michigan. Some 40 miles west of Waukegan is Johnsburg, Illinois. This is where Kathleen Brennan is said to have grown up (as told in the same titled song from Swordfishtrombones, 1983)

⁽⁹⁾ Sycamore tree

1. Any of various deciduous trees of the genus Platanus, especially P. occidentalis of eastern North America, having palmately lobed leaves, ball-like, nodding, hairy fruit clusters, and bark that flakes off in large colorful patches. Also called buttonball, buttonwood (Source: The American Heritage� Dictionary of the English Language, Houghton Mifflin - Third Edition).

2. Sycamore (American Sycamore): Platanus occidentalis. In keeping with its size, Sycamores have the largest leaves of any native tree in North America. Frequently, the trunk of a Sycamore will be divided into several large, secondary trunks. The bark of the Sycamore perhaps is its most striking feature: mottled creamy white and brown with the darker bark of older trees peeling away from the lighter-colored, younger bark. Typically, the Sycamore grows on bottomlands, floodplains, and on the banks of streams. The tough, coarse-grained wood is difficult to split and work. It has various uses, including butchers' blocks. A few birds feed on the fruit, and several mammals eat twigs and bark. The related Oriental and London Planetrees are ornamental shade trees, frequently planted along streets. (Source: OPLIN: � 1997 Ohio Public Library Information Network (OPLIN) & The Ohio Historical Society (OHS))

- The tree which Zacchaeus climbed to get a better look at Jesus.

- Also mentioned in Wrong Side Of The Road: "Poison all the water in the wishin' well and hang all them scarecrows from a Sycamore tree."

⁽¹⁰⁾ Soakin' day old bread in kerosene: WW-II survival countertracking technique, to escape a tracker dog trailing ones scent, by carrying bread or tobacco soaked in petrol, gasoline or kerosene.

⁽¹²⁾ Erie, on the: Sitting by the Erie: Not taking chances; hiding. Underworld use (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner)

⁽¹³⁾ During the 1999 Mule Variations tour Waits often combined this song with "Ain't goin' down to the well

Hang Down Your Head

Hush, a wild violet

Hush, a band of gold

Hush, you're in a story

That I heard somebody told

Tear the promise from my heart

Tear my heart today

You have found another

Oh baby, I must go away

So hang down your head for sorrow

Hang down your head for me

Hang down your head tomorrow

Hang down your head, Marie

Hush, my love, the rain now

Hush, my love was so true

Hush, my love, a train now

But it takes me away from you

So hang down your head for sorrow

Hang down your head for me

Hang down your head tomorrow

Hang down your head

Hang down your head

Hang down your head, Marie

So hang down your head for sorrow

Hang down your head for me

Hang down your head tomorrow

Hang down your head

Hang down your head

Hang down your head, Marie

Written by: Tom Waits and Kathleen Waits-Brennan

Published by: Jalma Music (ASCAP), � 1985

Official release: Rain Dogs, Island Records Inc., 1985

Arrangement and lyrics published in "Tom Waits - Beautiful Maladies" (Amsco Publications, 1997)

Known covers:

Northern Songs. Mirrors Over Kiev. 1991. Run River Records

Pinups. Human Drama. May 18, 1993. Triple X

Live At Adair's, Jack Ingram & The Beat Up Ford Band. 1996. MCA/ Rising Tide Entertainment

Il Futuro. Mimmo Locasciulli. 1998. Mercury Polygram (in Italian)

A Little Rain. David Weaver. 1998. Bridge Records

Let's Talk Dirty in Hawaiian. Petty Booka. March 11, 2003. Weed Records

Crossing Jordan (NBC television series soundtrack). Various artists. April, 2003. DMZ (Columbia Records/ Sony). Performed by Lucinda Williams

World Without Tears. Lucinda Williams. May 4, 2004. Universal International

The Silverhearts Play Raindogs. The Silverhearts. October 5, 2005. Banbury Park Records

Into The Harbour. Southside Johnny And The Asbury Jukes. October 24, 2005. Leroy

El Amor De Mi Vida. Ronnie Drew and Eleanor Shanley. April 7, 2006. The Daisy

Good Night Vienna. Neigungsgruppe Sex, Gewalt & Gute Laune. November 15, 2007 Label: Trikont/ Trost Records (“Schädel hängen”)

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Tom Waits (1985): "Yeah, eh "Hang Down Your Head" I mean it's "Please" y'know? But ehm... yeah Kathleen was whistling that and I said: what the hell is that? Y'know? And she said: Oh I don't know. So I made it... I put it down and took it in the studio. While I'm writing and while I'm recording, everything you seem to pick up during the process somehow ends up in there. You know, it's like a big vat. You know, you just start throwing things into it. So eh... that's funny, yeah." (Source: "Nightlines Interview" Nightlines on CBC Stereo (Canada) conducted by Michael Tearson. Date: New York. Late 1985)

- "The words were never printed in the 'Rain Dogs' lyric sheet. Perhaps it was considered a bit risky, because of the undeniable similarities to another song (Tom Dooley). It's included in the 'Beautiful Maladies' songbook though, so there's no fear of lawsuits nowadays. Funny thing: Not that it matters one bit, but he sings about wild violets in the previous track on 'Rain Dogs' too. The fragrance of the day apparently. :-)" (Submitted by Ulf Berggren. Tom Waits eGroups discussionlist, 2000)

- Tom Dooley (Written by: Frank Warner /John Lomax /Alan Lomax): "Chorus:Hang down your head, Tom Dooley. Hang down your head and cry. Hang down your head, Tom Dooley. Poor boy, you're bound to die I met her on the mountain. There I took her life. Met her on the mountain. Stabbed her with my knife (Chorus) This time tomorrow. Reckon where I'll be. Hadn't-a been for Grayson, I'd-a been in Tennessee (Chorus) This time tomorrow. Reckon where I'll be. Down in some lonesome valley hangin' from a white oak tree (Chorus)."

Jockey Full Of Bourbon

Edna Million in a drop dead⁽²⁾ suit

Dutch Pink⁽³⁾ on a downtown⁽⁴⁾ train

Two dollar pistol but the gun won't shoot

I'm in the corner on the pouring rain

Sixteen men on a dead man's chest⁽⁵⁾

And I've been drinking from a broken cup

Two pairs of pants and a mohair vest

I'm full of bourbon, I can't stand up

Hey little bird⁽⁶⁾, fly away home

Your house is on fire, children are alone

Hey little bird, fly away home

Your house is on fire, your children are alone

Schiffer broke a bottle on Morgan's head

And I'm stepping on the devil's tail

Across the stripes of a full moon's head

And through the bars of a Cuban jail

Bloody fingers on a purple knife

Flamingo drinking from a cocktail glass

I'm on the lawn with someone else's wife

Admire the view from up on top of the mast

Hey little bird, fly away home

House is on fire, children are alone

Hey little bird, fly away home

House is on fire, your children are alone, hey

I said, hey little bird, fly away home

Your house is on fire, your children are alone

Hey little bird, fly away home

House is on fire, your children are alone

Yellow sheets on a Hong Kong bed

Stazybo horn and a Slingerland ride⁽⁷⁾

"To the carnival" is what she said

A hundred dollars makes it dark inside

Edna Million in a drop dead suit

Dutch Pink on a downtown train

Two dollar pistol but the gun won't shoot

I'm in the corner on the pouring rain

Hey little bird, fly away home

Your house is on fire, your children are alone

Hey little bird, fly away home

Your house is on fire, your children are alone

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Jalma Music (ASCAP), � 1985-1998

Official release: "Rain Dogs", Island Records Inc., 1985 &

"Beautiful Maladies", Island Records Inc., 1998

Arrangement and lyrics published in "Tom Waits - Beautiful Maladies" (Amsco Publications, 1997)

Known covers:

Fjorton S�nger. Bad Liver & Hans Brustna Hj�rtan. 1989. Nonstop Records (1989), City Records (re-release May, 1993) NSM 33-15 (in Swedish: "Jockey full av Bourbon")

Vain Nopeat Elävät. Miljoonasade. November 22, 1989. Warner Music Finland (in finnish as "Rokkibändi Wounded Knee")

The Piano Has Been Drinking. The Piano Has been Drinking. April, 1990. Chlodwig/ BMG Germany (in German/ K�lsch)

Meret Becker und Ars Vitalis 1993-1995, Meret Becker and Ars Vitalis. 1996. Self-released (limited German live edition of 1000 pcs)

Zw�lf Kostbarkeiten. Zaftig. 1997. Self-released (Germany)

Mr. Happy. Mambo Combo. 1997. Blue Heron Records

Goatfoxes. Tightrope. 1997. Rockwerk Records

Live At The Lava Lounge. Blue Hawaiians. August 4, 1997. Pascal Records

Live Noise. Moxy Fruvous. May 19, 1998. Bottom Line/ Koch

Gerd K�ster und... Gerd K�ster. March 22, 1999. Chlodwig (Pavement Records)

Savage Night. Blue Hawaiians. August, 1999. Interscope (Universal)

Sheriff of Bottletone County. Bottletones. February 15, 2000. Hepcat Records

The Difference, Adam Dorfman. April, 2000. BMI

Being Tom Waits. Billy`s Band. 2001. Self-released demo album (Russia)

A Different Kind Of Blues. Fat Vinny & The Wiseguys. 2001. Self-released

Saving All My Love For You (a tribute to Tom Waits). Claudia Bettinaglio. January, 2001. Taxim Records (Germany)

Stray. Christine Graves. February 17, 2001. Brave Music

Wicked Grin. John Hammond. March 13, 2001. Emd/ Virgin

Sweet Sixty. Jerry Williams (Sven Erik Fernström). 2002. Stockholm (Sweden) 

Storming The Castle. Full Front Folk. 2002. Self-released

Bar Jeder Vernunft. Various artists. June 5, 2002. Duo-Phon (Pool Music und Media). Performed by Meret Becker and Ars Vitalis. Same version as on "Meret Becker und Ars Vitalis: 1993-1995", 1996

Impedance Tube. Deadpan Alley. June 18, 2002. Self-released

Abenteuer des Alltags. Ralf & Feinton Huwendieck. September 30, 2002. Tonstudio (SPV Germany)

Rooms. Tightrope. 2003. Self-released

Under The Influence - The songs of Tom Waits. Barry Charles. 2003. Tara Hall Productions (Australia)

Kazik Staszewski "Piosenki Toma Waitsa". Kazik Staszewski. March, 2003. VIP Production/ Luna Music: LUNCD 093-2 (in Polish)

Call It What You Wanna! Vince Lee And The Big Combo. May, 2003. Self-released.

The Usual Bandidos. Carlos And The Bandidos. December, 2003. Part (UK)

Cirkus. Souvenirs. 2004. Hosdal. Bonnier Amigo Music Group (in Danish "Whiskeyt�s")

God Is A Tom Waits Fan. The Box Spring Hogs. May 2004. Self-released demo

Radio Tijuana. G. Rag & Los Hermanos Patchekos. July 12, 2004. Gutfeeling (Broken Silence)

Ride This: The Covers EP. Los Lobos. August, 2004. Hollywood Records

Le Drame du Pastis. Puts Marie. May, 2005. Self-released

Live at Kung Fu Bakery. Stephanie Schneiderman Band. May 10, 2005 Label. Papa J. Records

The Silverhearts Play Raindogs. The Silverhearts. October 5, 2005. Banbury Park Records

Griff Steel & The Duck and Dive Five. Griff Steel & The Duck and Dive Five. December 7, 2005. Self-released

Song Of Jealousy. Pulp Dogs. April 30, 2006. Self-released (Italy)

Misplaced. Moshav. August 8, 2006. JMG

Steve Evans Quartet, 2 Sets. Steve Evans. December 4, 2006. Self-released

Catch the Squirrel. Jeremy dePrisco. May 19, 2007. Self-released

The Ballad Of John Henry. Joe Bonamassa. February 24, 2009. Premier Artists 

Hold Fast. G. Rag Y Los Hermanos Patchekos. April 24, 2009. Gutfeeling Records

Voyage. Youn Sun Nah. April 24, 2009. ACT Records

Shadows. The Lazy Boys. May 12, 2010. Part Records

<object height="344" width="425"></object> 

Music video promoting "Jockey Full Of Bourbon" (1986)

Island/ MCA records, 1986 (footage from "Down By Law" Jim Jarmusch 1986).

Video blocked in Germany by Universal Music Group (UMG).

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Jockey

- n.: A driver. A cab, bus or truck driver (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner)

- [mid-19C-1940s] an accomplice or assistant usu. of a driver of a cab or utility vehicle (Source: "Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang". Jonathon Green. Cassel & Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-304-35167-9) 

⁽²⁾ Drop dead: adv. [1970s+] (orig. US) extremely, esp. as in drop-dead beautiful. [so beautiful, striking etc. as to cause the onlooker to drop dead] (Source: "Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang". Jonathon Green. Cassel & Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-304-35167-9)

 ⁽³⁾ Dutch Pink

- n. [19C] blood [Dutch Pink, a yellow pigment] (Source: "Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang". Jonathon Green. Cassel & Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-304-35167-9)

- Notice the same phrase being used in Temptation, 1987: "I can't resist Dutch pink and Italian blue, she is waiting there for you."

 ⁽⁴⁾ Down town: I am going down town, i.e. to the business part of the town. Down the country properly means down the slope of the land, or as the rivers run. We say "I am going up to town" when we mean out of the country into the chief city. (Source: "The First Hypertext Edition of The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable", E. Cobham Brewer. � 1997-99 Bibliomania.com Ltd)

 ⁽⁵⁾ Sixteen men on a dead man's chest: 

"Dead Man's Chest" (also known as Fifteen Men On A Dead Man's Chest or Derelict) is a fictional sailor's work song or "sea shanty" from Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island (1883), and a later expanded poem by Young E. Allison (1891). It has since been used in many later works of art in various forms. Most famous being the "Yo Ho Ho" sailor song from a 1901 Broadway musical; Seq. by: Almut Koerting: "Fifteen men on a dead man's chest Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum Drink and the devil had done for the rest Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. The mate was fixed by the bosun's pike The bosun brained with a marlinspike And cookey's throat was marked belike It had been gripped by fingers ten; And there they lay, all good dead men Like break o'day in a boozing ken Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum Fifteen men of the whole ship's list Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum! Dead and be damned and the rest gone whist! Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum! The skipper lay with his nob in gore Where the scullion's axe his cheek had shore And the scullion he was stabbed times four And there they lay, and the soggy skies Dripped down in up-staring eyes In murk sunset and foul sunrise Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. Fifteen men of 'em stiff and stark Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum! Ten of the crew had the murder mark! Ho ho ho and a bottle of rum! Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead Or a yawing hole in a battered head And the scuppers' glut with a rotting red And there they lay, aye, damn my eyes Looking up at paradise All souls bound just contra wise Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum Fifteen men of 'em good and true - 'Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum! Ev'ry man jack could ha' sailed with Old Pew, Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum! There was chest on chest of Spanish gold With a ton of plate in the middle hold And the cabins riot of stuff untold, And they lay there that took the plum With sightless glare and their lips struck dumb While we shared all by the rule of thumb, Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum! More was seen through a sternlight screen... Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum Chartings undoubt where a woman had been Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. 'Twas a flimsy shift on a bunker cot With a dirk slit sheer through the bosom spot And the lace stiff dry in a purplish blot Oh was she wench or some shudderin' maid That dared the knife and took the blade By God! she had stuff for a plucky jade Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum Fifteen men on a dead man's chest Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum Drink and the devil had done for the rest Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. We wrapped 'em all in a mains' tight With twice ten turns of a hawser's bight And we heaved 'em over and out of sight, With a Yo-Heave-Ho! and a fare-you-well And a sudden plunge in the sullen swell Ten fathoms deep on the road to hell, Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!"

⁽⁶⁾ Hey little bird: quoting "Ladybug! Ladybug!" (Nursery rhyme, unknown copyright): "Ladybug! Ladybug! Fly away home Your house is on fire And your children all gone All except one, And that's Ann, For she has crept under The frying pan" (Source: Zelo Nursery Rhymes ( (c) 1996-2000 C. Thomas Wright III)

⁽⁷⁾ Slingerland ride: On a drum kit you will find one or two (in severe cases more) ride toms above the snare drum. The ride cymbal is usually placed to the right, by the floor tom (assuming the drummer is right handed). And Slingerland is of course a brand of drums. A "Slingerland ride" can mean either the tom or the cymbal (Submitted by Ulf Berggren, Raindogs Listserv Discussionlist. August, 2000)

Rain Dogs

(Rain Dogs studio version, 1985)

Inside a broken clock

Splashing the wine with all the rain dogs

Taxi, we'd rather walk

Huddle⁽²⁾ a doorway with the rain dogs

For I am a rain dog too

Oh, how we danced and we swallowed the night

For it was all ripe for dreaming

Oh, how we danced away all of the lights⁽³⁾

We've always been out of our minds

The rum pours strong and thin

Beat out the dustman with the rain dogs

Aboard a shipwreck train

Give my umbrella to the rain dogs

For I am a rain dog too

Oh, how we danced with the Rose of Tralee⁽⁴⁾

Her long hair black as a raven

Oh, how we danced and you whispered to me

You'll never be going back home

Oh, how we danced with the Rose of Tralee

Her long hair black as a raven

Oh, how we danced and you whispered to me

You'll never be going back home

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Jalma Music (ASCAP), � 1985

Official release: Rain Dogs, Island Records Inc., 1985

Arrangement and lyrics published in "Tom Waits - Beautiful Maladies" (Amsco Publications, 1997)

Further reading: Raindogs full story

Rain Dogs

(Big Time live version, 1988)

Inside a broken clock, splash the wine with all the rain dogs

Taxi, taxi, taxi we'd rather walk

Huddle⁽²⁾ a doorway with the rain dogs

For I am a rain dog, too

I know how we danced and we swallowed the night

Her long hair black as a raven

I know how we danced and she whispered to me⁽³⁾

We'll never be going back home

I know how we danced and we swallowed the night

Her long hair black as a raven

I know how we danced and she whispered to me

We'll never be going back home

Oh, how we danced with the Rose of Tralee⁽⁴⁾

Her long hair black as a raven

I know how we danced and she whispered to me

We'll never be going back home

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Jalma Music, Admin. by Ackee Music, Inc. (ASCAP), � 1985-1988

Official release: "Big Time", � Island Visual Arts Inc. (P) Island Records Inc., 1988

Arrangement and lyrics published in "Tom Waits - Beautiful Maladies" (Amsco Publications, 1997)

Further reading: Big Time full story

Further reading: Raindogs full story

Known covers:

Fjorton S�nger. Bad Liver & Hans Brustna Hj�rtan. 1989. Nonstop Records (1989), City Records (re-release May, 1993) NSM 33-15 (in Swedish: "Fyllhund")

Spiewomalowanie. Mariusz Lubomski. 1994. Self-released. In Polish "Zmokniete psy"

Bukowski Waits For Us - Vol. 1. Michael Kiessling. September 25, 2000. Buschfunk (Germany)

Being Tom Waits. Billy`s Band. 2001. Self-released demo album (Russia)

The Carnival Saloon Live. The Carnival Saloon. October, 2001. Self-released (Ireland)

A Postcard From... Billy's Band. 2003. Self-released (Russia)

Kazik Staszewski "Piosenki Toma Waitsa". Kazik Staszewski. March, 2003. VIP Production / Luna Music: LUNCD 093-2 (in Polish)

Pornoshow - Laura Fedele Interpreta Tom Waits. Laura Fedele. May, 2003. Auditorium, AUD 00902 (in Italian)

Black As A Raven. The Jim-Jams. 2004. Flotainment

God Is A Tom Waits Fan. The Box Spring Hogs. May 2004. Self-released demo

The Silverhearts Play Raindogs. The Silverhearts. October 5, 2005. Banbury Park Records

We´re Not Bitter. Children Of Celebrities. July 28, 2007. Self-released

<object height="344" width="425"></object> 

Waits performing "Rain Dogs" taken from the Big Time concert video.

Recorded live at the Wiltern Theatre. Los Angeles/ USA. November 7/8, 1987.

PolyGram Video (Island Visual Arts)/ Fries Home Video (Fries Entertainment Inc.), 1988.

With: Michael Blair, Ralph Carney, Greg Cohen, Marc Ribot and Willy Schwarz.

Stage show concept: Kathleen Brennan & Tom Waits. Directed by Chris Blum.

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Rain Dogs

- Tom Waits (1985): "People who live outdoors. You know how after the rain you see all these dogs that seem lost, wandering around. The rain washes away all their scent, all their direction. So all the people on the album are knit together, by some corporeal way of sharing pain and discomfort." (Source: "The Sultan Of Sleaze" YOU magazine, by Pete Silverton. Date: New York. Early October, 1985)

- Tom Waits (1985): "It's a kind of word I made up for people who sleep in doorways. I mean, New York when it rains, all the peelings and cigarette butts, float to the surface like in Taxi Driver when he says, "someday a real raids gonna come along and wash all the scum of f the street". Looks better in the rain, like it's been lacquered." (Source: "Lower east side story". The Face: Elissa van Poznak. Ca. October, 1985)

- Tom Waits (1985). "Maybe I should say something about the title of the album, "Rain Dogs". You know dogs in the rain lose their way back home. They even seem to look up at you and ask if you can help them get back home. 'Cause after it rains every place they peed on has been washed out. It's like "Mission Impossible". They go to sleep thinking the world is one way and they wake up and somebody moved the furniture." (Source: "Tom Waits for no man". Spin Magazine: Glenn O'Brien. November, 1985)

- Tom Waits (1985): "A Rain Dog is - you notice it more in lower Manhattan than anywhere else - after a rain in New York all the dogs that got caught in the rain, somehow the water washed away their whole trail and they can't get back home so about 4 in the morning you see all these stranded dogs on the street and they're looking around like - won't you help me get back home, sir, please - excuse me sir - excuse me sir - can you help me find my way back home - all makes and models, the short ones, the black ones, the tall ones, the expensive ones, the long ones, the disturbed ones, they all want to get home. So that's a Rain Dog. It's like falling asleep somewhere and you thought you knew where you were and when you woke up - it's like Mission Impossible - they changed the furniture and the walls and windows and the sky turned a different colour and you can never get back and most of the stories in this record have to do with people in New York who are experiencing a considerable amount of pain and discomfort." (Source: "Rain Dogs Island Promo Tape" (taped comments on songs as sent to radio stations). Date: late 1985)

- Tom Waits (1985) (What are Raindogs?): "Eh... I don't know... you can get 'em in Coney Island. They're little eh... It's eh... They come in a bun. And eh... It's just water in a bun. That's all... It's a bun that's been... It's a bun without a hot-dog in it. (laughs) It's just... it's been left out in the rain and they're called a Raindog. And they're less expensive then a standard hot-dog... ... ... No, a Raindog is a... is anybody who eh... people who sleep in doorways. People who don't have credit cards. People who don't go to church. People who don't have eh, y'know, a mortgage, y'know? Who fly in this whole plane by the seat of their pants. People who... are going down the road eh, y'know?" (Source: "Nightlines Interview" Nightlines on CBC Stereo (Canada) conducted by Michael Tearson. Date: New York. Late 1985)

- Tom Waits (1985): "You see all these dogs out on the street looking lost. They kind of look up at you like: `'scuse me sir, can you, uh, ...(deep voice) can you help me? 'cause the rain has washed away all the scents; the way they got wherever they got. So they can't find their way back home." (Source: "Enigmatic Waits survives, thrives" The San Diego Union-Tribune. By Rip Rense. November 1, 1985) 

⁽²⁾ Huddle v.t.: To crowd (things) together to mingle confusedly; to assemble without order or system (Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, � 1996, 1998 MICRA, I) 

⁽³⁾ Oh, how we danced: Notice the musical and lyrical reference to "The Anniversary Waltz" (Words and music by Al Jolson and Saul Chaplin): "Oh, how we danced On the night we were wed; We vowed our true love Though a word wasn't said. The world was in bloom, There were stars in the skies Except for the few That were there in your eyes. Dear, as I held you So close in my arms, Angels were singing A hymn to your charms, Two hearts gently beating Were murmuring low, "My darling, I love you so." The night seemed to fade Into blossoming dawn; The sun shone anew But the dance lingered on. Could we but relive that Sweet moment sublime, We'd find that our love Is unaltered by time."

⁽⁴⁾ Rose of Tralee: A yearly beauty contest in Ireland. The original Rose of Tralee was a young dairymaid turned children's maid named Mary O'Connor who caught the eye of young William Pembroke Mulchinock of the Mulchinock Estate where she was working. This soon turned to love, but due to staunch family pride and an accusation that he had killed a man this never turned to marriage. William fled and returned years later to find that she had just died. After an unsuccessful marriage in America and then living the rest of his days alone in Ireland, he died and was buried next to his beloved in 1864. (Source: Tom Waits Digest, Seth Nielssen)

Singapore

We sail tonight for Singapore, we're all as mad as hatters⁽²⁾ here

I've fallen for a tawny moor, took off to the Land of Nod⁽³⁾

Drank with all the Chinamen, walked the sewers of Paris⁽⁴⁾

I danced along a colored wind, dangled from a rope of sand

You must say goodbye to me

We sail tonight for Singapore, don't fall asleep while you're ashore

Cross your heart and hope to die, when you hear the children cry

Let marrowbone and cleaver choose, while making feet for children's shoes⁽⁵⁾

Through the alley, back from hell, when you hear that steeple bell

You must say goodbye to me.

Wipe him down with gasoline, till his arms are hard and mean

From now on, boys, this iron boat's your home

So heave away, boys

We sail tonight for Singapore, take your blankets from the floor

Wash your mouth out by the door, the whole town's made of iron ore

Every witness turns to steam, they all become Italian dreams

Fill your pockets up with earth, get yourself a dollar's worth

Away boys, away boys, heave away

The captain is a one-armed dwarf, he's throwing dice along the wharf

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King⁽⁶⁾

So take this ring

We sail tonight for Singapore, we're all as mad as hatters here

I've fallen for a tawny moor, took off to the Land of Nod

Drank with all the Chinamen, walked the sewers of Paris

I drank along a colored wind, I dangled from a rope of sand

You must say goodbye to me

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Jalma Music (ASCAP), � 1985-1998

Official release: "Rain Dogs", Island Records Inc., 1985 &

"Beautiful Maladies", Island Records Inc., 1998

Arrangement and lyrics published in "Tom Waits - Beautiful Maladies" (Amsco Publications, 1997)

Known covers:

Kazik Staszewski "Piosenki Toma Waitsa". Kazik Staszewski. March, 2003. VIP Production / Luna Music: LUNCD 093-2 (in Polish)

Unplugged. Anne B�renz & Frank Wolff. 2003. B�chergilde (Germany)

The Silverhearts Play Raindogs. The Silverhearts. October 5, 2005. Banbury Park Records

Sex In Obertrubach. Feinton. March 1, 2006. TP9 Records (Germany)

Bye-Bye. Anne B�renz. October, 2006. Stalburg Theater (Germany)

Dolphin Blue Live. Dolphin Blue. December, 2007. Rising Sun Productions (German CDR)

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Singapore

- Tom Waits (1985): "Sometimes I close my eyes real hard and I see a picture of what I want, the song. 'Singapore' started like that, Richard Burton with a bottle of festival brandy preparing to go on board ship. I tried to make my voice like his - "In the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king" - I took that from Orwell I think. NME - Which book? TW - Mary Poppins, one of the big ones." (Source: "Hard Rain". New Musical Express: Gavin Martin. October 19 1985)

- Tom Waits (1985): "Nowadays, if you want a certain sound you don't have to get it now, you can get it later. When you're mixing, electronically. I wanted to get it now, so I felt I cooked it and I ate it. You can establish percussion sounds later electronically. But I ended up banging on things so I felt that it really responded. If I couldn't get the right sound out of the drum set we'd get a chest of drawers in the bathroom and hit it real hard with a two-by-four. Things like that. That's on "Singapore". Those little things made me feel more involved that sampling on a synthesizer." (Source: "Tom Waits for no man". Spin Magazine: Glenn O'Brien. November 1985)

- Tom Waits (1985): "Singapore is kind of like Dick Burton in Taiwan and he can't get a drink." (Source: "Rain Dogs Island Promo Tape" (taped comments on songs as sent to radio stations). Date: late 1985)

- Tom Waits (1985): "Ehm... I was thinking about what would happen if Richard Burton got stranded in Hong Kong somewhere or... y'know. He's this burly English with... y'know? You know a sheet mantras of... somewhere in eh...somewhere off. y'know? Taiwan or Guam, Hong Kong, Canton, Shanghai eh Philippines, somewhere over there y'know? So I tried to imagine what would be going through eh... Make it like a Richard Burton number." (Source: "Nightlines Interview" Nightlines on CBC Stereo (Canada) conducted by Michael Tearson. Date: New York. Late 1985)

- Tom Waits (1998): "It's an adventure song. I like adventure songs and I always remembered that in the studio the drum sound that we used was a two by four attacking somebody's chest of drawers and the whole song played and all the backbeats were played with a two by four hitting the chest of drawers repeatedly and on the last bar of the song the whole piece of furniture had collapsed and there was nothing left of it and the song was over but it was just a - That's what I think of when I hear the song. I see the pile of wood and it excites me. Michael Blair was the percussionist. It wasn't a very expensive chest of drawers - it was just one that we'd found out on the sidewalk." (Source: "KCRW-FM: Morning Becomes Eclectic (interviewed by Chris Douridas)" Date: March 31, 1998) 

⁽²⁾ Mad hatter

- Someone who sells drugs and other illegal substances. ("I'm going to go pick some stuff up from the madhatter up on Main.") (Source: The Online Slang Dictionary, Walter Rader).

- Mad as a hatter phr. [mid-19C] very mad, utterly insane. [the use in 18C of mercurous nitrate in tanning of felt hats. This was absorbed by the hatters, in whom the effects could produce mental problems]. (Source: "Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang". Jonathon Green. Cassel & Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-304-35167-9).

- Might also refer to the Alice character. Also mentioned in "Diamonds And Gold": "There's a hole in the ladder, a fence we can climb Mad as a hatter, you're thin as a dime."

- "These days we associate mad as a hatter with a bit of whimsy in Lewis Carroll's famous children's book Alice in Wonderland of 1865. Carroll didn't invent the phrase, though. By the time he wrote the book it was already well known; the first example I can find is from a work by Thomas Chandler Haliburton (Judge Haliburton), of Nova Scotia, who was well-known in the 1830s for his comic writings about the character Sam Slick; in The Clockmaker; or the Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of Slickville of 1836, he wrote: "Father he larfed out like any thing; I thought he would never stop-and sister Sall got right up and walked out of the room, as mad as a hatter". As the author felt no need to explain it, by then it was clearly well known in his part of North America. Whether it was invented there, I don't know, but it seems likely. An early British reference is in Pendennis by William Makepeace Thackeray, serialised between 1848-50: "We were talking about it at mess, yesterday, and chaffing Derby Oaks-until he was as mad as a hatter". Note, by the way, that mad is being used in both these cases in the sense of being angry rather than insane, so these examples better fit the sense of phrases like mad as a wet hen, mad as a hornet, mad as a cut snake, mad as a meat axe, and other wonderful similes, of which the first two are American and the last two from Australia or New Zealand. But Thomas Hughes, in Tom Brown's Schooldays, used it in the same way that Lewis Carroll was later to do: "He's a very good fellow, but as mad as a hatter". Few people who use the phrase today realise that there's a story of human suffering behind it; the term actually derives from an early industrial occupational disease. Felt hats were once very popular in North America and Europe; an example is the top hat. The best sorts were made from beaver fur, but cheaper ones used furs such as rabbit instead. A complicated set of processes was needed to turn the fur into a finished hat. With the cheaper sorts of fur, an early step was to brush a solution of a mercury compound-usually mercurous nitrate-on to the fur to roughen the fibres and make them mat more easily, a process called carroting because it made the fur turn orange. Beaver fur had natural serrated edges that made this unnecessary, one reason why it was preferred, but the cost and scarcity of beaver meant that other furs had to be used. Whatever the source of the fur, the fibres were then shaved off the skin and turned into felt; this was later immersed in a boiling acid solution to thicken and harden it. Finishing processes included steaming the hat to shape and ironing it. In all these steps, hatters working in poorly ventilated workshops would breathe in the mercury compounds and accumulate the metal in their bodies. We now know that mercury is a cumulative poison that causes kidney and brain damage. Physical symptoms include trembling (known at the time as hatter's shakes), loosening of teeth, loss of co-ordination, and slurred speech; mental ones include irritability, loss of memory, depression, anxiety, and other personality changes. This was called mad hatter syndrome. It's been a very long time since mercury was used in making hats, and now all that remains is a relic phrase that links to a nasty period in manufacturing history. But mad hatter syndrome remains common as a description of the symptoms of mercury poisoning." (Source: World Wide Words is copyright � Michael Quinion, 1996-2004)

⁽³⁾ Nod, the land of

- To go to the land of Nod is to go to bed. There are many similar puns and more in French than in English. Of course, the reference is to Gen. iv. 16, "Cain went ... and dwelt in the land of Nod;" but where the land of Nod is or was nobody knows. In fact, "Nod" means a vagrant or vagabond, and when Cain was driven out he lived "a vagrant life," with no fixed abode, till he built his "city." (Source: "The First Hypertext Edition of The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable", E. Cobham Brewer. � 1997-99 Bibliomania.com Ltd) 

- Jonathan Swift turned the phrase into a pun when he wrote that he was "going into the Land of Nod" meaning that he was going to sleep. (Submitted by Cheryl Dillis, Tom Waits eGroups discussionlist. October, 2000. From "2,107 Curious Word Origins, Sayings and Expressions" by Charles Earle).

- Could be inspired by: "The Land Of Nod." Children's song. Written by: Robert Louis Stevenson. Copyright: unknown: "From breakfast on all through the day At home among my friends I stay; But every night I go abroad Afar into the land of Nod All by myself I have to go, With none to tell me what to do. All alone beside the streams And up the mountainsides of dreams The strangest things are there for me, Both things to eat and things to see, And many frightening sights abroad Till morning in the land of Nod Try as I like to find the way, I never can get back by day, Nor can remember plain and clear The curious music that I hear."

⁽⁴⁾ Walked the sewers of Paris

- Might refer to the club that used to be behind the Ivar Theatre in L.A. It was later called "The Gaslight" and it has been remodeled and renamed "The Opium Den" in 1996. 1605 1/2 N. Ivar Hollywood, CA USA

- Ross MacLean (2004): "The T. Waits quote, "Andr� is at the piano behind the Ivar in the sewers" (The One That Got Away, 1976) probably refers to a piano player at a gay bar, located down the alley by the stage door, called "The Sewer of Paris." There was a garbage dumpster in the corner between the two doorways, and girls could go from the theater straight to the bar. The bar held 70's glitter queens, lots of ageing closet cases, servicemen (the U.S.O. was half block down the street from the Ivar), runaways fresh from the Greyhound bus station who had come to Hollywood to become famous, thugs fresh out of jail, and drag queens of any race. I had a couple pretty scarey nights there." (Source: email message by Ross MacLean to Tom Waits Library. February, 2004. Copyright 1994 from "The Ivar Memoirs" by Ross MacLean, produced & published playwright. Ross has written a memoir on the Ivar, and is completing a play on the same subject)

- Tom Waits in 1981 on the Ivar Theatre: "A burlesque house in Hollywood, right next door to the library. It was originally a legitimate theatre. Lord Buckley and Lenny Bruce played there. Now it's just a strip joint, full of transsexuals. Behind the Ivar is another nightclub called The Gaslight(9). Used to be called the Sewers Of Paris." (Source: "Tom Waits: Waits And Double Measures" Smash Hits magazine by Johnny Black. March 18, 1981)

⁽⁵⁾ Making feet for children shoes: To have sex. (Source: Tom Waits Digest, Seth Nielssen)

⁽⁶⁾ In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King: Attributed to Desiderius Gerhard Erasmus, Dutch scholar, philosopher and writer (1465 - 1536). [Lat., In regione caecorum rex est luscus.] - Adagia (III, IV, 96)

Tango Till They're Sore

Well, you play that Tarantella⁽²⁾, all the hounds they start to roar

The boys all go to hell, and then the Cubans hit the floor

They drive along the pipeline, they tango till they're sore

They take apart their nightmares and they leave 'em by the door

Let me fall out of the window with confetti in my hair

Deal out jacks or better⁽³⁾ on a blanket by the stairs

I'll tell you all my secrets, but I lie about my past

Send me off to bed forever more

Make sure they play my theme song, I guess Daisies'll have to do⁽⁴⁾

Just get me to New Orleans and paint shadows on the pews

Turn the spit on that pig, kick the drum and let me down

Put my clarinet beneath your bed till I get back in town

Let me fall out of the window with confetti in my hair

Deal out jacks or better on a blanket by the stairs

I'll tell you all my secrets, but I lie about my past

So send me off to bed forever more

Just make sure she's all in calico⁽⁵⁾ and the color of a doll

Wave the flag on Cadillac Day and a skillet on the wall

Cut me a switch, or hold your breath till the sun goes down

Write my name on the hood, send me off to another town

And just let me fall out of the window with confetti in my hair

Deal out jacks or better on a blanket by the stairs

Tell you all my secrets, but I lie about my past

Will you send me off to bed forever more

Fall out of the window with confetti in my hair

Deal out jacks or better on a blanket by the stairs

I'll tell you all my secrets, but I lie about my past

Send me off to bed forever more

Send me off to bed forever more

Send me off to bed forever more

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Jalma Music (ASCAP), � 1985

Official release: Rain Dogs, Island Records Inc., 1985

Arrangement and lyrics published in "Tom Waits - Beautiful Maladies" (Amsco Publications, 1997)

Known covers:

Fjorton S�nger. Bad Liver & Hans Brustna Hj�rtan. 1989. Nonstop Records (1989), City Records (re-release May, 1993) NSM 33-15 (in Swedish: "Camping i Kuopio")

Temptation. Holly Cole, 1995. Blue Note Records/ Capital (Japan/ USA)

It Happened One Night. Holly Cole. June, 1995. Blue Note Records. Japan: 1995, USA/ EMD: 1996 (live version)

Into Temptation - Astrid Seriese sings Waits, Weill & more. Astrid Seriese. October, 1996 (September, 2003). Brigadoon

Bukowski Waits For Us - Vol. 2. Michael Kiessling. September 25, 2000. Buschfunk (Germany)

Incarnation Blues. Seth Augustus. 2004. Self-released

Liking You Liking Me. Grace Chung. 2005. Owlsong Productions

Fast Grass. Britta Rex Quartett. January 11, 2005. Cattitude Records

Annamateur. Anna Maria Scholz. August, 2005. Self-released

Tango Scandale. Ulrich Kodjo Wendt Band. October 1, 2005. Liekedeler (New Music)

The Silverhearts Play Raindogs. The Silverhearts. October 5, 2005. Banbury Park Records

Cowboy Gypsy Party Music. Brook Adams. July 13, 2007. Self-released

Passione E Veleno (Tango di Capodanno) . Stefano Tessadri. March 28, 2008. Novunque/ Universal

Grapefruit Moon: Songs of Tom Waits. Southside Johnny & La Bamba's Bigband. September 19, 2008. Evangeline (Soulfood Music)

Colorama. The Hofners. March 9, 2009. LongMan Records

The Zeitgeist Beckons. Vagabond Opera. May 9, 2009. Self-released 

Stereo Bang Bang. Children Of Celebrities. January 1, 2010. Self-released

<object height="344" width="425"></object> 

Waits performing "Tango Till They're Sore"

Live performance from Late Night With David Letterman (1985)

NBC television talkshow with David Letterman. New York/ USA.

(broadcast November 21, 1985. Also lists as December 1985 and February 6, 1986)

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Tango Till They're Sore:

- Tom Waits (1983) (from a 'Rain Dogs' promo clip, as presented in 'Egos and Icons'): "I had this friend who fell out of the window on New Year's Eve. 12 storeys, not a scratch. His hat blew off. The only thing that broke his fall was the fact that he had a little confetti in his hair."

- Tom Waits (1985): "That's kind of a New Orleans thing with trombone - I had a friend of mine who'd fallen out of a window - he sent me a card later that said "May you always have confetti in your hair" - that's kind of sums that up." (Source: "Rain Dogs Island Promo Tape" (taped comments on songs as sent to radio stations). Date: late 1985)

- Tom Waits (introducing Tango Till They're Sore, 1985): "Thank you eh. This is about a guy that eh fell out of a window on New Year's Eve. And eh, the only thing that broke his fall, was the fact that he had a little eh confetti in his hair. Needless to say he doesn't go anywhere without a little... confetti in his hair." (Source: "Late Night With David Letterman" (NBC TV show) Date: New York. December, 1985)

- Tom Waits (introducing Tango Till They're Sore, Healdsburg, 1996): "This is a song about suicide. But it's a FUN song. So don't go gettin' depressed"

⁽²⁾ Tarantella: "The tarantella (tarentule, tarentella, tarantelle, tarentelle, tarantel) is a traditional, southern Italian dance of 6/8 or 4/4 time, characterised by the rapid whirling of couples. There are several local variations of this dance, including the Neapolitan, Sicilian, Apulian and Calabrian tarantellas. It is led by a central singer/speaker. A tarantella is also a song that can be played by instrumentalists. Sometimes the word used for the song is taranta ("tarantella" is in fact a diminutive dialectal form for "tarantula", a common kind of spider). The time signature, the fact that it is led by a caller, and several of the figures suggest that the tarantella may be related to contra dance. It is named after Taranto in southern Italy, and is popularly associated with the large local wolf spider or "tarantula" spider (Lycosa tarantula) whose bite was allegedly deadly and could be cured only by frenetic dancing (see tarantism). One variation of the legend said the dancer must dance the most joyous dance of her life or she would die, another says the dancer will go in to the most joyous dance of her life before she dies. In actual fact the spider's venom is not dangerous enough to cause any severe effects. The spiders, far from being aggressive, avoid human contact." (Source: Wikipedia/ GNU Free Documentation License, 2007)

⁽³⁾ Jacks or better: A version of 5 card draw (poker) that requires a pair of Jacks or better to open the betting. If no one has at least this, the hand is thrown in, everyone puts money into the pot again, and the hand is re-dealt. (Source: Tom Waits Digest, Seth Nielssen)

⁽⁴⁾ Dasies: Might refer to one of these titles: "The Garden of Daisies", "Pushing Daisies", "When Daisies Pied", "Sweet Bunch of Daisies"

⁽⁵⁾ Calico: n. 1. A coarse, brightly printed cloth. Chiefly British. 2. A plain white cotton cloth, heavier than muslin (Source: The American Heritage� Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition) In the US the term calico is applied only to the printed fabric.

Time

(Rain Dogs studio version, 1985)

The smart money's⁽²⁾ on Harlow, and the moon is in the street

And the shadow boys are breakin' all the laws

And you're east of East St. Louis⁽³⁾, and the wind is making speeches

And the rain sounds like a round of applause

And Napoleon⁽⁴⁾ is weepin' in a carnival saloon

His invisible fiancee's in the mirror

And the band is goin' home, it's rainin' hammers, it's rainin' nails

And it's true, there's nothin' left for him down here

And it's time, time, time

And it's time, time, time

And it's time, time, time that you love

And it's time, time, time

And they all pretend they're orphans, and their memory's like a train

You can see it gettin' smaller as it pulls away

And the things you can't remember tell the things you can't forget

That history puts a saint in every dream

Well, she said she'd stick around until the bandages came off

But these mama's boys just don't know when to quit

And Matilda⁽⁵⁾ asks the sailors, 'Are those dreams or are those prayers?'

So close your eyes, son, and this won't hurt a bit

Oh, it's time, time, time

And it's time, time, time

And it's time, time, time that you love

And it's time, time, time

Well, things are pretty lousy for a calendar girl

The boys just dive right off the cars and splash into the street

And when they're on a roll⁽⁶⁾, she pulls a razor from her boot

And a thousand pigeons fall around her feet

So put a candle in the window⁽⁷⁾ and a kiss upon his lips

As the dish outside the window fills with rain

Just like a stranger with the weeds in your heart

And pay the fiddler⁽⁶⁾ off till I come back again

Oh, it's time, time, time

And it's time, time, time

And it's time, time, time that you love

And it's time, time, time

And it's time, time, time

And it's time, time, time

And it's time, time, time that you love

And it's time, time, time

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Jalma Music (ASCAP), � 1985-1998

Official release: "Rain Dogs", Island Records Inc., 1985 &

"Beautiful Maladies", Island Records Inc., 1998

Arrangement and lyrics published in "Tom Waits - Beautiful Maladies" (Amsco Publications, 1997)

Time

(Big Time live version, 1988)

The smart money's⁽²⁾ on Harlow, and the moon is in the street

And the shadow boys are breakin' all the laws

Oh, and it's east of East St. Louis⁽³⁾, and the wind is making speeches

And the rain sounds like a round of applause

And Napoleon⁽⁴⁾ is weepin' in a carnival saloon

His invisible fianc�e is in the mirror

And the band is goin' home, it's rainin' hammers, it's rainin' nails

It's true, there's nothin' left for him down here

And it's time, time, time

And it is time, and it's time

And it's time, time that you love

And it's time, time, time

And they all pretend they're orphans, and their memory's like a train

You can see them gettin' smaller as they pull away

Oh, and the things you can't remember tell the things you can't forget

That history puts a saint in every dream

Oh, she said she'd stick around 'til the bandages came off

But these mama's boys just don't know when to quit

And Matilda⁽⁵⁾ asks the sailors, 'Are those dreams or are those prayers?'

Close your eyes, son, and this won't hurt a bit

And it's time, time, time

And it is time, time, time

And it's time, time that you love

And it's time, time, time

Oh, and things are pretty lousy for the calendar girls

The boys just dive right off the cars and splash into the street

Oh, and when she's on a roll⁽⁶⁾, she pulls a razor from her boot

And a thousand pigeons fall around her feet

So put a candle in the window⁽⁷⁾ and a kiss upon my lips

As the dish outside the window fills with rain

Oh, and just like a stranger with the weeds in your heart

Pay the fiddler⁽⁸⁾ off till I come back again

And it's time, time, time

And it is time, time, time

And it's time, time, time that you love

And it's time, time, time

And it's time, time, time

And it is time, time, time

And it's time, time, time that you love

And it's time, time, time

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Jalma Music, Admin. by Ackee Music, Inc. (ASCAP), � 1985-1988

Official release: "Big Time", � Island Visual Arts Inc. (P) Island Records Inc., 1988

Arrangement and lyrics published in "Tom Waits - Beautiful Maladies" (Amsco Publications, 1997)

Also included in Big Time movie (1988). Further reading: Big Time full story

Known covers:

T-Bone Burnett. T-Bone Burnett, 1986/ 1994. DOT Records (MCA) MCAD-31296/ 5809. Universal Special Products (1994)

Navidades Furiosas. Various artists. 1993. La Fábrica Magnética, Spain. (performed by: El Inquilino Comunista)

Roll Tide Roll. Jan Johansen. October, 1997. Lionheart Records (Sweden)

Canto Per Te. Andrea Mingardi. February 2, 1999. Sony/ Columbia, COL 489585-2 (in Italian)

Bukowski Waits For Us - Vol. 1. Michael Kiessling. September 25, 2000. Buschfunk (Germany)

Vieux Carre. Torn Curtain. March, 2001. Self-released

Strange Little Girls. Tori Amos. September 18, 2001. WEA/ Atlantic

The Carnival Saloon Live. The Carnival Saloon. October, 2001. Self-released (Ireland)

Fram Till Nu. Jan Johansen. December, 2001. IND/ Sweden (same version as on Roll Tide Roll, 1997)

Unplugged. Anne Bärenz & Frank Wolff. 2003. Büchergilde (Germany)

Mens Te Koop. Kees Meerman. 2003. Self-released

The Music Never Ends. Johanna Olsson. March 23, 2004. Self-released (Sweden)

And How. Xanda Howe. June, 2004. Songphonic Records (bonus track)

"23". Golly. July, 2004. Media - Arte (Knopf Germany)

Your Town. 5 Mile Chase. October, 2005. Self-released

The Silverhearts Play Raindogs. The Silverhearts. October 5, 2005. Banbury Park Records

Gabelfrühstück. NOX (Gerd Köster & Dirk Raulf). May 11, 2006. Poise (Germany)

Leonard Cohen Auf Swedisch II (bonus track "Tid" in Swedish). Jan Erik Lundqvist. May 26, 2006. Meyer Records (Germany)

Bye-Bye. Anne Bärenz. October, 2006. Stalburg Theater (Germany)

Bangin' On The Table With An Old Tin Cup. Pascal Fricke. April 12, 2007. Self-released (Germany)

American Storyteller Vol 2 & 3. Chris Chandler And Davd Roe. September 4, 2007. Self-released

Domestic Songs. Solveig Slettahjell. September 28, 2007. Act (Edel) 

In Love + Light. Heidi Talbot. February 25, 2008. Self-released

Just Doin´Time. Breeze the Creaze/ Golly. January 7, 2008. Knopfstudio (Germany)

Overcast - The Music Of Ed Partyka. The Sunday Night Orchestra. May 30, 2008. Mons Records, Germany

<object height="344" width="425"></object> 

Waits performing "Time" taken from Big Time concert video.

Recorded live at the Wiltern Theatre. Los Angeles/ USA. November 9, 1987.

PolyGram Video (Island Visual Arts)/ Fries Home Video (Fries Entertainment Inc.), 1988.

With: Michael Blair, Ralph Carney, Greg Cohen, Marc Ribot and Willy Schwarz.

Stage show concept: Kathleen Brennan & Tom Waits. Directed by Chris Blum.

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Time

- Tom Waits (commenting on the song "Time", 1985): "Time: Time is a precious commodity..." (Source: "Rain Dogs Island Promo Tape" (taped comments on songs as sent to radio stations). Date: late 1985) 

⁽²⁾ Smart money

- Money bet or invested by those in the know, or by influential or wealthy people who are supposedly in a position to know that their bet or investment will be profitable (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner)

- Money paid by a person to obtain exemption from some disagreeable office or duty; in law it means a heavy fine; and in recompense it means money given to soldiers or sailors for injuries received in the service. It either makes the person "smart," i.e. suffer, or else the person who receives it is paid for smarting. (Source: "The First Hypertext Edition of The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable", E. Cobham Brewer. � 1997-99 Bibliomania.com Ltd) 

⁽³⁾ St. Louis

- Also mentioned in: I Beg Your Pardon, 1982: "Please don't go back to St. Louis, can't you tell that I'm sincere.", Train Song, 1987: "Well I broke down in East St. Louis, on the Kansas City Line." Hold On, 1999: "Well, God bless your crooked heart, St. Louis got the best of me.".

- Notice that East St. Louis is a notably rough and tough black side of town, very distinct from plain St. Louis. Being East of East St. Louis might be a Waitsian metaphor for being in the worst part possible of any town.

- Jonathan Valania (1999): Getting back to the names of places, St. Louis seems to pop up a lot, in "Hold on" from the new record and "Time" from Rain Dogs and you've mentioned it a lot in interviews. Ever live there? TW: "No, never lived there. It's a good name to stick in a song. Every song needs to be anatomically correct: You need weather, you need the name of the town, something to eat - every song needs certain ingredients to be balanced. You're writing a song and you need a town, and you look out the window and you see "St. Louis Cardinals" on some kid's T-shirt. And you say, "Oh, we'll use that." (Source: "The Man Who Howled Wolf ". Magnet: Jonathan Valania. June/ July, 1999)

⁽⁴⁾ Napoleon

- On "The heart of Saturday night" Napoleon is credited for the cover illustration. According to Cal Schenkel Napoleon is the guy on the floor in front of the diner on the cover of "Nighthawks at the diner".

- Also mentioned in Diamonds And Gold (Rain Dogs, 1985): "Small time Napoleon's shattered his knees, But he stays in the saddle for Rose."

⁽⁵⁾ Matilda: Might be Waits is refering to Matilda from Tom Traubert's Blues, 1976: "Waltzing Matilda, you'll go waltzing Matilda with me." The rhytmn and feeling of both songs are certainly alike

⁽⁶⁾ Roll

- v.t.:To rob a drunk or sleeping person, usu. a drunk. To rob any person, as by a hold-up, or esp. to rob a prostitute's customer when he is sleeping or has left his clothing unwatched (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner)

- On a roll: phr. [1970s+] (orig. US gambling) on a winning streak, enjoying a period of success, whether lit. or fig.

- Roll: n. [1970s+] a spell of good fortune, a winning streak, whether lit. or fig. [roll, the roll of a dice] (Source: "Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang". Jonathon Green. Cassel & Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-304-35167-9).

- Also mentioned in Depot, Depot, 1974: "I'm on a roll, just like a pool ball, baby, Empty Pockets/ Purple Avenue, 1981: "What happened to my roll, September fell right through the hole."

⁽⁶⁾ Put a candle in the window: Many cultures around the world practice the "candle in the window" tradition. In colonial America a "candle in the window" was used to honor dignitaries, announce births and just plain celebrate(Source: Libbey Hodges, Oliver and Mary Miley Theobold. Williamsburg Christmas. New York. Harry N. Abrams Inc. 1999). In today's America it is a tradition practiced throughout the year as a gesture of welcome and a promise of warm hospitality to guests (thanks to Celso Lazaretti for pointing out this reference).

⁽⁷⁾ Fiddler/ piper, pay the: Who's to pay the fiddler/ piper? The phrase comes from the tradition about the Pied Piper of Hameln, who agreed to cure the town of rats and mice; when he had done so, the people of Hameln refused to pay him, whereupon he piped again, and led all the children to Koppelberg Hill, which closed over them. From the corresponding French phrase, "payer les violons," it would seem to mean who is to pay the fiddler or piper if we have a dance [on the green] (Source: "The First Hypertext Edition of The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable", E. Cobham Brewer. � 1997-99 Bibliomania.com Ltd)

Union Square

Well, time is always money

For all the boys on Union Square

Go on bust your ass till doomsday

But don't forget to say your prayers

Someone's knocked down on the backstreet

Said, papa got a brand new slack

And your baby is handcuffed on the front seat

Sit right there, boy, and you relax

Come on, honey, we're all goin' down

Down down downtown⁽²⁾

Down downtown

We're goin' down downtown

We're goin' down downtown

Well, they spill out of the Cinema 14

To that drag⁽³⁾ bar down the block

Best live show by far on the whole east coast

With a bank rolled up in your sock

She stands right there for your pleasure

Half Puerto Rican Chinese

You got to find your baby somebody to measure

I'm gonna get me some of these, baby

Come on, honey, we're all goin' down

Down down down

Down down down downtown

Down downtown

I'm goin' down downtown

Well, four in the mornin' on a Sunday

Sacco drinkin' whiskey in church

Half pint of festival brandy

That babe will fall right off his perch

Well, that guy in the sweater's off duty

Well, he's out in front of the welfare hotel

The guy in the dress is a beauty

Go all the way, I swear you never can tell

Come on, honey, put on your socks

Down down down

I'm goin' down down down downtown

Down downtown

Oh looky here, down down down

Oh come on, honey

Oh babe, down down down

Come on, down downtown

I'm goin' down downtown

I'm goin' down downtown

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Jalma Music (ASCAP), � 1985

Official release: Rain Dogs, Island Records Inc., 1985

Known covers:

Knucklehead. Eric "Roscoe" Ambel. July, 2004. Lakeside Lounge Records

The Silverhearts Play Raindogs. The Silverhearts. October 5, 2005. Banbury Park Records

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Union Square

- Tom Waits (1985): "Union Square, Keith Richards played on that, he plays that doghouse rhythm, it's just a killer." (Source: "Rain Dogs Island Promo Tape" (taped comments on songs as sent to radio stations). Date: late 1985)

- Tom Waits (1985): "That's just real straight... y'know? Keith played on that again too. He played that eh... y'know eh... (laughs) that guitar. Gheesus! You know, he leans forward at like eh... almost eh... at like 2 o'clock. You know? I mean if this was like... 10 till 2, y'know? He leans so far forward, he must have a string attached to the back of his neck and it's run up and it's being held to the ceiling and it keeps him from falling flat on his face. It's unbelievable. He had these old shoes of... looked like a dog chewed 'em up. And eh he was drinking this eh Rebel Yellow sour mash whiskey and... he looks like a pirate. He's a killer." (Source: "Nightlines Interview" Nightlines on CBC Stereo (Canada) conducted by Michael Tearson. Date: New York. Late 1985)

- Tom Waits (1985): "I was going to throw that song out. I said call the dustman, this one's chewing on the dead. But somebody said, there's something there. Hell I said, there isn't. Then he came in - on the clock he stands with his head at 3 and his arm at 10. I said how can a man stand like that without falling over, unless he has 200lb test fishing line suspending him from the ceiling? It was like something out of Arthur, he comes in with his guitar valet and it's 'Oh Keef, shall we try the Rickenbacker?'" (Source: "Hard Rain". New Musical Express: Gavin Martin. October 19, 1985)

⁽²⁾ Down town: I am going down town, i.e. to the business part of the town. Down the country properly means down the slope of the land, or as the rivers run. We say "I am going up to town" when we mean out of the country into the chief city.(Source: "The First Hypertext Edition of The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable", E. Cobham Brewer. � 1997-99 Bibliomania.com Ltd)

⁽³⁾ Drag n.: A homosexual gathering or party in which the participants wear clothes appropriate to the opposite sex; a gathering or party of transvestites (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner)

Walking Spanish

He got himself a homemade special⁽²⁾, you know his glass is full of sand

And it feels just like a jaybird, the way it fits into his hand

He rolled a blade up in his trick towel, they slap their hands against the

wall

You never trip, you never stumble, he's walkin' Spanish down the hall

Slip him a picture of our Jesus, or give him a spoon to dig a hole

What all he done ain't no one's business, but he'll need blankets for the

cold

They dim the lights over on Broadway, even the king has bowed his head

Every face looks right up at Mason, he's walkin' Spanish down the hall

Latella's screechin' for a blind pig, Punk Sander's carved it out of wood

He never sang when he got hoodwinked⁽³⁾, they tried it all but he never would

Tomorrow mornin' there'll be laundry, but he'll be somewhere else to hear

the call

Don't say good bye, he's just leavin' early, he's walkin' Spanish down the

hall

All St. Bartholomew⁽⁴⁾ said was whispered into the ear of Blind Jack Dawes

All the Baker told the machine was that he never broke the law

Go on and tip your hat up to the Pilate, take off your watch, your rings and

all

Even Jesus wanted just a little more time, when he was walkin' Spanish down

the hall

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Jalma Music (ASCAP), � 1985

Official release: Rain Dogs, Island Records Inc., 1985

Arrangement and lyrics published in "Tom Waits - Anthology 1983-2000" (Nuova Carisch s.r.l. Milan/ Italy, 2001)

Known covers:

Fjorton S�nger. Bad Liver & Hans Brustna Hj�rtan. 1989. Nonstop Records (1989), City Records (re-release May, 1993) NSM 33-15 (in Swedish: "Kr�p p� finska �ver bron")

Live Au Forum. Toxic Blues Again. December, 1996. Self-released (live)

Coaltown Blues. Lex Romane & Joe Riillo. 1998. Lucky Duck Records

Whispers Of Time. Toxic Blues Again. December, 1999. Self-released

Bukowski Waits For Us - Vol. 1. Michael Kiessling. September 25, 2000. Buschfunk (Germany)

Bluesville. Steve Johnson. 2001. New Risin' Blues/ Virgin France

Tonight at Johnny's Speakeasy. Jo Serrapere And The Willie Dunns. May, 2002. Detroit Radio Co. Recordings

Blues from the Roadhouse. Steve Johnson. February, 2003. Dixiefrog

The Silverhearts Play Raindogs. The Silverhearts. October 5, 2005. Banbury Park Records

Get Up Now. Toy Shop. September 7, 2006. Rockin' Camel Music (USA)

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Walking (someone) Spanish

- To force someone to leave, usu. from a public place, by lifting him by his coat or shirt collar to a walking position and propelling him toward the door (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner) 

- Being in the act of doing something you don't want to do. So, to paraphrase the example Waits himself gave, a guy reaching for his wallet after being told to do so by a mugger would be "walking spanish" as he did so. (This example from the publicity LP release of Rain Dogs, in which Waits talks about the theme of each of the songs in turn.) In the instance of the song itself, then, the guy is on death row and is only walking to the chair because he has to: hence he's "walking spanish". (Source: Tom Waits Digest, Seth Nielssen)

- To make a man walk Spanish is to give him the sack; to give him his discharge. In 1885 one of the retired captains in the Trinity House Establishment said, "If I had to deal with the fellow, I would soon make him walk Spanish, I warrant you." (Source: "The First Hypertext Edition of The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable", E. Cobham Brewer. � 1997-99 Bibliomania.com Ltd)

- Spanish Walk: n. [late 19C] (US) a constrained style of walking assumed, willy-nilly, by those who are being ejected from a bar or saloon (cf French Walk). [? the way Spanish pirates supposedly forced their prisoners to walk on tiptoes while they were held by the scruff of the neck, or tip-toeing gait of flamenco dancers] (Source: "Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang". Jonathon Green. Cassel & Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-304-35167-9)

- Tom Waits (1985): "Walking Spanish, John Lurie played on that. He's a saxophone player and actor. Walking Spanish is an expression they use when you don't want to go somewhere. It's 5:30 in the morning and the baby just woke you up screaming and you drag yourself out of bed, you're walking Spanish. Somebody says, "Listen, buddy, give me all your money." and your hand goes back around toward your wallet, you're walking Spanish, you don't want to go. Walking the plank, basically, walking Spanish is walking the plank." (Source: "Rain Dogs Island Promo Tape" (taped comments on songs as sent to radio stations). Date: late 1985)

⁽²⁾ Home-made special n.: a home-made pistol/ gun, also referred to as a Zip gun (Source: Tom Waits Digest, Seth Nielssen)

⁽³⁾ Hoodwinked v. tr.: 1. To take in by deceptive means; deceive 2. To blindfold 3. To conceal (Source: The American Heritage� Dictionary of the English Language, Houghton Mifflin - Third Edition)

⁽⁴⁾ Bartholomew St.: 1st. century saint. All that is known of him with certainty is that he is mentioned in the synoptic gospels and acts as one of the twelve apostles. Scholars believe he is the same as Nathanael mentioned in John, who says he is from Cana and that Jesus called him an "Israelite...incapable of deceit." The Roman Martyrology says he preached in India and Greater Armenia, where he was flayed and beheaded by King Astyages. He has become the patron saint of butchers and tanners. He is often depicted with a knife and sometimes wearing his own skin in his hand

Asylum Years, 1986 (Compilation)

Blue Valentines

She sends me blue valentines⁽¹⁾

All the way from Philadelphia

To mark the anniversary

Of someone that I used to be

And it feels like a warrant

Is out for my arrest

Baby, you got me checkin' in my rearview mirror

That's why I'm always on the run

It's why I changed my name

And I didn't think you'd ever find me here

To send me blue valentines

Like half forgotten dreams

Like a pebble in my shoe

As I walk these streets

And the ghost of your memory

Baby, it's the thistle⁽²⁾ 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 gonna see you every time I turn my back

Oh, you send me blue valentines

Though I try to remain at large

They're insisting that our love must have a eulogy⁽³⁾

Why do I save all this madness

Here in the nightstand drawer

There to haunt 'pon my shoulders

Baby, I know I'd be luckier to walk around everywhere I go

With this blind and broken heart

That sleeps beneath my lapel

Instead these blue valentines

To remind me of my cardinal sin

I can never wash the guilt

Or get these bloodstains off my hands

And it takes a whole lot of whiskey

To make these nightmares go away

And I cut my bleedin' heart out every night

And I'm gonna die just a little more

On each St. Valentine's day⁽⁴⁾

Don't you remember I promised I would write you

These blue valentines

Blue valentines

Blue valentines

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Fifth Floor Music, Inc. (ASCAP), � 1978 & Warner Bros. Music Ltd, 1986

Official release: "Blue Valentine", Elektra Entertainment/ WEA International Inc., 1978 &

"Asylum Years", WEA International Inc., 1986

Known covers:

Fjorton Sånger. Bad Liver & Hans Brustna Hjärtan. 1989. Nonstop Records (1989), City Records (re-release May, 1993) NSM 33-15 (in Swedish: "Blå violer")

Blue Valentine. Sarah Jane Morris. July 25, 1995. IRMA/ Jazzhouse Records (re-released in 1996 on Ronnie Scott's Jazz).

Long John Baldry Trio Live. Long John Baldry, 2000. Canada on Stony Plain Records and Hypertension Records in Europe

Bukowski Waits For Us - Vol. 1. Michael Kiessling. September 25, 2000. Buschfunk (Germany)

Being Tom Waits. Billy`s Band. 2001. Self-released demo album (Russia)

The Carnival Saloon Live. The Carnival Saloon. October, 2001. Self-released (Ireland)

Homegrown. Nussbaumer/ Weber/ Kreil. 2003. Self-released

The Big Parade. The Beatniks Of Babylon. 2003. The Big Parade

Raw. Kiko. 2003. Discaudio (Portugal)

Under The Influence - The songs of Tom Waits. Barry Charles. 2003. Tara Hall Productions (Australia)

After Blue. G.T. Nash. July, 2003. Belltree Records

Speeding Or Shyness. Speeding Or Shyness. 2004. Self-released

Your Head, Their Wall. Rod Fotheringham. May 9, 2006. Self-released

Lullabies For A Sleepless World. Julain Molnar. June 7, 2006. Self-released (Canada)

Bangin' On The Table With An Old Tin Cup. Pascal Fricke. April 12, 2007. Self-released (Germany)

Raking The Mules. Mescaline Smugglers. August 30, 2007.: Self-released

Live At Gaste Garage. Matt Taylor Band. November 7, 2007. Self-released

Box. Keram. January 29, 2008. Self-released 

Innocent When You Dream. Brandon Bernstein. February 26, 2010. Jazz Collective Records

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Blue Valentines

- Valentine: 1. Roman Christian who according to tradition was martyred during the persecution of Christians by Emperor Claudius II. Saint Valentine's Day was primarily celebrated in his honor, but was also inspired by another martyr named Valentine, who was bishop of Terni, a region in central Italy 2. A sentimental or humorous greeting card sent to a sweetheart, friend, or family member, for example, on Saint Valentine's Day. 3. A gift sent as a token of love to one's sweetheart on Saint Valentine's Day. (Source: The American Heritage� Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright � 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company)

- Tom Waits (2004): "I used to think I was making movies for the ears - writing them, directing them, releasing them. Kind of making a fiction in a non-fiction world. Taking the real world and then getting rid of certain things that I didn't want to be there and adding certain things that I hoped would have been there. I was overly maudlin and romantic and I really hadn't grown up. I still very much lived in a fantasy world. But I like that Blue Valentines song. Still play it sometimes. Somebody asked me to play it at a wedding recently." (Source: "Tom Waits Speaks - The Mojo Interview" Mojo magazine by Sylvie Simmons. Issue October 2004)

⁽²⁾ Thistle: Any of numerous weedy plants, chiefly of the genera Cirsium, Carduus, or Onopordum of the composite family, having prickly leaves and variously colored flower heads surrounded by prickly bracts (Source: The American Heritage� Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright � 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company)

⁽⁴⁾ Eulogy: A laudatory speech or written tribute, especially one praising someone who has died (Source: The American Heritage� Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright � 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company)

⁽⁵⁾ St. Valentine's day: a day sacred to St. Valentine; the 14th of February. It was a very old notion, alluded to by Shakespeare, that on this day birds begin to mate. Hence, perhaps, arose the custom of sending love tokens at that time (Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, � 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.)

Burma Shave

(Foreign Affairs studio version, 1977)

Licorice tattoo turned a gun metal blue

Scrawled across the shoulders of a dying town

Took the one eyed Jacks⁽²⁾ across the railroad tracks⁽³⁾

And the scar on its belly pulled a stranger passing through

He's a juvenile delinquent, never learned how to behave

But the cops'd never think to look in Burma-Shave

And the road was like a ribbon, and the moon was like a bone

He didn't seem to be like any guy she'd ever known

He kind of looked like Farley Granger⁽⁴⁾, with his hair slicked back

She says 'I'm a sucker for a fella in a cowboy hat.

How far are you going?'

Said 'Depends on what you mean'

He says 'I'm only stopping here to get some gasoline'

'I guess I'm going thataway, just as long as it's paved

And I guess you'd say I'm on my way to Burma-Shave'

And with her knees up on the glove compartment

She took out her barrettes, and her hair spilled out like rootbeer

And she popped her gum and arched her back

'Hell, Marysville⁽¹⁾ ain't nothing but a wide spot in the road

Some nights my heart pounds like thunder

Don't know why it don't explode

Cause everyone in this stinking town's got one foot in the grave

And I'd rather take my chances out in Burma-Shave'

'Presley's⁽⁵⁾ what I go by, why don't you change the stations

Count the grain elevators in the rearview mirror'

She said, 'Mister, anywhere you point this thing

It got to beat the hell out of the sting⁽⁶⁾

Of going to bed with every dream that dies here every mornin'

And so drill me a hole with a barber pole⁽⁷⁾

And I'm jumping my parole just like a fugitive tonight

Why don't you have another swig⁽⁸⁾, and pass that car if you're so brave

I wanna get there 'fore the sun comes up in Burma-Shave '

And the spider web crack and the mustang screamed

The smoke from the tires and the twisted machine

Just a nickel's worth of dreams, and every wishbone that they saved

Lie swindled from them on the way to Burma-Shave

And the sun hit the derrick and cast a bat wing shadow

Up against the car door on the shotgun side⁽⁹⁾

And when they pulled her from the wreck

You know, she still had on her shades⁽¹⁰⁾

They say that dreams are growing wild

just this side

of Burma-Shave

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Fifth Floor Music, Inc. (ASCAP),� 1977 & Warner Bros. Music Ltd, 1986

Official release: "Foreign Affairs", Elektra Entertainment/ WEA International Inc., 1977 &

"Bounced Checks", WEA/ Asylum Records, 1981 &

"Anthology Of Tom Waits", WEA/ Elektra, 1984 &

"Asylum Years", WEA International Inc., 1986

Burma Shave

(Live version State Theatre, Sydney/ Australia. May 2, 1979)

You know, I remember...

It rained all day the day that Elvis Presley⁽⁵⁾ died

And only a legend can make it do that!

And you know, I remember when my baby said we were through

And she was gonna walk out on me

It was Elvis Presley that talked her out of it

And he gave me my first leather jacket

And taught me how to comb my hair just right in a filling station bathroom

It was Elvis that gave you a rubber on prom night

And told you that you looked real sharp

And you know, I think he maybe just got a little tired

Of repairing all the broken hearts in the world.

And now I think maybe I understand

Why mechanics' cars never start

And why night watchmen are always sleeping on the job

And why shoeshine boys always have worn-out scooped-up shoes.

But eh... [mumbles]

A legend never dies, he just teaches you everything he knows

To give you the courage to ask her out

And I know, there's a small little town where dreams are still alive

And there's a hero on every corner

And they're all on their way to a place called

Burma-Shave

Scrawled out across the shoulders of this dying little town, see?

And every night it takes the one eyed Jacks

You know, a one eyed Jack is like a...

You got one headlight burned out on your car

It's called a one eyed Jack

You can see them from across the railroad tracks⁽³⁾

Over the scar on its belly, there came a stranger passing through

And he was a juvenile delinquent

He never learned how to behave

But the cops never think to look

When you're on your way to Burma-Shave

And the road was like a ribbon, man

Yeah, and the moon was like a bone and

He didn't seem to be like any guy that she'd ever known

He kinda looked like Farley Granger⁽⁴⁾, with his hair ssslicked back

And she said, 'Honey I've always been a sucker for a fella that wears a cowboy hat

And just how far do you think you might be going, Mister?'

He said 'Baby, that all depends on... what you mean

Cause I'm only stopping here tonight, cause I gotta get myself some gasoline'

'And I guess I'm going out thataway, at least ride as long as it's paved

And I guess you'd say I'm on my way to Burma-Shave'

And he said, 'Well, that's cool Why don't you put your knees up on the glove compartment?'

Well, she took out her barrettes, and man, her hair spilled out just like rootbeer

She popped her gum and she arched her back

She said, 'Man, this little town don't amount to nothin'

It's just a wide spot in the road

And some nights my heart pounds like thunder

I don't know why it don't explode

And everybody in this stinking town has got one foot in the grave

And I'm gonna take my chances with you tonight

On the way to Burma-Shave'

And he said, 'Eh, well you know.... okay Eh... how old are you?

Ah! That's... a problem...

Uh, where do you go to school, babe? Oh yeah? I went to Sweetwater

Oh yeah, I dropped out, y'know You know how it is. Got in trouble...

You know a guy named Eddie Alvarez? No?

Well, Presley's what they call me

Why don't you change the stations, baby?

And count the grain elevators,

Watch'em go by in he rear view mirror'

'Any way you point this thing is gonna beat the hell out of the sting!⁽⁶⁾

Cause every night I go to bed with all my dreams

I lie down and they die right here every morning

So come on, Presley, and drill me a hole with a barber pole⁽⁷⁾

Cause I'm jumping my parole like a fugitive tonight

Let's have another swig of that sweet Black Velvet

That sweet Black Velvet...

Let's pass that car!

Are you brave enough?

We can get there just before the sun comes up

You and me, on the way to Burma-Shave

Yeah... Cause I'm going crazy in this town, man

Yeah, my old man gives me nothing but shit!

I don't know, I don't care what they say

Let's get out of town tonight!'

Vrrrrrrrrooooom

Vrrrrrrrrooooom

Vrrrrrrrrooooom

Well... I was talking to my brother-in-law

He said there was a wreck out on the highway

He saw the smoke from the tires and the twisted machine

Oh, but all you've got is just a nickle's worth of dreams

And they've been swindled from you on the way to a place called Burma-Shave

You let the sun hit the derrick and cast a bat wing shadow

It's up against the car door on the shotgun side⁽⁹⁾

But you know something, baby?

I swear to God, when they pulled you from the wreck you still had on your shades

And dreams are growing wild every night

Just this side of Burma-Shave

And there's another young girl out by the highway tonight

with her thumb out

Just a few trucks going by...

Vrrrrrrrrooooom

Fish are jumpin', fish are jumpin'⁽¹⁰⁾

And the cotton is high

Written by: Tom Waits

Unofficial release: "Cold Beer On A Hot Night". KTS, 1993

(Transcribed by Ulf Berggren. Listserv Raindogs discussionlist. November, 1999)

Burma Shave

(Live version. Austin/ USA. Austin City Limits. December 5, 1978)

Aarghhh... yeahhhh... You know eh... when I was a kid... my dad had a 1957 station wagon... It was a Chevrolet. And man did I love that car. I used to go in the garage at night and turn out all the lights and roll up against it. (laughter) Huh, huh. I think that's against the law! But I remember driving all the way across country, when I was a kid in the back... I remember seeing Burma Shave signs all the way across the country along Route 66. And eh, well this is a story about a young girl. This small little town, a place called Marysville. It's up around Yuba City, Gridley, Chico, they're all the same. The names are different. It takes about... oh 23 miles and you're in the next one and they got a Foster Freeze just like they had in the one you were trying to get out of...

And eh you see there was this liquorice tattoo, he used to turn the gun metal blue

Scrawled across the shoulders of his dying little town

And he used to take the one eyed Jacks⁽²⁾ out across the railroad tracks⁽³⁾

With a scar on his belly there came a stranger passing through

And he was just a juvenile delinquent, he never learned how to behave

But the cops'd never think to look out in Burma-Shave

When the road was like a ribbon, and the moon was like a bone

He didn't seem to be like any guy she'd ever known

He kind of looked like Farley Granger⁽⁴⁾, the way he had his hair slicked back

And she said 'Well honey I've always been a sucker for a fella in a cowboy hat.

And just how far do you think you might be going?

He said 'Honey that would all depend on what you mean'

Cause you see eh, I'm only stopping here cause I got to get myself some of this gasoline'

'And I guess you should say I'm going thataway, why just as long as it's paved

And I guess you'd say I'm on my way to Burma-Shave'

And he said: 'Honey why don't you put your knees up on the glove compartment just like that'

She took out her barrettes, and man her hair spilled out just like rootbeer

And she popped her gum and she arched her back

And she said: 'Marysville⁽¹⁾ don't amount to nothing

it's just a wide spot in the road

and some nights my heart pounds like thunder

I don't know why it don't explode

If you ask me buddy, everyone in this stinking town has got one foot in the grave

I'd rather take my chances with you, take me all the way to Burma-Shave'

And he said: Honey, nothing to it. Cause you see eh... Presley's⁽⁵⁾ what I go by,

why don't you change the stations

Let's count the grain elevators as they go by in the rearview mirror'

Cause anyway you point this thing,

it's got to beat the hell out of the sting⁽⁶⁾

Cause every night I go to bed and I lie down all my dreams

and they die here every mornin'

So comon Presley, drill me a hole with a barber pole⁽⁷⁾

Cause I'm jumping my parole just like a fugitive tonight

And let's have another swig of that Black Velvet.

let's pass that car man if you're brave enough

So we can get there just before the sun comes up

Out in Burma-Shave '

Just you and me baby,

cause this town is driving me crazy

driving me crazy, I'm going crazy baby.

Vroooooooommmm, vrooooommmmmm.

Oh honey you know, I don't care what they say.

Go ahead and let them talk, yeah let them talk,

Cause tonight I'm gonna drive, I'm gonna drive baby

It's just you and me, it's just you and me baby.

Vroooooooommmm, vrooooommmmmm.

You see, the spider web cracked and the mustang I heard it scream

Someone said there was a wreck out on the highway.

I saw the smoke from the tires and the twisted machine

Well all you got is a nickel's worth of dreams,

and they've been swindled from you

when you're on your way to a place

called Burma-Shave

And the sun hit the derrick and cast a bat wing shadow

Up against the car door over on the shotgun side⁽⁸⁾

and baby when they pulled you from the wreck,

you still had on your shades.

But dreams are growing wild tonight,

just this side of a place I know... 

called Burma Shave.

And over by the Foster Freeze, well they're closing up now... 

Yeah, they're closing up... The waitress is going through her purse... There's only a few cars left... A truck rolls by... and there's another young girl, up against the Coke machine... with swizzle-stick legs, sucking on a Lucky Strike, and with a sign in her hand that says

"I'm On My Way To Burma Shave."

And it's a hot summer night.

And the fish are jumpin'. Fish are jumpin' and the cotton, the cotton is high... Your daddy's rich, your daddy's rich and your mamma's good-looking. She's so good-looking baby.

Vroooooooommmm, vrooooommmmmm.

So hush now, hush now. Hush now, don't you cry, don't you cry baby , don't you cry, don't you cry, don't you cry... don't you cry, don't you cry, don't you cry, don't you cry, don't you cry, don't you cry, don't you cry baby, don't you cry.

Don't you cry...

Written by: Tom Waits

No official release

(Transcribed by Pieter from Holland as published on Tom Waits Library, 2002)

Known covers:

Bangin' On The Table With An Old Tin Cup. Pascal Fricke. April 12, 2007. Self-released (Germany)

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Burma Shave:

- Further reading: Burma-Shave.org 

- Larry Goldstein (1978): Waits' latest LP is entitled Foreign Affairs, and it seems destined to be his biggest seller to date. His voice has never been better, though to the new listener it migh t grate like flesh over gravel. The difference in his vocal performance is best evidenced on the cut "Burma Shave" on which, as Waits explained, "I was trying to sing instead of just growling and grunting, which, by the time I get off the road is all I can muster up." (Source: "Nighthawks at the Chelsea", Modern Hi-Fi and Musics SOUND TRAX: Larry Goldstein. October, 1978)

- Brian Case (1979): Did he get "Burma Shave" from the Nick Ray movie, They Live By Night, from 1947? TW: "Yeah, that's the one. In fact that's a great story. Very sad at the end where he gets mowed down at the motel. Farley Granger does soap operas now, I think. He was in Minneapolis and this woman disc jockey played it for him and he got a real kick out of it. He always played the baby-face hood. He don't work much any more. I guess Sal Mineo got most of his roles. Yeah, I used that. I kept coming back to that movie image. Also, I have a lot of relatives in this little town called Marysville, and a cousin, her name is Corrine Johnson, and every time I'd go up there from Los Angeles in the summers, she was alway s like you know 'Christ man - I gotta get outa this fucking town. I wanna go to LA.' She finally did. She hitch-hiked out and stood by this Foster Freeze on Prom Night. Got in a car with a guy who was just some juvinile delinquent, and he took her all the way to LA where she eventually cracked up. Burma Shave was a shaving cream company. Abandoned in the late Fifties. Useta advertise all along the highway. I always thought it was the name of a town. (Source: "Wry & Danish to go". "MelodyMaker" magazine. Brian Case. Copenhagen, Early 1979)

- Kristine McKenna (1983): What do you consider your best work? TW: "I like the story in "Burma Shave" off Foreign Affairs, "Tom Traubert's Blues" off the new album. I like "Dave The Butcher" and "In The Neighborhood". (Source: "One From The Heart & One For The Road ". New Musical Express magazine. October 1, 1983. Interview by: Kristine McKenna)

- Tom Waits (1985): "Burma Shave is an American shaving-cream company, like Colgate. They advertise on the side of the road and they have these limericks which are broken up into different signs like pieces of a fortune cookie. You drive for miles before you get the full message. "PLEASE DON'T"... five miles... "STICK YOUR ARM OUT SO FAR"... another five miles... "IT MIGHT GO HOME"... five more miles... "IN ANOTHER MAN'S CAR - BURMA SHAVE." They reel you in. So when I was a kid I'd see these signs on the side of the road - BURMA SHAVE, BURMA SHAVE - and I'm young and I think it's the name of a town and I ask my dad, "When we getting to Burma Shave?" So in the song I used Burma Shave as a dream, a mythical community, a place two people are trying to get to. They don't make it." (Source: "Dog Day Afternoon" Time Out magazine (UK), by Richard Rayner. Date: New York, October 3-9, 1985)

- Live intro from 'Storming Heaven Benefit". Healdsburg. August 11, 1996: "Ths is about a small little town... When I was a kid we used to drive cross country. And for those of you who are old enough, you might remember the Burma-Shave signs on the side of the highway [some applause]. Thank you, all six of you! Anyway, this is about that. My dad yelling at me to hold my horses! And thirty years later I yelled at my kids to hold THEIR horses. So this is about a small little town. One of those tiny little towns by the side of the road. And somebody thumbing a ride trying to get out of town..." (Transcribed by Ulf Berggren. Listserv Raindogs discussionlist. November, 1999)

⁽²⁾ Across the (railroad) tracks: phr. [20C] inferior, second-rate (cf. WRONG SIDE OF THE TRACKS). [the area of a town in which the poor supposedly live; f. an era when many US towns were literally divided, socially as well as physically, by the railroadtracks] (Source: "Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang". Jonathon Green. Cassel & Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-304-35167-9)

⁽³⁾ One Eyed Jack

- Tom Waits (1979): "You know, a one eyed Jack is like a... You got one headlight burned out on your car. It's called a one eyed Jack." (Live version of "Burma Shave". Sydney, Australia. March, 1979)

⁽⁴⁾ Granger, Farley: Farley Earle Granger. Born: San Jose, Ca., July 1 1925. American actor and author. From 1943 on he played in films like: Edge of Doom, Arrowsmith, Strangers On A Train and They Live by Night (this movie by Nick Ray from 1947 (1949?) was the inspiration for the song Burma Shave). "Synopsis: "This boy...and this girl...were never properly introduced to the world we live in." With this superimposed opening title, director Nicholas Ray inaugurates his first feature, They Live by Night. Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell play a "Bonnie and Clyde"-type fugitive couple, who in trying to escape their past are hell-bent down the road to Doom. Despite their criminal activities, Bowie (Granger) and Keechie (O'Donnell) are hopelessly na�ve, fabricating their own idyllic dream world as the authorities close in. The entrapment -- both actual and symbolic -- of the young misfit couple can now be seen as a precursor to the dilemma facing James Dean in Ray's 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause. A box-office disappointment upon its first release, They Live by Night has since gained stature as one of the most sensitive and least-predictable entries in the film noir genre. The film was based on a novel by Edward Anderson, and in 1974 was filmed by Robert Altman under its original title, Thieves Like Us. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide"

⁽⁵⁾ Presley, Elvis: Elvis Aaron Presley. Born: January 8 1935. Died: August 16, 1977. (Burma Shave was released 1977). 

- Tom Waits (1993): "I was in Memphis recently for a wedding and I couldn't resist going to Graceland. I especially liked the bullet holes in the swing set and the red faced uniformed teen usherettes and their memorized text delivered while gesturing at the rusted play structure. "Elvis and the boys were just having a little too much fun one night and came out for a some target practice." They also mentioned that Elvis had picked out all the furniture for the Jungle Room in just thirty minutes." (Source: "Tom Foolery - Swapping stories with inimitable Tom Waits". Buzz Magazine: May 1993)

⁽⁶⁾ Sting: [1970s] a police undercover operation designed to entrap alleged criminals (Source: "Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang". Jonathon Green. Cassel & Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-304-35167-9)

⁽⁷⁾ Barber pole: The medieval symbol of a barber was a vertical pole with red and white spiraling stripes. In the 20th century some of these were displayed on the street powered by an electric motor, and had the appearance of a drill drilling into the sidewalk (Submitted by Gary Duncan. Raindogs Listserv discussionlist. September, 2000)

⁽⁸⁾ Swig n.: A swallow, gulp, or mouthful, esp. of whisky (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner). Also mentioned in Falling Down: "Go on take a swig of that poison and like it."

⁽⁹⁾ Shotgun side n.: The passenger seat in a vehicle. Origin: the American west (i.e. during the 1800s.) The "shotgun" was the person that sat next to the driver of a wagon with a shotgun, watching for trouble. (Source: The Online Slang Dictionary, Walter Rader)

⁽¹⁰⁾ Shades

- n. pl.: A pair of sunglasses. Orig. bop musician use c1948-c1955; now mainly beat and student use (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang - Supplement, Wentworth/ Flexner).

- Also mentioned in "A Sweet Little Bullet From A Pretty Blue Gun" (Now never trust a scarecrow wearin' shades after dark)

⁽¹¹⁾ Fish are jumpin', fish are jumpin'. Quoting: Summertime. Written by: Gershwin/ Heyward. Originally performed by Abbie Mitchell in "Porgy and Bess", 1935: "Summertime and the livin' is easy. Fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high. Yo' daddy's rich and yo' mama's good lookin'. So hush little baby, don't you cry. One of these mornin's, you're gonna rise up singin'. You're gonna spread yo' wings and take to the sky. But til that mornin' ain't nothin' can harm you. With yo' daddy and mammy standin' by."

Diamonds On My Windshield

(Early demo version, 1971)

Diamonds on my windshield

Tears from heaven

Pullin' into town on the Interstate

Pullin' a steel train in the rain

Wind bites my cheek through the wing

Fast flying and freeway driving

Always makes me sing

Duster tryin' to change my tune

Pullin' up fast on the right

Rollin' restlessly, twenty-four hour moon

Wisconsin hiker with a cue-ball head

Wishin' he's home in a Wisconsin bed

Fifteen feet of snow in the east

Colder than a welldigger's ass

And Oceanside, it ends the ride,

San Clemente coming up

Sunday desperadoes slip by

Texaco station close in, you cruise by with a dry back

The orange drive-in, neon billin'

Theatre's fillin' to the brim

Slave girls and a hot spurn bucket full of sin

Metropolitan area, interchange and connections

Fly-by-nights from Riverside

Black and white plates, out of state, running a little late

Sailors jockey for the fast lane 101 don't miss it

Rollin' hills and concrete fields

Broken line on your mind

The eights go east and the fives go north

And the merging nexus back and forth

See your sign, you cross the line, signal with a blink

Radio's gone off the air, and gives you time to think

Easy ridin', creep across, this intersection [?]

Hear the rumble as you fumble for a cigarette

Blazin' through the neon jungle

Remember someone that you met

And one more block, the engine talks

And whispers: home at last

Whispers

Whispers

Whispers home at last

Home at last

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Warner Chappell Music Ltd., 1971-1992 & Bizarre/ Straight Records, 1992

Official release: "The Early Years 2". Issued under licence from Bizarre/ Straight Records by Edsel Records, 1992

Recorded July - December 1971, Los Angeles, CA

(Not authorized by Tom Waits)

Diamonds On My Windshield

(The Heart Of Saturday Night studio version, 1974)

Well, these diamonds on my windshield

And these tears from heaven

Well, I'm pulling into town on the Interstate

I got a steel train in the rain

And the wind bites my cheek through the wing

And it's these late nights and this freeway flying

It always makes me sing

There's a Duster⁽²⁾ trying to change my tune⁽³⁾

He's pulling up fast on the right

Rolling restlessly by a twenty-four hour moon

And a Wisconsin hiker with a cue-ball head⁽⁴⁾

He's wishing he was home in a Wisconsin bed

But there's fifteen feet of snow in the east

Colder than a welldigger's ass

And it's colder than a welldigger's ass

Oceanside, it ends the ride with San Clemente coming up⁽⁵⁾

Those Sunday desperadoes⁽⁶⁾ slip by and cruise with a dry back

And the orange drive-in, the neon billin'

And the theatre's fillin' to the brim

With slave girls and a hot spurn bucket full of sin

Metropolitan area with interchange and connections

Fly-by-nights⁽⁷⁾ from Riverside

And out of state plates running a little late

But the sailors jockey⁽⁸⁾ for the fast lane

So 101 don't miss it

There's rolling hills and concrete fields

And the broken line's on your mind

The eights go east and the fives go north

And the merging nexus back and forth

You see your sign, cross the line, signalling with a blink

And the radio's gone off the air

Gives you time to think

And you hear the rumble

As you fumble for a cigarette

And blazing through this midnight jungle

Remember someone that you met

And one more block, the engine talks

Whispers 'home at last'

It whispers 'home at last'

Whispers 'home at last'

Whispers 'home at last'

Whispers 'home at last'

And the diamonds on my windshield

And these tears from heaven

Well I'm pulling into town on the Interstate

I got me a steel train in the rain

And the wind bites my cheek through the wing

Late nights and freeway flying

Always makes me sing

It always makes me sing

Hey, look here, Jack

Okay

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Fifth Floor Music Inc. (ASCAP), � 1974 & Warner Bros. Music Ltd, 1986

Official release: "The Heart Of Saturday Night", Elektra/ Asylum Records, 1974 &

"Bounced Checks", WEA/ Asylum Records, 1981 &

"Anthology Of Tom Waits", WEA/ Elektra, 1984 &

"Asylum Years", WEA International Inc., 1986

Known covers:

Life Imitates Art. Steve Glotzer. September 12, 2000. The Orchard

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Jay S. Jacobs: "Diamonds on My Windshield" was scribbled on the back of a tour itinerary in a single spontaneous burst, and it recalls Tom's days of shuffling between San Diego and Los Angeles, stopping regularly for a cup of coffee, a bathroom break, or a car repair. Pulling out this scrap of paper in the studio, Tom began to wrestle with his jotted lyrics, but "Diamonds" just wouldn't click. Finally, the session musicians caught a vibe that Tom liked. The bassist, Jim Hughart, hit on a cool bass line, and the drummer, who that day was Jim Gordon, pulled out the brushes and delivered a hot shuffle beat. Gordon, a brilliant studio musician, was once a member of Eric Clapton's supergroup, Derek and the Dominoes; he cowrote the rock anthem "Layla" with Clapton. Years later, in a fit of dementia, he killed his mother, and he was forced to spend his later years in a mental hospital. But that day at Wally Heider Recording the atmosphere was unclouded by specters of tragedy. Waits, Hughart, and Gordon nailed "Diamonds on My Windshield" on the first take. (Source: Wild Years, The Music and Myth of Tom Waits. Jay S. Jacobs, 2000)

- Tom Waits: (introducing Diamonds On My Windshield, Folkscene, 1974): "This is about driving in the rain. I used to make that track from San Diego to Los Angeles a lot, usually with several pit stops on the way with engine trouble. So this is about driving in the rain, circa 1973, so slip me some crimson, Jimson." (Source: Folkscene 1974, with Howard and Roz Larman (KPFK-FM 90.7) audio tape. Date: Los Angeles/ USA. July 23, 1974 (June 10?))

- Tom Waits: On Diamonds On My Windshield (WAMU Radio, 1975): "I didn't really know what to do with that piece cause it was written out just as some spontaneous verse that I had written on the back of an itinerary and I didn't know what the hell to do with it. So we went in the studio and I tried singing it, tried doing it a-capella - nothing worked. Jim Hughart was playing the upright bass with me for that session just started playing a modal bass line and I just started talking and Jim Gordon started playing a cool 12 bar shuffle on brushes and we just winged it in one take and we had it and I like the way it came out. I'm gonna do more of that on this 3rd album that I'm thinking about right now and writing for out here. I bring a tape recorder with me and when I get back to the hotel I talk to myself and I'm working on some spoken word pieces that I want to do with accompaniment. I call it Metropolitan Doubletalk and I'm going to be doing more of that on this forthcoming album. It's called Nighthawk Postcards From Easy Street so I'm going to explore some more of that kind of thing." (Source: WAMU Radio Interview, audio tape. Date: Washington, DC. April 18, 1975)

- Tom Waits (introducing Diamonds On My Windshield, 1976): "Well, let's see here uh... I uh... uhm. I'm gonna do a thing about cars uh. This is kind of a, sort of a mutational uh sub cultural uh automotive uh Southern California fascination with the internal combustion engine. Maybe we do something here uh.. [starts snapping fingers] This is about a uh... I don't know uh, it seemed like getting my drivers license when I was a kid, was like uhm... You know uh, certainly a major event, you know uh. I mean it was almost as important as puberty. You know uh, so uh... Well the first car I ever had I bought for $125 from a guy uh who was leaving town, and he had to let it go and it was like uh, real sentimental to him, you know uh? It was a Buick Roadmaster and uh he said: "Well, turn it over." [imitates starting engine trouble]. Well I said: "Well, I give you $100 for it." Huh, huh... And uh, so this is a little bit of uh... little piece here about driving in the rain... No wipers, and a glove compartment full of moving violations. You know? Huh, huh..." (Source: WNEW FM: Vin Scelsa's Idiot's Delight Date: Recorded MediaSound Studios NYC. December 14, 1976. Aired December 18, 1976 on WNEW-FM. Rebroadcast March 24, 1996 WNEW-FM)

⁽²⁾ Duster: American car produced by Chrystler (Plymouth Duster, Plymouth Valiant Duster)

⁽³⁾ Change one's tune: 

- phr. [late 16C+] to alter one's opinions or statements, esp. to go back on what one has previously said [musical imagery] (Source: "Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang". Jonathon Green. Cassel & Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-304-35167-9).

- Also mentioned in Drunk On The Moon, 1974: "Don't try and change my tune."

⁽⁴⁾ Cueball, cue-ball n.: A man or a boy who has just had a close or crew haircut. Army and student use. Because of the resemblance between a white billiard cue ball and a closely cropped head. Archaic (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner) 

⁽⁵⁾ Oceanside, it ends the ride with San Clemente coming up: Driving from San Diego along the Interstate (I-5 freeway) in the Los Angeles direction. "The I-5 freeway has replaced the notorious old US-101 highway, a three-lane road whose center passing lane was so dangerous it earned the name "blood alley", the site of more fatalities per mile than any other stretch of road in the state." The I-5 freeway was completed in 1960 and was the last major section of US-101 to be signed on a new alignment south of Los Angeles.

⁽⁶⁾ Desperado n.: A person who borrows or gambles larger sums than he will be able to pay; one whose standard of living is sensationally more costly than his income warrants (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner) 

⁽⁷⁾ Fly-by-night

- n.: One who defrauds his creditors by decamping at night-time. (Source: "The First Hypertext Edition of The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable", E. Cobham Brewer. � 1997-99 Bibliomania.com Ltd)

- [late 19C+] anyone dubious, crooked, criminal, esp. of a businessman who takes one's money but fails to provide any or at least adequate recompense

Grapefruit Moon

(Early demo version, 1971)

Grapefruit moon, one star shining

Shining down on me

I heard that tune, and now I'm pining

Honey, can't you see

That every time I hear that melody

Something breaks inside

And the grapefruit moon, one star shining

Can't turn back the tide

I never had no destination

Could not get across

And you became my inspiration

Oh, but what a cost

And every time I hear that melody

Puts me up a tree⁽¹⁾

And the grapefruit moon, one star shining

Is all that I can see

Now I'm smoking cigarettes

And strive for purity

And I slip just like the stars Into obscurity

Cause every time I hear that melody

Something breaks inside

And the grapefruit moon, and one star shining

Is much too big to hide

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Warner Chappell Music Ltd., 1971-1992 & Bizarre/ Straight Records, 1992

Official release: "The Early Years 2". Issued under licence from Bizarre/ Straight Records by Edsel Records, 1992

Recorded July - December 1971, Los Angeles, CA

(Not authorized by Tom Waits)

Grapefruit Moon

(Closing Time studio version, 1973)

One, two, three, four

Grapefruit moon, one star shining

Shining down on me

Heard that tune, and now I'm pining

Honey, can't you see?

Cause every time I hear that melody

something breaks inside

And the grapefruit moon, one star shining

Can't turn back the tide

Never had no destinations

Could not get acrossed

You became my inspiration

Oh, but what a cost

And every time I hear that melody

something breaks inside

And the grapefruit moon, one star shining

is more than I can hide

Now I'm smoking cigarettes

and I strive for purity

And I slip just like the stars

into obscurity

And every time I hear that melody

puts me up a tree⁽¹⁾

And the grapefruit moon, one star shining

is all that I can see

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Fifth Floor Music Inc. (ASCAP), � 1973 & Warner Bros. Music Ltd, 1986

Official release: Closing Time, Elektra Entertainment/ WEA International Inc., 1973 &

"Asylum Years", WEA International Inc., 1986

Known covers:

Angel Town. Joy Eden Harrison. February 1995. Manifesto Records

Everything. To Be Two (Eddie N�nning and Christiane Weber). November, 2000. Acoustic Records

Under The Influence - The songs of Tom Waits. Barry Charles. 2003. Tara Hall Productions (Australia)

Soulskin. Soulskin. January, 2003 (October, 2002). Askew Records

Milestone. Dave Donohoe. February 2, 2003. Self-released

Overland. Randal Bays and Daithi Sproule. 2004. Foxglove Records 

Blood And Feathers (live). Ute Lemper. June 7, 2005. DRG Records (USA)

Ruby Moon. Daemgen & September. September 22, 2006. Erdenklabg/ DA-Music (Germany)

Keys to the Kingdom. Mary Alice Amidon. June 19, 2007. Self-released

Grapefruit Moon: Songs of Tom Waits. Southside Johnny & La Bamba's Bigband. September 19, 2008. Evangeline (Soulfood Music)

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Up a tree

- In a dilemma; caught in a predicament. Since c1825. From the notion of a person chased up in a tree by a wild animal (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner)

- Shelved; nowhere; done for. A 'possum up a gum-tree. (Source: "The First Hypertext Edition of The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable", E. Cobham Brewer. � 1997-99 Bibliomania.com Ltd)

I Never Talk To Strangers

[Bartender, I'd like a Manhattan please]⁽¹⁾

Stop me if you've heard this one

But I feel as though we've met before

Perhaps I am mistaken

But it's just that I remind you of

Someone you used to care about

Oh, but that was long ago

Now tell me, do you really think I'd fall for that old line

I was not born just yesterday⁽²⁾

Besides I never talk to strangers anyway

Hell, I ain't a bad guy when you get to know me

I just thought there ain't no harm

Hey, yeah, just try minding your own business, bud

Who asked you to annoy me

With your sad, sad repartee

Besides I never talk to strangers anyway

Your life's a dimestore novel

This town is full of guys like you

And you're looking for someone to take the place of her

You must be reading my mail

And you're bitter cause he left you

That's why you're drinkin' in this bar

Well, only suckers fall in love with perfect strangers

It always takes one to know one stranger

Maybe we're just wiser now

Yeah, and been around that block so many times

That we don't notice

That we're all just perfect strangers

As long as we ignore

That we all begin as strangers

Just before we find

We really aren't strangers anymore

[Aw, you don't look like such a chump]

[Aw, hey baby]

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Fifth Floor Music, Inc. (ASCAP),� 1977 & Warner Bros. Music Ltd, 1986⁽⁴⁾

Official release: "Foreign Affairs", Elektra Entertainment/ WEA International Inc., 1977 &

"Bounced Checks", WEA/ Asylum Records, 1981 &

"Anthology Of Tom Waits", WEA/ Elektra, 1984 &

"Asylum Years", WEA International Inc., 1986

Tom Waits: vocals and piano. Bette Midler: vocals⁽³⁾

Arrangement and lyrics published in "Tom Waits - Anthology" (Amsco Publications, 1988/ Nuova Carisch, 2000)

Known covers:

Broken Blossom. Bette Midler, 1977/ 1995. Atlantic (same cut as on "Foreign Affairs")

Live 1989-1993. The Piano Has Been Drinking (Gerd K�ster). November 15, 1993. Chlodwig/ BMG Germany (Met Fremde kein Verdr��ch)

Pornoshow - Laura Fedele Interpreta Tom Waits. Laura Fedele. May, 2003.Auditorium, AUD 00902 (in Italian)

Perfect Strangers. Margaret Wakeley. May, 2004. Self-released

Oh Marie! (7" version). Ladyfuzz. July 13, 2006.: WEA

Levenslijn. Various artists. August 29, 2006. Universal Music Belgium (performed by Wendy Van Wanten & Roland)

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Manhattan

- A cocktail based on Canadian whisky (Canadian whisky, red Vermouth, Angostura).

- Also mentioned in "I'll Take New York", 1986/ 1987: "I'm on the caboose, I'm drinkin' Manhattan"

⁽²⁾ I was not born just yesterday: phr. [late 19C+] aware, sophisticated, 'on the ball'(Source: "Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang". Jonathon Green. Cassel & Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-304-35167-9)

⁽³⁾ Bette Midler:

- Barney Hoskyns (2009): “Inevitably these veterans of heartbreak overcame their cynicism as they got to the first base of flirtation. "Bette was in the middle of making Broken Blossom," [Bones] Howe recalls. "But she came to the studio and we put two mics at the piano and she went out and sat next to Tom on the piano bench and we probably did six takes before we got it." The song was slightly below Midler's range, forcing her to sing more conversationally. "When you write for a duet," says Bob Alcivar, "you've got to kind of psych out the two singers and decide what the key's going to be. In this case it was Tom's key, so Bette had to kind of fake it and go up and down and change the registers.” Vocal jazz connoisseurs would surely have something to say about Midler as canary, but her turn here as a kind of white Betty Carter worked because of its imperfection. "She drove me crazy for three months," says Howe. "She kept saying, 'I was sharp on that note, I was flat on that one,' I said, 'It doesn't get any better than that, it could be a stage performance."' (Source: “Lowside Of The Road: A Life Of Tom Waits" by Barney Hoskyns. Faber/ Broadway, 2009)

- Larry Goldstein (1978) : "One of the few people with whom he can work is Bette (as in Midler.) "I met her, now let me see, a couple of years ago at the bottom Line (a nightclub) in New York," he said, "and we got along famously. I admire her a great deal. And you know...I'll kick anybody's ass who knocks her. I wrote a couple of tunes for her." ("Shiver Me Timbers" among them.) The two stayed close friends and then one day Bette dropped by the studio during the recording of Foreign Affairs just to say hello. The topic of duets arose, and she asked Waits to try and write one for them. So Tom went home and went to work and came back the next day with a brand new song, to be recorded that day, I Never Talk To Strangers, which has become the most popular song on the album. When I asked him about the possibility of more collaboration between the two, Waits was intentionally vague and mysterious. "We might work something out," he said. (Source: "Nighthawks at the Chelsea", Modern Hi-Fi and Musics SOUND TRAX: Larry Goldstein. October, 1978)

⁽⁴⁾ One From The Heart

- In 1980 this song prompted Francis Ford Coppola to contact Waits on working together on the soundtrack for One From The Heart.

- Tom Waits (1981): "When I was in New York back in April of 1980, Francis was there auditioning people he wanted to be involved with the film. Somebody had sent him my records and Francis liked the song "I Never Talk to Strangers," a duet I'd done with Bette Midler [on Waits' Foreign Affairs LP released in '77]. He liked the relationship between the singers, a conversation between a guy and a girl in a bar. That was the impetus for him contacting me and asking me if I was interested in writing music for his film." (Source: "Tom Waits: Hollywood Confidential" BAM magazine (US). Date: Travelers' Cafe/ Echo Park. February 26, 1982)

Kentucky Avenue

Well, Eddie Grace's Buick got four bullet holes in the side⁽²⁾

And Charlie DeLisle is sittin' at the top of an avocado tree⁽³⁾

Mrs. Storm⁽⁴⁾ will stab you with a steak knife if you step on her lawn

I got a half a pack of Lucky Strikes, man, so come along with me

And let's fill our pockets with macadamia nuts

And go over to Bobby Goodmanson's and jump off the roof

Well, Hilda plays strip poker when her mama's cross the street

Joey Navinski says she put her tongue in his mouth

And Dicky Faulkner's got a switchblade and some gooseneck risers

That eucalyptus is a hunchback, there's a wind down from the south

So let me tie you up with kite string and I'll show you the scabs on my knee

Watch out for the broken glass, put your shoes and socks on

And come along with me

Let's follow that fire truck, I think your house is burnin' down

And go down to the hobo jungle⁽⁵⁾ and kill some rattlesnakes with a trowel

And we'll break all the windows in the old Anderson⁽⁶⁾ place

And we'll steal a bunch of boysenberries and I'll smear 'em on your face

I'll get a dollar from my mama's purse and buy that scull and crossbones ring

And you can wear it 'round your neck on an old piece of string

Then we'll spit on Ronnie Arnold and flip him the bird⁽⁷⁾

And slash the tires on the school bus, now don't say a word

I'll take a rusty nail and scratch your initials in my arm

And I'll show you how to sneak up on the roof of the drugstore

I'll take the spokes from your wheelchair⁽⁸⁾ and a magpie's wings

And I'll tie 'em to your shoulders and your feet

I'll steal a hacksaw from my dad and cut the braces off your legs

And we'll bury them tonight out in the cornfield

Just put a church key⁽⁹⁾ in your pocket, we'll hop that freight train⁽¹⁰⁾ in the hall

We'll slide all the way down the drain to New Orleans in the fall

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Fifth Floor Music, Inc. (ASCAP),� 1978 & Warner Bros. Music Ltd, 1986

Official release: "Blue Valentine", Elektra Entertainment/ WEA International Inc., 1978 &

"Asylum Years", WEA International Inc., 1986

Arrangement and lyrics published in "Tom Waits - Anthology" (Amsco Publications, 1988/ Nuova Carisch, 2000)

Known covers:

Fjorton S�nger. Bad Liver & Hans Brustna Hj�rtan. 1989. Nonstop Records (1989), City Records (re-release May, 1993) NSM 33-15 (in Swedish: "Kvarteret Stormen")

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Kentucky Avenue: 

- Tom Waits (introducing Kentucky Avenue, 1976): "I grew up on a street called Kentucky Avenue in Whittier, California. My dad was teaching night school at Montebello. I had a little tree fort and everything. I had my first cigarette when I was about seven years old. It was such a thrill. I used to pick 'em up right out of the gutter after it was raining. My dad smoked Kents. Now, I never liked Kents - I tried to get him to change brands. I used to repair everybody's bicycles in the neighborhood. I was the little neighborhood mechanic. There was a guy called Joey Navinski who played the trombone, and a guy called Dickie Faulkner whose nose was always running. And there was a woman called Mrs. Storm. She lived with her sister. She used to sit in her kitchen with her window open and a twelve-gauge shotgun [sticking] out of it ... so we took the long way around." (Source: Live at the Apollo Theatre, London, UK. March 23, 1976)

- Tom Waits (introducing Kentucky Avenue, 1979): "Here's a song about growing up. I grew up at a street called Kentucky Avenue. Well, I was born at a very young age, and eh when I was about 5 years old I used to... I used to walk down Kentucky Avenue collecting cigarette buts. And I finally got me a paper route. I used to get up at 1 o' clock in the morning so I could deliver my papers and still have time to break the law..." (Source: BBC's "Tonight In Person" TV show. July 26, 1979)

- Tom Waits (1981): "My best friend, when I was a kid, had polio. I didn't understand what polio was. I just knew it took him longer to get to the bus stop than me. I dunno. Sometimes I think kids know more than anybody. I rode a train once to Santa Barbara with this kid and it almost seemed like he lived a life somewhere before he was born and he brought what he knew with him into this world and so..." His voice fades off for a moment, then, "...It's what you don't know that's usually more interesting. Things you wonder about, things you have yet to make up your mind about. There's more to deal with than just your fundamental street wisdom. Dreams. Nightmares." (Source: "Tom Waits: Waits And Double Measures" Smash Hits magazine by Johnny Black. March 18, 1981)

- Tom Waits (1985): "Childhood is very important to me as a writer, I think the things that happen then, the way you perceive them and remember them in later life, have a very big effect on what you do later on." "That one came over a little dramatic, a little puffed up, but when I was 10 my best friend was called Kipper, he had polio and was in a wheelchair - we used to race each other to the bus stop." (Source: "Hard Rain" New Musical Express (UK), by Gavin Martin. Date: New York. October 19, 1985)

⁽²⁾ Eddie Grace's Buick got four bullet holes in the side: Might refer to Buick trademark portholes, reminiscent of large bulletholes. The post-war Buick Roadmaster (as sung about in Ol' '55), had the famous Buick Ventiports, better known as portholes (created by Buick designer Ned Nickles). While lesser Buicks had only three on each fender, the Roadmaster sported four, making it instantly recognizable.

⁽³⁾ And Charlie DeLisle is sittin' at the top of an avocado tree: In 1978 Waits was interviewed for The Santa Barbara News And Review, by Charley Delisle Waits's childhood friend.

⁽⁴⁾ Mrs. Storm:

- Also mentioned in Spidey's Wild Ride (Orphans - bastards, 2006): "And big John Jizom from downtown Chizom flew away with old mrs. Storm."

- Tom Waits (1999): "When I was a kid, I had a friend whose dad was a truck driver. His name was Gale Storm. We had moved to National City, and his dad was coming through town, and he picked me up and he took me back up to L.A., to Whittier, to stay for a weekend. And I rode in the truck all the way up there. I was just like, "I'm gonna -- I don't know what I'm gonna do, but I'm changed." (Source: "Gone North, Tom Waits, upcountry" L.A. Weekly. Robert Lloyd. April 23-29, 1999)

- Tom Waits (1976): "And there was a woman called Mrs. Storm. She lived with her sister. She used to sit in her kitchen with her window open and a twelve-gauge shotgun [sticking] out of it ... so we took the long way around." (Source: Live at the Apollo Theatre, London, UK. March 23, 1976)

⁽⁵⁾ Hobo jungle n.: 1. A hobo camp and rendezvous, usu. a clear space in a thicket (for fuel) near a railroad (for transportation), and ideally also near water and on the outskirts of a city 2. A gathering place for the unemployed of a city, often near the dumping ground and usu. equipped with homemade shacks or huts for those with no other place to live. (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner)

⁽⁶⁾ Anderson: Tom Waits (1983): "I was stranded in Arizona on the route 66. It was freezing cold and I slept at a ditch. I pulled all these leaves all over on top of me and dug a hole and shoved my feet in this hole. It was about 20 below and no cars going by. Everything was closed. When I woke up in the morning there was a pentecostal church right over the road. I walked over there with leaves in my hair and sand on the side of my face. This woman named Mrs. Anderson came. It was like New Years' Eve... Yeah, it was New Years' Eve. She said: "We're having services here and you are welcome to join us." So I sat at the back pew in this tiny little church...." (Source: "Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones". Island Promo interview, 1983)

⁽⁷⁾ Flip the bird, flip a bird v.i.: To gesture (to someone) by raising a clenched fist with the second finger extended; to give the finger to (Source: American - Australian slang dictionary, O'Shea)

⁽⁸⁾ Wheelchair:

- Gavin Martin (1985): "Blue Valentine' has the Waits song I keep coming back to. 'Kentucky Avenue' starts as fanciful childhood reminiscence and builds to a climax that is at once absurd and heartbreaking, TW: "Childhood is very important to me as a writer, I think the things that happen then, the way you perceive them and remember them in later life, have a very big effect on what you do later on." "That one came over a little dramatic. a little puffed up, but when I was 10 my best friend was called Kipper, he had polio and was in a wheelchair - we used to race each other to the bus stop." (Source: "Hard Rain". New Musical Express: Gavin Martin. October 19, 1985)

⁽⁹⁾ Church key n.:

- A bottle or can opener, esp. as used to open a container of beer (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang - Supplement, Wentworth/ Flexner). 

- Also mentioned in "Mr. Henry": "Tuggin' at his shirttail, jinglin' his church key."

- "The shape of the business end of the tool reminded people of the often ornate handles to big, old-fashioned door keys. The link with churches in particular was surely because in the experience of most people such big keys opened church doors. It's also more than probable that an irreverent joke was attached as well, in that drinking beer was an unchurchly thing to do. Before the messages start to be written, let me rapidly move on to a further stage in the development of the term. As you say, the phrase church key is only recorded in print from 1951, though there is much anecdotal evidence to suggest it is rather older in the spoken language, perhaps from the late 1930s. This was around the time at which beer began to be sold in cans rather than bottles. These early cans also needed a tool to open them, since the pull tabs of today were not to be introduced until about 1962. The tool was a stout flat strip of metal with a sharp point, which you pressed into the top of the can to puncture a triangular hole (two were needed on opposite sides, I recall, to let air in so the beer would flow easily). By an obvious analogy, these also came to be called church keys, even though they were a completely different shape. The cap on these beer bottles, by the way, is a crown cork, named after a fanciful view of the ring of crinkled points around the edge of the metal closure before it was clamped on the neck of the bottle. It was invented in 1898 by William Painter, and his firm, the Crown Cork and Seal Company of Baltimore, is still very much around, though these days it spends most of its time making aluminium cans and other packaging products. (Please forgive an enthusiast's digression: I used to run a museum of cidermaking and would demonstrate a hand crown corker to visiting parties. A good operator could do 15 a minute but I never managed so many)" (Source: World Wide Words is copyright � Michael Quinion, 1996-2004. All rights reserved)

⁽¹⁰⁾ Freight train in the hall:

- Kristine McKenna (1983): What's the earliest memory fixed in your mind? Tom Waits: "I have a very early memory of getting up in the middle of the night and standing at my doorway by the hall in the house and having to stand there and wait while a train went by. And after the train passed I could cross the hall into my parent's room." (Source: "One From The Heart & One For The Road ". New Musical Express magazine. Interview by: Kristine McKenna. October 1, 1983)

- Tom Waits (1987): "When I was a kid there used to be a train in the hall. Every night a train went through the hall. To get into the bathroom I used to have to wait into my doorway. The freight train used to run right through the center of the house." (Source: "MTV's The Cutting Edge 'Limo Interview"The Best of the Cutting Edge, Volume II. 1987)

Martha

Operator, number please, it's been so many years

Will she remember my old voice while I fight the tears

Hello, hello there, is this Martha, this is old Tom Frost

And I am calling long distance, don't worry 'bout the cost

Cause it's been forty years or more, now Martha please recall

Meet me out for coffee, where we'll talk about it all

And those were the days of roses, of poetry and prose

And Martha all I had was you and all you had was me

There was no tomorrows, we packed away our sorrows

And we saved them for a rainy day

And I feel so much older now, and you're much older too

How's your husband, and how's your kids, you know that I got married too

Lucky that you found someone to make you feel secure

Cause we were all so young and foolish, now we are mature

And those were the days of roses, of poetry and prose

And Martha all I had was you and all you had was me

There was no tomorrows, we packed away our sorrows

And we saved them for a rainy day

And I was always so impulsive, I guess that I still am

And all that really mattered then was that I was a man

I guess that our being together was never meant to be

And Martha, Martha, I love you, can't you see

And those were the days of roses, of poetry and prose

And Martha all I had was you and all you had was me

There was no tomorrows, we packed away our sorrows

And we saved them for a rainy day

And I remember quiet evenings, trembling close to you

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Fifth Floor Music Inc. (ASCAP), �1973

Official release: Closing Time, Elektra Entertainment/ WEA International Inc., 1973 &

"Anthology Of Tom Waits", WEA/ Elektra, 1984

Arrangement and lyrics published in "Tom Waits - Anthology" (Amsco Publications, 1988/ Nuova Carisch, 2000)

Known covers:

Sefronia. Tim Buckley, 1973. Third Story/ Fifth Floor. DiscReet MS-2157(first cover of a Waits song ever, mid 1973 - re-released on "Step Right Up", 1995)

Poet, Fool, Bum. Lee Hazlewood, 1973. Capitol ST-11177 UK- Stateside (EMI) SSL-10315

Do You Do. Freddie White. 1981. Mulligan Records (re-released on "Lost And Found", 2002)

Street Of Dreams. Nancy Harrow. April, 1988. Gazell Records (re-released November, 1995)

Vanity. Jan Vayne. 1994. EMI (The Netherlands)

Welcome To The Neighbourhood. Meat Loaf. November, 1995. Mca Special Products

Step Right Up (The Songs Of Tom Waits). Various artists. November, 1995. Manifesto Records. Performed by Tim Buckley (same version as on "Sefronia", 1973)

La Femme En Rouge. Loes Snijders. 1999. Comoedia Mundi

Everybody Has A Dream. Mitchell Howard. 2000. Cling Peaches Music

Willis Moore. So Far. March 22, 2000. Self-released

Nach mir die Sintflut - Ambros singt Waits. Wolfgang Ambros. October 9, 2000. Ariol/ Gig Records 74321 797002 (in German)

The Carnival Saloon Live. The Carnival Saloon. October, 2001. Self-released (Ireland)

Piano Face. John Autin. 2002. Rabadash Records

Lost And Found. Freddie White. 2002. Little Don Records (same version as on "Do You Do", 1981)

Unplugged. Anne B�renz & Frank Wolff. 2003. B�chergilde (Germany)

Homegrown. Nussbaumer/ Weber/ Kreil. 2003. Self-released

Greetings From Hell - The Tom Waits Songbook, Hell Blues Choir. September, 2003. Tylden & Co (Norway)

One For The Ages. Andy Cooney. March 2, 2004. Rego Irish

Bye-Bye. Anne B�renz. October, 2006. Stalburg Theater (Germany)

Timbre. Yukiko Hayashi. May 24, 2007. EWE Records (Japan)

A Thousand Nights. Melanie Doane. July 1, 2008. Prairie Ocean Recordings 

Covers. Manu Codjia. November 17, 2010. BeeJazz (France)

Notes:

Timothy White (1979): "As Bette and I order dinner, I think aloud about her appearance last May on Saturday Night Live. Poured into a sleek white dress covered with jagged black spots, she had treated the studio audience to a disco-driven rendition of "Married Men," the single from her latest LP, Thighs and Whispers. She resembled some manic she-devil -- half woman, half jungle cat -- as she slithered and snarled to the torrid dance tempo. Ruffling her unruly blond tresses, Midler carried on with vintage vigor, supported by a phalanx of backup singers whose garish costumes (satin wedding gowns, black tails) and cocky grins were of a piece with the Divine Miss M's trademarks of hot flash and sassy trash. But when she stepped from the shadows for her second song, her racy attire had been replaced by a simple black smock and tights, and there was a vulnerability in her humble demeanor. She stated she wanted to do a song written by her friend Tom Waits, and in a strained, doleful voice she began to sing "Martha."

Operator, number please, it's been so many years / Will she remember my old voice while I fight the tear's

Although rather bleak, the ballad is not terribly different from many of her more somber torch songs. But there was an underlying grittiness to her tone that had less to do with performing than with simple grief.

I feel so much older row, you're much older too / How's your husband, how's the kids, you know I got married too / Lucky that you found someone to make you feel secure / We were all so young and foolish, now we are mature

Creeping into the second chorus, her voice faltered, and the camera caught a tiny sparkle in her eye, a glimmering pinpoint that grew steadily into a tear.

I was always so impulsive, guess that I still am . . . / I guess that our being together was never meant to be

As the plaintive music subsided, Bette clutched the microphone, mascara running down her cheek. The dark eyes glazed over and her face fell into a pained expression so distant that I wondered if she remembered where she was. It was an altogether curious vignette, profoundly moving yet equally perplexing.

"That song calls up a lot of deep things for me," Bette sadly admits as she picks at her Caesar salad. "That night on the show, I was thinking about my mom. I lost my mother this year; she had leukemia for a long time, cancer of the liver -- and of the breast, incidentally, when I was a kid. She suffered most of her life. "She just thought I was it," Midler says, brightening for an instant." (Source: Rolling Stone: December 13, 1979: "The Rose: Bette Midler Conquers Hollywood, Bette Midler Outgrows Her Hollywood Dreams in 'The Rose'" Timothy White)

Potter's Field

Well, you can buy me a drink and I'll tell you what I've seen

And I'll give you a bargain from the edge of a maniac's dream

That buys a black widow spider with a riddle in his yarn

That's clingin' to the furrow of a blind man's brow

And I'll start talkin' from the brim of a thimble full of whiskey

On a train through the Bronx that will take you just as far

As the empty of a bottle to the highway of a scar

That stretched across the blacktop⁽²⁾ of my cheek like that

And then ducks beneath the brim of a fugitive's hat

You'll learn why liquor makes a stool pigeon⁽³⁾ rat on every face

That ever left a shadow down on Saint Mark's place

Hell, I'd double-cross⁽⁴⁾ my mother if it was whiskey that they paid

And so an early bird says Nightstick's⁽⁵⁾ on the hit parade

And he ain't got a prayer and his days are numbered

And you'll track him down like a dog

But it's a tough customer you're gettin' in this trade

Cause the Nightstick's heart pumps lemonade

And whiskey keeps a blind man talkin' all right

And I'm the only one who knows just where he stayed last night

He was in a wreckin' yard in a switchblade storm

In a wheelbarrow with nothin' but revenge to keep him warm

And a half a million dollars in unmarked bills

Was the Nightstick's blanket in a February chill

And the buzzards drove a crooked sky beneath a black wing halo

He was dealin' high Chicago⁽⁶⁾ in the mud

And stackin' the deck⁽⁷⁾ against a dragnet's eye⁽⁸⁾

And the shiverin' Nightstick in a miserable heap

With the siren for a lullaby singin' him to sleep

And bleedin' from a buttonhole, and torn by a slug

Fired from the barrel of a two dollar gun

That scorched a blister on the grip of a punk by now

Is learnin' what you have to pay to be a hero anyhow

He dressed the hole in his gut with a hundred dollar bandage

A king's ransom for a bedspread that don't amount to nothin'

Just cobweb strings on a busted ukulele

And the Nightstick leaned on a black shillelagh⁽¹⁰⁾

With the poison of a junkie's broken promise⁽¹⁴⁾ on his lip

He staggered in the shadows screamin', 'I ain't never been afraid'

And he shot out every street light on the promenade

Past the frozen ham-and-eggers⁽¹¹⁾ at the penny arcade

Throwin' out handfuls of a blood stained salary

They were dead in their tracks at the shootin' gallery⁽¹²⁾

And they fired off a twenty-one gun salute

And from the corner of his eye he caught the alabaster orbs

Of a dime-a-dance-hall girl and stuffed a thousand dollar bill in her blouse

And caught the cruel and unusual punishment of her smile

And the Nightstick winked beneath a rain soaked brim

Ain't no one seen hide nor hair⁽¹³⁾ of him since

No one 'cept a spade on Riker's Island and me

So if you're mad enough to listen to a full of whiskey blind man

And you're mad enough to look beyond where the bloodhounds⁽¹⁴⁾ dare to go

And if you want to know where the Nightstick's hidin' out

You be down at the ferry landin', oh let's say 'bout half past a nightmare

When it's twisted on the clock, and you tell 'em Nickel sent you

Whiskey always makes him talk

And you ask for Captain Charon⁽¹⁵⁾ with the mud on his kicks

He's the skipper of the Deadline steamer

And she sails from the Bronx across the river Styx

And a riddle's just a ticket for a dreamer

Cause when the weathervane's sleepin' and the moon turns his back

You crawl on your belly 'long the railroad tracks⁽¹⁶⁾

And cross your heart and hope to die, and stick a needle in your eye

Cause he'd cut my bleedin' heart out if he found out that I squealed⁽¹⁷⁾

Cause you see a scarecrow is just a hoodlum⁽¹⁸⁾

Who marked the cards that he dealed

And pulled a gypsy switch

Out on the edge of Potter's Field

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Fifth Floor Music, Inc. (ASCAP),� 1977 & Warner Bros. Music Ltd, 1986

Official release: "Foreign Affairs", Elektra Entertainment/ WEA International Inc., 1977 &

"Asylum Years", WEA International Inc., 1986

Known covers:

None

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Jay S. Jacobs: "Perhaps the most arresting Foreign Affairs cut is "Potter's Field," a spoken-word piece about a blind, alcoholic stool pigeon who tries to score some booze in exchange for his account of a gangland hit. Behind Waits's voice, drums pound, horns wail, and a short, wonderfully nuanced crime drama unfolds in the listener's mind. There is an immediacy, a catch-you-by-the-throat urgency to this track, which was the most successful of Waits's spoken-word pieces to date. Howe remembers that Waits said of "Potter's Field," "I've written this lyric, and I don't think I want it to be a song. I think I want to recite it." Responded Howe: "If you're going to recite it and not sing it, maybe we should score it like it's a little movie." Waits thought this was a great idea. "That's how [Bob] Alcivar got involved," says Bones. "Alcivar had been doing arrangements for me and had done some scoring and stuff for T.V. movies. I said [to Tom], you'll read it and the orchestra will play and we'll do it live. We'll score it live. We did it once, and it didn't exactly work out. But we had the tape of it. We took the tape back and Bob worked with the tape. I remember he shortened some places, and Tom wanted some things to be faster and some things to be slower, and we went back in and recorded it again... live." (Source: Wild Years, The Music and Myth of Tom Waits. Jay S. Jacobs, 2000)

Potter's field

- A public burial place for paupers, unknown persons, and criminals (Source: Websters Dictionary)

- "Potter's Field is in the East River, in between Williamsburg Bridge and Manhattan Bridge. The river makes a sharp bend there, an elbow. On an ebb tide there's an eddy in the elbow that picks up anything loose coming down river, afloat or submerged, and sweeps it into a stretch of backwater on the Brooklyn side. This backwater is called the Wallabout Bay on charts; the men on the dredges call it Potter's Field. The eddy sweeps driftwood into the backwater. Also, it sweeps drowned bodies into there. As a rule, people that drown in the harbour in winter stay down until spring. When the water begins to warm, gas forms in them and that makes them buoyant and they rise to the surface. Every year, without fail, on or about the fifteenth of April, bodies start showing up, and more of them show up at Potter's Field than any other place. In a couple of weeks or so, the Harbour Police always find ten to two dozen over there -- suicides, bastard babies, old barge captains that lost their balance out on a sleety night attending towropes, now and then some gangster or other." (Mitchell, Joseph. "The Bottom of the Harbour". 1960)

- Tom Waits (1977): "Potter's Field is just a stone's throw from Riker's Island, you know, the prison. When someone is found cold on a street, with no identification, they freeze 'em until they're identified, and if nobody claims 'em, and they aren't identified, they just throw 'em in a pine box with all their personal belongings and effects... They put 'em on a barge and send 'em out to Potter's Field. Bela Lugosi (the original Hollywood Dracula), was buried in Potter's Field - he made eleven million dollars and died penniless on the Lower East Side. It's right out of Dante's Inferno, they put 'em on a barge that leaves at midnight, they scratch their name on the side of the coffin with a piece of chalk, they throw 'em in a mud ditch. They stack 'em twelve high in the excavation. So 'Potter's Field' is my story about a stool pigeon in a bar selling information to a hit man who's lookin' for a guy named 'Nightsticks' who's hidin' out in Potter's Field. It's mostly a mystery like 'Odd Man Out.' " (Source: "The Odyssey Of Tom Waits" Circus magazine (USA), by David Koepp. Issue nr. 171, December 22, 1977)

- Tom Waits (1979): "Clarinet [for Potter's Field] was like the opening of 'Rhapsody In Blue'. That was what I had in mind '85 What I had in mind was Wildmark on the prow of a barge, bringing Thelma Ritter's coffin back from the pauper's burial ground of Potter's Field in a grey dawn: Pickup On South Street, Sam Fuller, 1952." (Source: "Wry & Danish to go". "MelodyMaker" magazine. Brian Case. Copenhagen. May 5, 1979)

⁽²⁾ Blacktop

- n [20C] (US) a minor road, a back road, [its black asphalt surface] (Blacktop: A bituminous material, such as asphalt, used to pave roads) (Source: "Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang". Jonathon Green. Cassel & Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-304-35167-9).

- Notice the same phrase being used in Blow Wind Blow, 1987: "Mary's on the black top, there's a husband in the dog house."

⁽³⁾ Stool pigeon: 1. A person serving as a decoy. From fact that pigeons were often tied to a stool as a decoy for other pigeons 2. An informer, usu. a police informer (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner)

⁽⁴⁾ Double cross v.: To betray or cheat (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner)

⁽⁵⁾ Nightstick: The club carried by American policemen - painted black and with a short handle attached at a right angle to the main shaft at one end (Submitted by Russell Fischer. Raindogs Listserv discussionlist. September, 2000)

⁽⁶⁾ High Chicago

- A variation of 7 card stud in poker, the difference being that the highest spade in the hole wins half the pot (Submitted by Cheryl Dillis. Tom Waits eGroups discussionlist. September, 2000)

- The way we play high chicago in our weekly poker games- the game is seven card stud. the dealer deals 2 cards face down to every player and one face up. then there's a betting round. then everyone gets one more card up. then there's another betting round. this goes on until everyone's got 3 cards down and 4 cards up. the goal is to make your highest 5-card hand. the high chicago part is that the highest spade face down (in the hole) splits the pot with the high hand (Submitted by Django Bohren. Raindogs Listserv discussionlist. September, 2000)

⁽⁷⁾ Dragnet's eye n.:The cops (Submitted by Dorene LaLonde. September, 2000)

⁽⁸⁾ Stackin' the deck: Stack the deck/ cards, to: phr. [early 19C+] (US) to arrange things in one's favour, use. dishonestly. [poker imagery] (Source: "Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang". Jonathon Green. Cassel & Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-304-35167-9)

⁽¹⁰⁾ Shillelagh: (pronounce she-lay-lah). An oaken sapling or cudgel (Irish). (Source: "The First Hypertext Edition of The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable", E. Cobham Brewer. � 1997-99 Bibliomania.com Ltd.)

⁽¹¹⁾ Ham-and-egger

- An average person; a worker limited to routine tasks; one as common as ham and eggs or one who may make average wages or live an average, unexciting life (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner).

- Also mentioned in A Nickel's Worth Of Dreams: "And the ham-and-eggers win the Irish Sweepstakes every day."

⁽¹²⁾ Shooting gallery: 1. Any place where an addict or addicts can receive an injection of a narcotic drug; a pad. Addict use. 2. A gathering party of addicts who have assembled for the purpose of taking drugs by injection. Addict use (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner)

⁽¹³⁾ Hide nor hair, neither: The reverse of the ancient saying "In hide and hair" meaning "wholly, entirely". The American phrase means "nothing whatsoever". First occurred in the early work of Josiah G. Holland The Bay Path 1857. (Submitted by Cheryl Dillis, Tom Waits eGroups discussionlist. October, 2000. From "2,107 Curious Word Origins, Sayings and Expressions" by Charles Earle)

⁽¹⁴⁾ Bloodhound: n. [early 19C+] a policeman. [reverse anthropomorphism] (Source: "Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang". Jonathon Green. Cassel & Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-304-35167-9)

⁽¹⁵⁾ Charon: Charon, in Greek mythology, is the ferryman of the dead. The souls of the deceased are brought to him and Charon ferries them across the river Acheron (Styx). He only accepts the dead which are buried or burned with the proper rites, and if they pay him an obolus (coin) for their passage. For that reason a corpse had always an obolus placed under the tongue. Charon is depicted as an sulky old man, or as a winged demon carrying a double hammer. Only a couple times were the living able to catch a ride with Charon to enter the underworld.

Detail from Michelangelo's "Last Judgement"

⁽¹⁶⁾ Quoting from "Scarecrow" (Unreleased track, from 'Foreign Affairs' sessions, July through August, 1977): "Buzzards drive a crooked sky Make a junkie's promise in a courier's eye And a bankrupt corduroy wad on the thigh A strangled acre by a thirsty stream A crucified body, just a three day stubble On the chin of a nightmare stampede And tomorrow'll be hirin' a two dollar gun And I tell you that someone's gonna pay Cause when the weathervane's sleeping And the moon turns its back And crawl on the belly on the railroad tracks And keep well hidden till the porchlight's dim And pump sixteen shells in the belly of a scarecrow And blame it all on him."

⁽¹⁷⁾ Squeale: v.i.: to complain, to protest; to inform to the police: since c1900; orig. and mainly underworld use (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner)

⁽¹⁸⁾ Hoodlum: A Californian rough. (Source: "The First Hypertext Edition of The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable", E. Cobham Brewer. � 1997-99 Bibliomania.com Ltd)

Ruby's Arms

(Heartattack And Vine studio version, 1980)

I will leave behind all of my clothes, I wore when I was with you

All I need's my railroad boots and my leather jacket

As I say goodbye to Ruby's arms, although my heart is breaking

I will steal away out through your blinds, for soon you will be waking

The morning light has washed your face, and everything is turning blue now

Hold on to your pillow case, there's nothing I can do now

As I say goodbye to Ruby's arms, you'll find another soldier

And I swear to God by Christmas time, there'll be someone else to hold you

The only thing I'm taking is the scarf off of your clothesline

I'll hurry past your chest of drawers and your broken wind chimes

As I say goodbye, I say goodbye, I say goodbye to

Ruby's arms

I will feel my way down the darkened hall, and out into the morning

The hobos at the freight yards have kept their fires burning

So Jesus Christ, this goddamn rain, will someone put me on a train

I'll never kiss your lips again, or break your heart

As I say goodbye, I say goodbye, I say goodbye to

Ruby's arms

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Fifth Floor Music Inc. (ASCAP), � 1980 & Warner Bros. Music Ltd, 1986

Official release: "Heartattack And Vine", Elektra Entertainment/ WEA Entertainment Inc., 1980 &

"Asylum Years", WEA International Inc., 1986

Arrangement and lyrics published in "Tom Waits - Anthology" (Amsco Publications, 1988/ Nuova Carisch, 2000)

Ruby's Arms

(Big Time live version, 1988)

I will leave behind all of my clothes

I wore when I was with you

All I need's my railroad boots

and my leather jacket

As I say goodbye to Ruby's arms

although my heart is breaking

I will steal away out through your blinds

for soon you will be waking

The morning light has washed your face

and everything is turning blue now

Hold on to your pillow case

there's nothing that I can do now

As I say goodbye to Ruby's arms

you'll find another soldier

And I swear to God by Christmas time

there'll be someone else to hold you

The only thing I'm taking is

the scarf off of your clothesline

I'll hurry past your chest of drawers

and your broken wind chimes

As I say goodbye

I'll say goodbye

Say goodbye

to Ruby's arms

I steal away down the darkened hall

out into the morning

The hobos at the freight yards

have kept their fires burning

So, Jesus Christ this goddamn rain

will someone put me on a train

I'll never kiss your lips again

or break your heart

As I say goodbye

I say goodbye

I say goodbye

to Ruby's arms

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Fifth Floor Music Inc. (ASCAP), � 1980-1988

Official release: "Big Time", � Island Visual Arts Inc. (P) Island Records Inc., 1988

Arrangement and lyrics published in "Tom Waits - Anthology" (Amsco Publications, 1988/ Nuova Carisch, 2000)

Further reading: Big Time full story

Known covers:

Fjorton S�nger. Bad Liver & Hans Brustna Hj�rtan. 1989. Nonstop Records (1989), City Records (re-release May, 1993) NSM 33-15 (in Swedish: "Rubys famn")

Vanity. Jan Vayne. 1994. EMI (The Netherlands)

Songs Of Tom Waits. Dolphin Blue. 1995. Self-released demo (Germany)

Step Right Up (The Songs Of Tom Waits). Various artists. November, 1995. Manifesto Records. Performed by Frente!

The Sweetheart Break-in. The Supreme Music Program/ Megan Mullally. 2000

Nach Mir Die Sintflut - Ambros singt Waits. Wolfgang Ambros. October 9, 2000. Ariol/ Gig Records 74321 797002 (in German: "Es is vorbei")

Wordless Dialogues. Diego Conti & Stefano Taglietti (instrumental). 2001.Ecamlab (Italy)

V.S.O.P. Casino Steel. February 26, 2001. The Orchard

Carlotta's Portrait. Trio Ptak/ Gonsior/ Mayerhofer. 2004. Turkish Bath Records

23. Golly. July, 2004. Media - Arte (Knopf Germany)

East Of Sunset - Soundtrack. Various artists. September 13, 2005. Manifesto Records. Performed by: The Caseworker

Dolphin Blue Live. Dolphin Blue. December, 2007. Rising Sun Productions (German CDR)

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Tom Waits (1980): "I love Jerry's arrangement on it. He used a brass choir and made it sound like a Salvation Army band at the top of the tune. It really got me. It's a little bit like that Matt Monro thing, "I Will Leave You Softly" (sings a verse). I was trying to visualize this guy getting up in the morning before dawn and leaving on the train, with the clothesline outside. I just closed my eyes and saw this scene and wrote about it." (Source: "Heartattack and Vine". Us promo pack: Stephen Peeples. September 4, 1980)

Asylum Years, 1986 (Compilation)

Blue Valentines

She sends me blue valentines⁽¹⁾

All the way from Philadelphia

To mark the anniversary

Of someone that I used to be

And it feels like a warrant

Is out for my arrest

Baby, you got me checkin' in my rearview mirror

That's why I'm always on the run

It's why I changed my name

And I didn't think you'd ever find me here

To send me blue valentines

Like half forgotten dreams

Like a pebble in my shoe

As I walk these streets

And the ghost of your memory

Baby, it's the thistle⁽²⁾ 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 gonna see you every time I turn my back

Oh, you send me blue valentines

Though I try to remain at large

They're insisting that our love must have a eulogy⁽³⁾

Why do I save all this madness

Here in the nightstand drawer

There to haunt 'pon my shoulders

Baby, I know I'd be luckier to walk around everywhere I go

With this blind and broken heart

That sleeps beneath my lapel

Instead these blue valentines

To remind me of my cardinal sin

I can never wash the guilt

Or get these bloodstains off my hands

And it takes a whole lot of whiskey

To make these nightmares go away

And I cut my bleedin' heart out every night

And I'm gonna die just a little more

On each St. Valentine's day⁽⁴⁾

Don't you remember I promised I would write you

These blue valentines

Blue valentines

Blue valentines

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Fifth Floor Music, Inc. (ASCAP), � 1978 & Warner Bros. Music Ltd, 1986

Official release: "Blue Valentine", Elektra Entertainment/ WEA International Inc., 1978 &

"Asylum Years", WEA International Inc., 1986

Known covers:

Fjorton Sånger. Bad Liver & Hans Brustna Hjärtan. 1989. Nonstop Records (1989), City Records (re-release May, 1993) NSM 33-15 (in Swedish: "Blå violer")

Blue Valentine. Sarah Jane Morris. July 25, 1995. IRMA/ Jazzhouse Records (re-released in 1996 on Ronnie Scott's Jazz).

Long John Baldry Trio Live. Long John Baldry, 2000. Canada on Stony Plain Records and Hypertension Records in Europe

Bukowski Waits For Us - Vol. 1. Michael Kiessling. September 25, 2000. Buschfunk (Germany)

Being Tom Waits. Billy`s Band. 2001. Self-released demo album (Russia)

The Carnival Saloon Live. The Carnival Saloon. October, 2001. Self-released (Ireland)

Homegrown. Nussbaumer/ Weber/ Kreil. 2003. Self-released

The Big Parade. The Beatniks Of Babylon. 2003. The Big Parade

Raw. Kiko. 2003. Discaudio (Portugal)

Under The Influence - The songs of Tom Waits. Barry Charles. 2003. Tara Hall Productions (Australia)

After Blue. G.T. Nash. July, 2003. Belltree Records

Speeding Or Shyness. Speeding Or Shyness. 2004. Self-released

Your Head, Their Wall. Rod Fotheringham. May 9, 2006. Self-released

Lullabies For A Sleepless World. Julain Molnar. June 7, 2006. Self-released (Canada)

Bangin' On The Table With An Old Tin Cup. Pascal Fricke. April 12, 2007. Self-released (Germany)

Raking The Mules. Mescaline Smugglers. August 30, 2007.: Self-released

Live At Gaste Garage. Matt Taylor Band. November 7, 2007. Self-released

Box. Keram. January 29, 2008. Self-released 

Innocent When You Dream. Brandon Bernstein. February 26, 2010. Jazz Collective Records

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Blue Valentines

- Valentine: 1. Roman Christian who according to tradition was martyred during the persecution of Christians by Emperor Claudius II. Saint Valentine's Day was primarily celebrated in his honor, but was also inspired by another martyr named Valentine, who was bishop of Terni, a region in central Italy 2. A sentimental or humorous greeting card sent to a sweetheart, friend, or family member, for example, on Saint Valentine's Day. 3. A gift sent as a token of love to one's sweetheart on Saint Valentine's Day. (Source: The American Heritage� Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright � 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company)

- Tom Waits (2004): "I used to think I was making movies for the ears - writing them, directing them, releasing them. Kind of making a fiction in a non-fiction world. Taking the real world and then getting rid of certain things that I didn't want to be there and adding certain things that I hoped would have been there. I was overly maudlin and romantic and I really hadn't grown up. I still very much lived in a fantasy world. But I like that Blue Valentines song. Still play it sometimes. Somebody asked me to play it at a wedding recently." (Source: "Tom Waits Speaks - The Mojo Interview" Mojo magazine by Sylvie Simmons. Issue October 2004)

⁽²⁾ Thistle: Any of numerous weedy plants, chiefly of the genera Cirsium, Carduus, or Onopordum of the composite family, having prickly leaves and variously colored flower heads surrounded by prickly bracts (Source: The American Heritage� Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright � 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company)

⁽⁴⁾ Eulogy: A laudatory speech or written tribute, especially one praising someone who has died (Source: The American Heritage� Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright � 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company)

⁽⁵⁾ St. Valentine's day: a day sacred to St. Valentine; the 14th of February. It was a very old notion, alluded to by Shakespeare, that on this day birds begin to mate. Hence, perhaps, arose the custom of sending love tokens at that time (Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, � 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.)

Burma Shave

(Foreign Affairs studio version, 1977)

Licorice tattoo turned a gun metal blue

Scrawled across the shoulders of a dying town

Took the one eyed Jacks⁽²⁾ across the railroad tracks⁽³⁾

And the scar on its belly pulled a stranger passing through

He's a juvenile delinquent, never learned how to behave

But the cops'd never think to look in Burma-Shave

And the road was like a ribbon, and the moon was like a bone

He didn't seem to be like any guy she'd ever known

He kind of looked like Farley Granger⁽⁴⁾, with his hair slicked back

She says 'I'm a sucker for a fella in a cowboy hat.

How far are you going?'

Said 'Depends on what you mean'

He says 'I'm only stopping here to get some gasoline'

'I guess I'm going thataway, just as long as it's paved

And I guess you'd say I'm on my way to Burma-Shave'

And with her knees up on the glove compartment

She took out her barrettes, and her hair spilled out like rootbeer

And she popped her gum and arched her back

'Hell, Marysville⁽¹⁾ ain't nothing but a wide spot in the road

Some nights my heart pounds like thunder

Don't know why it don't explode

Cause everyone in this stinking town's got one foot in the grave

And I'd rather take my chances out in Burma-Shave'

'Presley's⁽⁵⁾ what I go by, why don't you change the stations

Count the grain elevators in the rearview mirror'

She said, 'Mister, anywhere you point this thing

It got to beat the hell out of the sting⁽⁶⁾

Of going to bed with every dream that dies here every mornin'

And so drill me a hole with a barber pole⁽⁷⁾

And I'm jumping my parole just like a fugitive tonight

Why don't you have another swig⁽⁸⁾, and pass that car if you're so brave

I wanna get there 'fore the sun comes up in Burma-Shave '

And the spider web crack and the mustang screamed

The smoke from the tires and the twisted machine

Just a nickel's worth of dreams, and every wishbone that they saved

Lie swindled from them on the way to Burma-Shave

And the sun hit the derrick and cast a bat wing shadow

Up against the car door on the shotgun side⁽⁹⁾

And when they pulled her from the wreck

You know, she still had on her shades⁽¹⁰⁾

They say that dreams are growing wild

just this side

of Burma-Shave

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Fifth Floor Music, Inc. (ASCAP),� 1977 & Warner Bros. Music Ltd, 1986

Official release: "Foreign Affairs", Elektra Entertainment/ WEA International Inc., 1977 &

"Bounced Checks", WEA/ Asylum Records, 1981 &

"Anthology Of Tom Waits", WEA/ Elektra, 1984 &

"Asylum Years", WEA International Inc., 1986

Burma Shave

(Live version State Theatre, Sydney/ Australia. May 2, 1979)

You know, I remember...

It rained all day the day that Elvis Presley⁽⁵⁾ died

And only a legend can make it do that!

And you know, I remember when my baby said we were through

And she was gonna walk out on me

It was Elvis Presley that talked her out of it

And he gave me my first leather jacket

And taught me how to comb my hair just right in a filling station bathroom

It was Elvis that gave you a rubber on prom night

And told you that you looked real sharp

And you know, I think he maybe just got a little tired

Of repairing all the broken hearts in the world.

And now I think maybe I understand

Why mechanics' cars never start

And why night watchmen are always sleeping on the job

And why shoeshine boys always have worn-out scooped-up shoes.

But eh... [mumbles]

A legend never dies, he just teaches you everything he knows

To give you the courage to ask her out

And I know, there's a small little town where dreams are still alive

And there's a hero on every corner

And they're all on their way to a place called

Burma-Shave

Scrawled out across the shoulders of this dying little town, see?

And every night it takes the one eyed Jacks

You know, a one eyed Jack is like a...

You got one headlight burned out on your car

It's called a one eyed Jack

You can see them from across the railroad tracks⁽³⁾

Over the scar on its belly, there came a stranger passing through

And he was a juvenile delinquent

He never learned how to behave

But the cops never think to look

When you're on your way to Burma-Shave

And the road was like a ribbon, man

Yeah, and the moon was like a bone and

He didn't seem to be like any guy that she'd ever known

He kinda looked like Farley Granger⁽⁴⁾, with his hair ssslicked back

And she said, 'Honey I've always been a sucker for a fella that wears a cowboy hat

And just how far do you think you might be going, Mister?'

He said 'Baby, that all depends on... what you mean

Cause I'm only stopping here tonight, cause I gotta get myself some gasoline'

'And I guess I'm going out thataway, at least ride as long as it's paved

And I guess you'd say I'm on my way to Burma-Shave'

And he said, 'Well, that's cool Why don't you put your knees up on the glove compartment?'

Well, she took out her barrettes, and man, her hair spilled out just like rootbeer

She popped her gum and she arched her back

She said, 'Man, this little town don't amount to nothin'

It's just a wide spot in the road

And some nights my heart pounds like thunder

I don't know why it don't explode

And everybody in this stinking town has got one foot in the grave

And I'm gonna take my chances with you tonight

On the way to Burma-Shave'

And he said, 'Eh, well you know.... okay Eh... how old are you?

Ah! That's... a problem...

Uh, where do you go to school, babe? Oh yeah? I went to Sweetwater

Oh yeah, I dropped out, y'know You know how it is. Got in trouble...

You know a guy named Eddie Alvarez? No?

Well, Presley's what they call me

Why don't you change the stations, baby?

And count the grain elevators,

Watch'em go by in he rear view mirror'

'Any way you point this thing is gonna beat the hell out of the sting!⁽⁶⁾

Cause every night I go to bed with all my dreams

I lie down and they die right here every morning

So come on, Presley, and drill me a hole with a barber pole⁽⁷⁾

Cause I'm jumping my parole like a fugitive tonight

Let's have another swig of that sweet Black Velvet

That sweet Black Velvet...

Let's pass that car!

Are you brave enough?

We can get there just before the sun comes up

You and me, on the way to Burma-Shave

Yeah... Cause I'm going crazy in this town, man

Yeah, my old man gives me nothing but shit!

I don't know, I don't care what they say

Let's get out of town tonight!'

Vrrrrrrrrooooom

Vrrrrrrrrooooom

Vrrrrrrrrooooom

Well... I was talking to my brother-in-law

He said there was a wreck out on the highway

He saw the smoke from the tires and the twisted machine

Oh, but all you've got is just a nickle's worth of dreams

And they've been swindled from you on the way to a place called Burma-Shave

You let the sun hit the derrick and cast a bat wing shadow

It's up against the car door on the shotgun side⁽⁹⁾

But you know something, baby?

I swear to God, when they pulled you from the wreck you still had on your shades

And dreams are growing wild every night

Just this side of Burma-Shave

And there's another young girl out by the highway tonight

with her thumb out

Just a few trucks going by...

Vrrrrrrrrooooom

Fish are jumpin', fish are jumpin'⁽¹⁰⁾

And the cotton is high

Written by: Tom Waits

Unofficial release: "Cold Beer On A Hot Night". KTS, 1993

(Transcribed by Ulf Berggren. Listserv Raindogs discussionlist. November, 1999)

Burma Shave

(Live version. Austin/ USA. Austin City Limits. December 5, 1978)

Aarghhh... yeahhhh... You know eh... when I was a kid... my dad had a 1957 station wagon... It was a Chevrolet. And man did I love that car. I used to go in the garage at night and turn out all the lights and roll up against it. (laughter) Huh, huh. I think that's against the law! But I remember driving all the way across country, when I was a kid in the back... I remember seeing Burma Shave signs all the way across the country along Route 66. And eh, well this is a story about a young girl. This small little town, a place called Marysville. It's up around Yuba City, Gridley, Chico, they're all the same. The names are different. It takes about... oh 23 miles and you're in the next one and they got a Foster Freeze just like they had in the one you were trying to get out of...

And eh you see there was this liquorice tattoo, he used to turn the gun metal blue

Scrawled across the shoulders of his dying little town

And he used to take the one eyed Jacks⁽²⁾ out across the railroad tracks⁽³⁾

With a scar on his belly there came a stranger passing through

And he was just a juvenile delinquent, he never learned how to behave

But the cops'd never think to look out in Burma-Shave

When the road was like a ribbon, and the moon was like a bone

He didn't seem to be like any guy she'd ever known

He kind of looked like Farley Granger⁽⁴⁾, the way he had his hair slicked back

And she said 'Well honey I've always been a sucker for a fella in a cowboy hat.

And just how far do you think you might be going?

He said 'Honey that would all depend on what you mean'

Cause you see eh, I'm only stopping here cause I got to get myself some of this gasoline'

'And I guess you should say I'm going thataway, why just as long as it's paved

And I guess you'd say I'm on my way to Burma-Shave'

And he said: 'Honey why don't you put your knees up on the glove compartment just like that'

She took out her barrettes, and man her hair spilled out just like rootbeer

And she popped her gum and she arched her back

And she said: 'Marysville⁽¹⁾ don't amount to nothing

it's just a wide spot in the road

and some nights my heart pounds like thunder

I don't know why it don't explode

If you ask me buddy, everyone in this stinking town has got one foot in the grave

I'd rather take my chances with you, take me all the way to Burma-Shave'

And he said: Honey, nothing to it. Cause you see eh... Presley's⁽⁵⁾ what I go by,

why don't you change the stations

Let's count the grain elevators as they go by in the rearview mirror'

Cause anyway you point this thing,

it's got to beat the hell out of the sting⁽⁶⁾

Cause every night I go to bed and I lie down all my dreams

and they die here every mornin'

So comon Presley, drill me a hole with a barber pole⁽⁷⁾

Cause I'm jumping my parole just like a fugitive tonight

And let's have another swig of that Black Velvet.

let's pass that car man if you're brave enough

So we can get there just before the sun comes up

Out in Burma-Shave '

Just you and me baby,

cause this town is driving me crazy

driving me crazy, I'm going crazy baby.

Vroooooooommmm, vrooooommmmmm.

Oh honey you know, I don't care what they say.

Go ahead and let them talk, yeah let them talk,

Cause tonight I'm gonna drive, I'm gonna drive baby

It's just you and me, it's just you and me baby.

Vroooooooommmm, vrooooommmmmm.

You see, the spider web cracked and the mustang I heard it scream

Someone said there was a wreck out on the highway.

I saw the smoke from the tires and the twisted machine

Well all you got is a nickel's worth of dreams,

and they've been swindled from you

when you're on your way to a place

called Burma-Shave

And the sun hit the derrick and cast a bat wing shadow

Up against the car door over on the shotgun side⁽⁸⁾

and baby when they pulled you from the wreck,

you still had on your shades.

But dreams are growing wild tonight,

just this side of a place I know... 

called Burma Shave.

And over by the Foster Freeze, well they're closing up now... 

Yeah, they're closing up... The waitress is going through her purse... There's only a few cars left... A truck rolls by... and there's another young girl, up against the Coke machine... with swizzle-stick legs, sucking on a Lucky Strike, and with a sign in her hand that says

"I'm On My Way To Burma Shave."

And it's a hot summer night.

And the fish are jumpin'. Fish are jumpin' and the cotton, the cotton is high... Your daddy's rich, your daddy's rich and your mamma's good-looking. She's so good-looking baby.

Vroooooooommmm, vrooooommmmmm.

So hush now, hush now. Hush now, don't you cry, don't you cry baby , don't you cry, don't you cry, don't you cry... don't you cry, don't you cry, don't you cry, don't you cry, don't you cry, don't you cry, don't you cry baby, don't you cry.

Don't you cry...

Written by: Tom Waits

No official release

(Transcribed by Pieter from Holland as published on Tom Waits Library, 2002)

Known covers:

Bangin' On The Table With An Old Tin Cup. Pascal Fricke. April 12, 2007. Self-released (Germany)

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Burma Shave:

- Further reading: Burma-Shave.org 

- Larry Goldstein (1978): Waits' latest LP is entitled Foreign Affairs, and it seems destined to be his biggest seller to date. His voice has never been better, though to the new listener it migh t grate like flesh over gravel. The difference in his vocal performance is best evidenced on the cut "Burma Shave" on which, as Waits explained, "I was trying to sing instead of just growling and grunting, which, by the time I get off the road is all I can muster up." (Source: "Nighthawks at the Chelsea", Modern Hi-Fi and Musics SOUND TRAX: Larry Goldstein. October, 1978)

- Brian Case (1979): Did he get "Burma Shave" from the Nick Ray movie, They Live By Night, from 1947? TW: "Yeah, that's the one. In fact that's a great story. Very sad at the end where he gets mowed down at the motel. Farley Granger does soap operas now, I think. He was in Minneapolis and this woman disc jockey played it for him and he got a real kick out of it. He always played the baby-face hood. He don't work much any more. I guess Sal Mineo got most of his roles. Yeah, I used that. I kept coming back to that movie image. Also, I have a lot of relatives in this little town called Marysville, and a cousin, her name is Corrine Johnson, and every time I'd go up there from Los Angeles in the summers, she was alway s like you know 'Christ man - I gotta get outa this fucking town. I wanna go to LA.' She finally did. She hitch-hiked out and stood by this Foster Freeze on Prom Night. Got in a car with a guy who was just some juvinile delinquent, and he took her all the way to LA where she eventually cracked up. Burma Shave was a shaving cream company. Abandoned in the late Fifties. Useta advertise all along the highway. I always thought it was the name of a town. (Source: "Wry & Danish to go". "MelodyMaker" magazine. Brian Case. Copenhagen, Early 1979)

- Kristine McKenna (1983): What do you consider your best work? TW: "I like the story in "Burma Shave" off Foreign Affairs, "Tom Traubert's Blues" off the new album. I like "Dave The Butcher" and "In The Neighborhood". (Source: "One From The Heart & One For The Road ". New Musical Express magazine. October 1, 1983. Interview by: Kristine McKenna)

- Tom Waits (1985): "Burma Shave is an American shaving-cream company, like Colgate. They advertise on the side of the road and they have these limericks which are broken up into different signs like pieces of a fortune cookie. You drive for miles before you get the full message. "PLEASE DON'T"... five miles... "STICK YOUR ARM OUT SO FAR"... another five miles... "IT MIGHT GO HOME"... five more miles... "IN ANOTHER MAN'S CAR - BURMA SHAVE." They reel you in. So when I was a kid I'd see these signs on the side of the road - BURMA SHAVE, BURMA SHAVE - and I'm young and I think it's the name of a town and I ask my dad, "When we getting to Burma Shave?" So in the song I used Burma Shave as a dream, a mythical community, a place two people are trying to get to. They don't make it." (Source: "Dog Day Afternoon" Time Out magazine (UK), by Richard Rayner. Date: New York, October 3-9, 1985)

- Live intro from 'Storming Heaven Benefit". Healdsburg. August 11, 1996: "Ths is about a small little town... When I was a kid we used to drive cross country. And for those of you who are old enough, you might remember the Burma-Shave signs on the side of the highway [some applause]. Thank you, all six of you! Anyway, this is about that. My dad yelling at me to hold my horses! And thirty years later I yelled at my kids to hold THEIR horses. So this is about a small little town. One of those tiny little towns by the side of the road. And somebody thumbing a ride trying to get out of town..." (Transcribed by Ulf Berggren. Listserv Raindogs discussionlist. November, 1999)

⁽²⁾ Across the (railroad) tracks: phr. [20C] inferior, second-rate (cf. WRONG SIDE OF THE TRACKS). [the area of a town in which the poor supposedly live; f. an era when many US towns were literally divided, socially as well as physically, by the railroadtracks] (Source: "Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang". Jonathon Green. Cassel & Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-304-35167-9)

⁽³⁾ One Eyed Jack

- Tom Waits (1979): "You know, a one eyed Jack is like a... You got one headlight burned out on your car. It's called a one eyed Jack." (Live version of "Burma Shave". Sydney, Australia. March, 1979)

⁽⁴⁾ Granger, Farley: Farley Earle Granger. Born: San Jose, Ca., July 1 1925. American actor and author. From 1943 on he played in films like: Edge of Doom, Arrowsmith, Strangers On A Train and They Live by Night (this movie by Nick Ray from 1947 (1949?) was the inspiration for the song Burma Shave). "Synopsis: "This boy...and this girl...were never properly introduced to the world we live in." With this superimposed opening title, director Nicholas Ray inaugurates his first feature, They Live by Night. Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell play a "Bonnie and Clyde"-type fugitive couple, who in trying to escape their past are hell-bent down the road to Doom. Despite their criminal activities, Bowie (Granger) and Keechie (O'Donnell) are hopelessly na�ve, fabricating their own idyllic dream world as the authorities close in. The entrapment -- both actual and symbolic -- of the young misfit couple can now be seen as a precursor to the dilemma facing James Dean in Ray's 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause. A box-office disappointment upon its first release, They Live by Night has since gained stature as one of the most sensitive and least-predictable entries in the film noir genre. The film was based on a novel by Edward Anderson, and in 1974 was filmed by Robert Altman under its original title, Thieves Like Us. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide"

⁽⁵⁾ Presley, Elvis: Elvis Aaron Presley. Born: January 8 1935. Died: August 16, 1977. (Burma Shave was released 1977). 

- Tom Waits (1993): "I was in Memphis recently for a wedding and I couldn't resist going to Graceland. I especially liked the bullet holes in the swing set and the red faced uniformed teen usherettes and their memorized text delivered while gesturing at the rusted play structure. "Elvis and the boys were just having a little too much fun one night and came out for a some target practice." They also mentioned that Elvis had picked out all the furniture for the Jungle Room in just thirty minutes." (Source: "Tom Foolery - Swapping stories with inimitable Tom Waits". Buzz Magazine: May 1993)

⁽⁶⁾ Sting: [1970s] a police undercover operation designed to entrap alleged criminals (Source: "Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang". Jonathon Green. Cassel & Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-304-35167-9)

⁽⁷⁾ Barber pole: The medieval symbol of a barber was a vertical pole with red and white spiraling stripes. In the 20th century some of these were displayed on the street powered by an electric motor, and had the appearance of a drill drilling into the sidewalk (Submitted by Gary Duncan. Raindogs Listserv discussionlist. September, 2000)

⁽⁸⁾ Swig n.: A swallow, gulp, or mouthful, esp. of whisky (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner). Also mentioned in Falling Down: "Go on take a swig of that poison and like it."

⁽⁹⁾ Shotgun side n.: The passenger seat in a vehicle. Origin: the American west (i.e. during the 1800s.) The "shotgun" was the person that sat next to the driver of a wagon with a shotgun, watching for trouble. (Source: The Online Slang Dictionary, Walter Rader)

⁽¹⁰⁾ Shades

- n. pl.: A pair of sunglasses. Orig. bop musician use c1948-c1955; now mainly beat and student use (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang - Supplement, Wentworth/ Flexner).

- Also mentioned in "A Sweet Little Bullet From A Pretty Blue Gun" (Now never trust a scarecrow wearin' shades after dark)

⁽¹¹⁾ Fish are jumpin', fish are jumpin'. Quoting: Summertime. Written by: Gershwin/ Heyward. Originally performed by Abbie Mitchell in "Porgy and Bess", 1935: "Summertime and the livin' is easy. Fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high. Yo' daddy's rich and yo' mama's good lookin'. So hush little baby, don't you cry. One of these mornin's, you're gonna rise up singin'. You're gonna spread yo' wings and take to the sky. But til that mornin' ain't nothin' can harm you. With yo' daddy and mammy standin' by."

Diamonds On My Windshield

(Early demo version, 1971)

Diamonds on my windshield

Tears from heaven

Pullin' into town on the Interstate

Pullin' a steel train in the rain

Wind bites my cheek through the wing

Fast flying and freeway driving

Always makes me sing

Duster tryin' to change my tune

Pullin' up fast on the right

Rollin' restlessly, twenty-four hour moon

Wisconsin hiker with a cue-ball head

Wishin' he's home in a Wisconsin bed

Fifteen feet of snow in the east

Colder than a welldigger's ass

And Oceanside, it ends the ride,

San Clemente coming up

Sunday desperadoes slip by

Texaco station close in, you cruise by with a dry back

The orange drive-in, neon billin'

Theatre's fillin' to the brim

Slave girls and a hot spurn bucket full of sin

Metropolitan area, interchange and connections

Fly-by-nights from Riverside

Black and white plates, out of state, running a little late

Sailors jockey for the fast lane 101 don't miss it

Rollin' hills and concrete fields

Broken line on your mind

The eights go east and the fives go north

And the merging nexus back and forth

See your sign, you cross the line, signal with a blink

Radio's gone off the air, and gives you time to think

Easy ridin', creep across, this intersection [?]

Hear the rumble as you fumble for a cigarette

Blazin' through the neon jungle

Remember someone that you met

And one more block, the engine talks

And whispers: home at last

Whispers

Whispers

Whispers home at last

Home at last

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Warner Chappell Music Ltd., 1971-1992 & Bizarre/ Straight Records, 1992

Official release: "The Early Years 2". Issued under licence from Bizarre/ Straight Records by Edsel Records, 1992

Recorded July - December 1971, Los Angeles, CA

(Not authorized by Tom Waits)

Diamonds On My Windshield

(The Heart Of Saturday Night studio version, 1974)

Well, these diamonds on my windshield

And these tears from heaven

Well, I'm pulling into town on the Interstate

I got a steel train in the rain

And the wind bites my cheek through the wing

And it's these late nights and this freeway flying

It always makes me sing

There's a Duster⁽²⁾ trying to change my tune⁽³⁾

He's pulling up fast on the right

Rolling restlessly by a twenty-four hour moon

And a Wisconsin hiker with a cue-ball head⁽⁴⁾

He's wishing he was home in a Wisconsin bed

But there's fifteen feet of snow in the east

Colder than a welldigger's ass

And it's colder than a welldigger's ass

Oceanside, it ends the ride with San Clemente coming up⁽⁵⁾

Those Sunday desperadoes⁽⁶⁾ slip by and cruise with a dry back

And the orange drive-in, the neon billin'

And the theatre's fillin' to the brim

With slave girls and a hot spurn bucket full of sin

Metropolitan area with interchange and connections

Fly-by-nights⁽⁷⁾ from Riverside

And out of state plates running a little late

But the sailors jockey⁽⁸⁾ for the fast lane

So 101 don't miss it

There's rolling hills and concrete fields

And the broken line's on your mind

The eights go east and the fives go north

And the merging nexus back and forth

You see your sign, cross the line, signalling with a blink

And the radio's gone off the air

Gives you time to think

And you hear the rumble

As you fumble for a cigarette

And blazing through this midnight jungle

Remember someone that you met

And one more block, the engine talks

Whispers 'home at last'

It whispers 'home at last'

Whispers 'home at last'

Whispers 'home at last'

Whispers 'home at last'

And the diamonds on my windshield

And these tears from heaven

Well I'm pulling into town on the Interstate

I got me a steel train in the rain

And the wind bites my cheek through the wing

Late nights and freeway flying

Always makes me sing

It always makes me sing

Hey, look here, Jack

Okay

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Fifth Floor Music Inc. (ASCAP), � 1974 & Warner Bros. Music Ltd, 1986

Official release: "The Heart Of Saturday Night", Elektra/ Asylum Records, 1974 &

"Bounced Checks", WEA/ Asylum Records, 1981 &

"Anthology Of Tom Waits", WEA/ Elektra, 1984 &

"Asylum Years", WEA International Inc., 1986

Known covers:

Life Imitates Art. Steve Glotzer. September 12, 2000. The Orchard

Notes: