Happy birthday, Tom Waits, born on this day in 1949

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Happy birthday, Tom Waits, born on this day in 1949.

Today, actor, singer and songwriter Tom Waits, born in Pomona (California), turns 76.

Tom Waits – “Downtown Train”

His music is an amalgam of pre-rock styles such as blues, jazz, and vaudeville with experimental tendencies that border on industrial music. All this expressed through her very personal voice makes up a more than interesting musical personality. One critic described his voice as follows: ‘it sounds like it has been submerged in a barrel of bourbon, then hung in a smokehouse for a few months, and finally taken outside and repeatedly run over by a car…’ His lyrics frequently present portraits of crappy and grotesque situations and characters, although he is also capable of writing conventional ballads. Despite having little media support, he has become a cult character with numerous followers and with great influence on many contemporary singer-songwriters.

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The way Tom came into the world seems to be taken from the experiences of the characters in his songs. He was born in a taxi outside a hospital in Pomona, California. His parents divorced when he was eleven years old and Waits went to live with his mother in Whittier. They later moved to National City, near the U.S.-Mexico border. Tom, who was self-taught in learning the piano, made frequent trips with his father to Mexico where he became familiar with rancheras.

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In 1965, while attending high school in Chula Vista”s Sweetwater Union High School District, Tom began playing in a rhythm and blues/soul band called The Systems, and found his first job at the Napoleone Pizza House in National City, which would appear on several of his tracks. Five years later, he began working as a bouncer at the Heritage nightclub in San Diego, California, where he played his first concert for $25. A follower of Bob Dylan, Lord Buckley, Jack Kerouac, Louis Armstrong, Howlin” Wolf and Charles Bukowski, Waits began to develop his own idiosyncratic musical style during these years. At the same time he discovered the works of beat authors, especially Jack Kerouac and his best-known work: “On the Road”.

He, too, hit the road and headed to Los Angeles, where his fascination arose for the characters who roamed the streets in the wee hours of the morning, living on the margins of society. They were the source of the songs he sang in the city”s clubs. Their appearance on stage seemed to be a characterization of their characters. Dressed in an old suit and hat, Waits smoked or drank as he told his stories between songs. He became well known on the Los Angeles circuit and in 1969, after a performance at the Troubadour, he signed a contract with rock manager Herb Cohen. Even so, he remained several years as a live artist without recording until the appearance on Asylum Records of his first album in 1973. ‘Closing Time’.

Although he had signed with a top label, Waits did not lead the typical rock star life. He settled in the Tropicana hotel, a non-luxurious establishment and on his tours he looked for similar hotels.

Tom explained his reasons to David Fricke of Rolling Stone: “I liked those rooms with marks on the walls lined with old paper; those corridors with eternal murmurs; those services that you had to share with some guy who had a hernia; and that TV room with all those old people. I knew that was where the stories and the music were.” Although Tom”s rock star life did not appeal to him, his music did attract the attention of some of them. Artists such as the Eagles, Bette Midler and Bruce Springsteen performed their own versions of Waits songs written in the seventies.

His output with Asylum was prolific. Between 1973 and 1981 he released a total of eight LPs. It was with the album ‘Heart of saturday night’ (1974) with which he made his personal style known. Later in 1975, with the live album “Nighthawks at the diner”, he combined very personal songs with entertaining introductory monologues. After another of his great works, “Small change” (1976), his next albums, “Foreign Affairs” (1977) and “Blue Valentine” (1978) failed to make the charts.

In those years, he played small roles in films such as “One from the Heart” (1982, by Francis Ford Coppola), for which he also composed the music and for which he received an Oscar nomination. It was during the filming of the film that Tom met screenwriter Kathleen Brennan. In 1980 they married and Brennan changed Waits” life in many ways. His music was also transformed and he published the magnificent “Swordfishtrombones” (1983) that marked a new sound in his music, in which influences from the German composer Kurt Weill and the will to use sounds of everyday objects in his arrangements appeared. While their musical structures changed from time to time, their lyrics continued to focus on the lives of the ragged and dispossessed.

The albums followed ‘Rain Dogs’ (1985) y ‘Franks Wild Years’ (1987), albums in which a wide variety of styles converged, from blues to tango and whose special atmosphere ensured the success of sales and the acceptance of the public.

He continued to participate in films such as “Under the Weight of the Law” (1986, by Jim Jarmusch), “Dracula” (1992, by Coppola) and “Crossed Lives” (1993, by Robert Altman) with roles of greater importance than in his previous forays into cinema. He also composed the music for the film “Night on Earth” (1991, by Jim Jarmusch) and the following year, he published “Bone Machine” (1992), for which he received a Grammy for best alternative rock performance. Waits was not impressed by that at all. His friend Jarmusch recalled his reaction: “Alternative to what? What the fuck does “alternative” mean?”

He again turned his attention to other fields and in 1993 teamed up with author William Burroughs and composer Robert Wilson to compose the score and libretto for a musical called “The Black Rider”. This musical is based on a 19th-century German folk opera about a man who makes a pact with the devil to marry the woman he loves. He worked with Wilson again on an operatic version of “Alice in Wonderland” and continued to compose soundtracks such as the animated film “Bunny”, winner of an Oscar in 1998.

Finally, in 1999 he released his first album of original songs in seven years. “Mule Variations”, unlike all his previous works, of which only two managed to enter the Top 100, debuted at number 30 on the charts, his best position to date. It also received very favorable reviews, most agreeing that it was his best work so far.

Many of his songs have become better known in versions of other artists, such as “Jersey girl” (Bruce Springsteen) or “Downtown train” (Rod Stewart) and although his albums have had moderate commercial success in the United States, in other countries he has achieved gold records for their sales. Waits has never been in favor of giving away his music for advertising purposes, Thus, he has had lawsuits with several companies, such as Frito-Lay, Levi”s, Audi and Opel that intended to use in their advertisements “versions” of his songs performed by artists who imitated his style. He has won them all.

2002 was a particularly prolific year. Tom released two albums: “Alice” and “Blood Money”. The following year, he appeared alongside Iggy Pop in Jim Jarmusch”s film “Coffee and Cigarettes”. In 2004, he released “Real Gone” and, after a new silence of seven years, in 2011 “Bad as me” appeared with thirteen new songs co-composed and co-produced with his wife Kathleen Brennan. Keith Richards collaborates on guitar on four of them.

In 2018, he participated as an actor in the western “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”, a six-episode film written, directed, produced and edited by the Coen brothers.,

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Discography

Main article: Tom Waits discography on Wikipedia.

• Closing Time (1973)
• The Heart of Saturday Night (1974)
• Nighthawks at the Diner (1975)
• Small Change (1976)
• Foreign Affairs (1977)
• Blue Valentine (1978)
• Heartattack and Vine (1980)
• Swordfishtrombones (1983)
• Rain Dogs (1985)
• Franks Wild Years (1987)
• Bone Machine (1992)
• The Black Rider (1993)
• Mule Variations (1999)
• Alice (2002)
• Blood Money (2002)
• Real Gone (2004)
• Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards (2006)
• Bad as Me (2011)

Tom Waits’ Downtown Train: Lyrics

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 heart attacks
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