He started his career in the early 1970s as a singer in spit 'n' sawdust bars. Initially, he was deeply influenced by the beat generation, novelists like Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, and poets like Allen Ginsberg and Charles Bukowski. Waits is often compared to Charles Bukowski, being similar both in content and lifestyle
Waits was unable to make a living from his music in the 70s because his classical bar music, based in pre-rock, and Americana, blues, and Vaudeville styles were not popular. Waits's voice back then was soft, warm and clear.
Waits subsequently developed a devoted cult following and has influenced subsequent songwriters, despite having little radio or music video support. In fact, his songs are perhaps best known to the general public in the form of cover versions of more visible artists, such as the Eagles, Bruce Springsteen and Rod Stewart.
Although Waits’s albums have met with mixed commercial success in his native United States, they have occasionally achieved gold album sales status in other countries.
Lyrically, Waits's songs are known for atmospheric portrayals of seedy characters and places; he sings about the losers on the streets: alcoholics, junkies, prostitutes and social outcasts, although he also includes more conventional and touching ballads in his repertoire.
While opening for Frank Zappa, the audience catcalled and refused to listen to him; he was an unsuitable match with Zappa's avantgarde style.
Countless cigarettes, gallons of alcohol and many all night parties eventually left their trace in his face and voice.
His more recent gravelly voice can be first heard on Small Change. This distinctive voice turned out to be his trademark. It is described by the Music Hound Rock Album Guide as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months and then taken outside and run over with a car". Small Change with its sentimental ballads, its bar-jazz attitude and Film Noir-oriented stories turned out to be his biggest commercial success in the 1970s.
Waits subsequently developed a more unique style. His songs have grown more abrasive since then, and the arrangements have turned more surreal and experimental with every new record. His life brings him to new visions, as indicated by the direction taken in his "Alice" release.
While composing the soundtrack for Francis Ford Coppola's One From The Heart Waits met Kathleen Brennan, his bride-to-be. They married in 1980 and she helped him quit drinking and smoking. Since their marriage they have been working together on his albums as co-producers and co-writers. It is hard to say which part belongs to her and which to him, but it's easy to see that they make a perfect team. Additionally, his eldest son Casey can be heard on turntables and percussion on Waits's album "Real Gone".
One of Waits's greatest successes was the album "Swordfishtrombones", released in 1983. It struck with his critics and fans alike. He achieved a new level of song writing and left former conventions (and his earlier career) behind. All songs, whether ballads, jive or jazz are played in a completely different way. It seems that Waits had taken the musical archetypes of these styles and made them his own. All tracks are in the quintessential Waits style. They have a striking rawness and listenability and they set the stage for his success and his future career.
The Bad As Me Songfacts reports that 36 years after the release of Waits' first album, Closing Time in 1973, Bad As Me became Waits's first ever top 10 album in the US when it debuted at #6 with 63,000 sales.
In the late 1980s Waits discovered an outlet for his creativity in composing musicals. His first Musical was named "The Black Rider", and is based on "Der Freischütz" by Carl Maria von Weber. It was co-produced by Robert Wilson and the lyrics come from William S. Burroughs. The story is slightly reminiscent of Kurt Weil's and Berthold Brecht's "Three Penny Opera" and the 1930s. The debut performance of the play was in 1990 at the Thalia Theater, Hamburg and has been played by various theatre groups since then.
Waits was also responsible for two other musicals, which later became albums released simultaneously in 2002. One was the musical "Blood Money," which covers the "Woyczek" theme of Georg Büchner. This one is one of the darkest works from Waits. The other musical is based on Lewis Carroll's classic children's novel, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". "Alice" is very romantic, dreamy and soft, and contains one of Waits most romantic songs. Even though they were released at the same time, the bootlegs of the "Alice" musical were long before traded between fans and were just rearranged and re-mastered for the official release.
Besides many film contributions as composer – the Internet Movie Database imdb.com lists 47 appearances of Waits as composer and 38 soundtracks containing songs by Waits - he also is an actor with a total of 25 appearances, ranging from some mini-roles as a trumpeter in "Heart of Saturday Night" and the R. M. Renfield in "Bram Stoker's Dracula" to the major role of Zack in Jim Jarmusch's "Down by Law". He recently appeared in Roberto Benigni's "The Tiger and the Snow", playing You Can Never Hold Back Spring at Benigni's wedding dream. Even more recently, Waits played Mr.Nick (the Devil) in Terry Gilliam's "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus".
In addition to a number of concert videos, he also appeared in the critically-acclaimed concert feature film "Big Time" (1990).
Waits has always refused to allow the use of his songs in commercials. He has filed several lawsuits against advertisers for using his material without permission. Waits also successfully sued an advertiser for using a work that was stylistically similar to his work, after he had declined to sell them the rights to his song. He has been quoted as saying, "Apparently the highest compliment our culture grants artists nowadays is to be in an ad — ideally naked and purring on the hood of a new car. I have adamantly and repeatedly refused this dubious honor."
08
Tom Waits Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Get my medicine
Sky's the autumn grey of a lonely wren
Piano from a window played
Gone tomorrow, gone yesterday
I found it in the street
Lying at my feet
A trampled rose
Passing the hat in church
It never stops going around
You never pay just once
To get the job done
What I done to me,
I done to you
What happened to the trampled rose?
In the muddy street
With the fireworks and leaves
A blind man with a cup I asked
Would he sing 'Kisses Sweeter Than Wine'
I know that rose,
Like I know my name
The one I gave my love,
It was the same
Now I find it in the street,
A trampled rose
Tom Waits's song "Trampled Rose" is a melancholic expression of lost love and redemption. The lyrics, "Long way going to get my medicine, sky's the autumn grey of a lonely wren" evoke a sense of despair and desperation, as the singer seeks solace to remedy the pain of love's loss. The song's title, "Trampled Rose," references the rose lying at the singer's feet, which symbolizes the destruction of love. The singer is haunted by the memory of the lost love which they gave to someone solely to find it trampled upon the street.
The lines, "What I done to me, I done to you, what happened to the trampled rose?" suggest that the singer is taking responsibility for their own heartbreak and for the demise of the relationship. The song flows into a scene of a blind man with a cup that the singer approaches trying to find refuge in the song, "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine." This moment highlights the sorrow of the singer as it is an ode not only to lost love but to the loss of faith in humanity. In essence, Tom Waits's "Trampled Rose" is a haunting exploration of love's fragility, and how its loss can shatter hearts and souls.
Line by Line Meaning
Long way going to
I have a long distance to travel in order to get my medicine
Get my medicine
Obtain the medication that I need to feel better
Sky's the autumn grey of a lonely wren
The sky is a sad shade of grey, much like a lonesome bird in the fall
Piano from a window played
The sound of a piano playing drifted out of a nearby window
Gone tomorrow, gone yesterday
Things come and go very quickly, with the past and future seeming to blend together
I found it in the street
I stumbled upon something while walking on the road
At first I did not see
Initially, the object was not visible to me
Lying at my feet
The object was on the ground near my feet
A trampled rose
It was a rose that had been crushed underfoot
Passing the hat in church
Collecting money from people in a religious establishment
It never stops going around
The act of collecting money in this manner is never-ending
You never pay just once
Contributing money one time is never enough to fully complete the task
To get the job done
In order to finish what needs to be done
What I done to me,
The actions that I have committed towards myself
I done to you
I have also done them to you
What happened to the trampled rose?
What befell the crushed rose that I found?
In the muddy street
On the dirty, rain-soaked lane
With the fireworks and leaves
Fall foliage and sporadic pyrotechnics were present
A blind man with a cup I asked
I directed my inquiry to a blind individual who had a container in which people could donate
Would he sing 'Kisses Sweeter Than Wine'
I requested him to sing a specific song
I know that rose,
I am familiar with that rose
Like I know my name
I recognize it with the same familiarity as my own name
The one I gave my love,
It was a particular rose that I had previously given as a symbol of my affection
It was the same
It was the very same rose that I had gifted
Now I find it in the street,
I discovered it in the road, now destroyed and abandoned
A trampled rose
It was now a damaged and crushed flower
Lyrics © OBO APRA/AMCOS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Christopher Jentsch
Lucinda
Way Down in the Hole
Falling Down
Black Market Baby
All the World Is Green
Heigh-Ho
Get Behind the Mule
Day After Tomorrow
Cemetery Polka
Hang Down Your Head
Lucky Day
Johnsburg, Illinois
Lost in the Harbour
Make It Rain
Lie to Me
On the Other Side of the World
Singapore
Dirt in the Ground
What's He Building?
16 Shells From a Thirty-Ought-Six
Rain Dogs
Encore:
Goin' Out West
Anywhere I Lay My Head
Innocent When You Dream
Christopher Jentsch
Lucinda
Way Down in the Hole
Falling Down
Black Market Baby
All the World Is Green
Heigh-Ho
Get Behind the Mule
Day After Tomorrow
Cemetery Polka
Hang Down Your Head
Lucky Day
Johnsburg, Illinois
Lost in the Harbour
Make It Rain
Lie to Me
On the Other Side of the World
Singapore
Dirt in the Ground
What's He Building?
16 Shells From a Thirty-Ought-Six
Rain Dogs
Encore:
Goin' Out West
Anywhere I Lay My Head
Innocent When You Dream
M G
Thank you for this, saw this live!
caligari187
Amazing! thanks a lot!
D41087 Tagad
😮😮😮😮😮thanks!!!!!
Frank Stalone
Thanks for posting.
Karmen Jazbec
YEAH TOM YOU ARE THE BEST I AM JUST SMOKING DRINKING WATER AND LISTENING TO YOU A CAT ATE AND WENT OUT OUTSIDE IT IS GETTING WARM BUT INSIDE IS STILL FRESH A BOY IS COMING AROUND 11 O CLOCK FOR A LIST AND MONEY FOR MY MONTHLY SUPPLIES WHICH HE WILL BRING ME ON FRYDAY IT IS GOOD FOR ME TOM YOU ARE THE LEGEND I LIKE TO LISTEN TO YOU
Jean Boisleduc
Great show!!! thanks for posting!!
but shitty crowd trying to show their appreciation by yelling out loud and out of tone over Tom and his musicians...
Stephan Engelhardt
Thks for the post :)
Van Peteghem Olivier
This is absolutely not HQ audio. It is filmed with a phone! It gives headache.
Oddities&Rarities
it's the best quality audio available for this show and this show has the most complete footage