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."
A Good Man Is Hard To Find
Tom Waits Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
It's seventeen black or twenty-nine red
How far from the gutter, how far from the pew
I will always remember to forget about you
A good man is hard to find
Only strangers sleep in my bed
My favorite words are: good-bye
A long dead soldier looks out from the frame
No one remembers his war, no one remembers his name
Go out to the meadow, scare off all the crows
It does nothing but rain here, and nothing will grow
A good man is hard to find
Only strangers sleep in my bed
And my favorite words are goodbye
And my favorite color is
My favorite color is
My favorite color is red
The initial lines of Tom Waits's "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" immediately set us into a mood of strife and disillusionment. The singer plays "Russian Roulette in my head," signifying inner turmoil and despair. The two possibly fatal outcomes of the game, "seventeen black or twenty-nine red," making us envision the possibility of the singer's monotonous life ending in either misery or death. The lyrics, "How far from the gutter, how far from the pew," display the singer’s awareness of the darkness that surrounds us all. The singer appears to be stuck somewhere the opposite of salvation, not close to the homeless man on the street nor the priest in the church. The lyrics "I will always remember to forget about you" lead us to conclude that the singer is trying to overcome a heartbreak over a person or life, they now want to get rid of.
The chorus of the song, "A good man is hard to find," a common saying, is not what one would expect as a relief but has a darker twist. The next lines, "Only strangers sleep in my bed; my favorite words are goodbye, and my favorite color is red," suggest that the singer has given up on the idea of finding someone good to love, and have resorted to fleeting, misguided relationships with strangers who won’t see the morning. This might have made the singer cold-hearted, enjoying the pleasurable company of temporary pleasure only leaving them behind.
The third verse "A long dead soldier looks out from the frame/No one remembers his war, no one remembers his name/Go out to the meadow, scare off all the crows/It does nothing but rain here, and nothing will grow" is right on the hands-off vulnerability that the singer recognizes. The long-dead soldier has just a picture frame to be remembered, and nobody is there to do that. Here Waits contrasts the idea of a good man, which is hard to find with the reality of a soldier who gave his life for the country and yet remains forgotten.
Line by Line Meaning
Well, I always play Russian Roulette in my head
I live a dangerous and unpredictable life, constantly making risky decisions in my mind.
It's seventeen black or twenty-nine red
The odds are never in my favor, as I tend to choose losing options or outcomes.
How far from the gutter, how far from the pew
I am neither completely hopeless nor completely righteous, but somewhere in between.
I will always remember to forget about you
I will hold onto the memory of you, but try to move on and forget about the pain you caused.
A good man is hard to find
It's difficult to find someone who is truly good and trustworthy in this world.
Only strangers sleep in my bed
I do not let myself get close enough to anyone to let them share my bed or my life.
My favorite words are: good-bye
I prefer to end things rather than allow them to drag on, even if it hurts in the moment.
And my favorite color is red
I am drawn to the passion and intensity of the color red, which symbolizes both love and anger.
A long dead soldier looks out from the frame
I am reminded of the sacrifices and forgotten heroes of war, whose stories often go untold.
No one remembers his war, no one remembers his name
Even though this soldier fought for a cause and gave his life, his legacy has been lost to time and apathy.
Go out to the meadow, scare off all the crows
I am trying to rid myself of negative influences and distractions, even if it means venturing into unpleasant or lonely places.
It does nothing but rain here, and nothing will grow
Everything feels stagnant and hopeless, with no signs of life or growth in my surroundings or my emotional state.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, JALMA MUSIC
Written by: Kathleen Brennan, Thomas Alan Waits
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Jesse Coder
Waits is one of my favorite jazz singers,
sometimes.. he's one of my favorite soul singers
but always, he is my favorite circus & carnival freakshow singer
Yorgos
He has the wisdom of centuries and the wit of a feral cat. Love ya Tom
ignasi sintes
Me emociona hasta el tuétano!!.. la Adoro!!
Frunobulax
"..I will always remember to forget about you.."
C.A. Savage
Flannery O'Connor's short story of the same name is about a serial killer in the south in the 50's.
It's a story about original sin that combines a deft comic sensibility with the grotesque and tragic.
A bit like the song.
anthony cruz
Great!
A V
Great
Pleasantries
MY FAVORITE COLOR ISSSS REEEEDDDDD
rowberdt
...I wonder what that's about.,...
...
(...there's a "tell" along with that "occupied area" and so there's at least this much.,...)
C.A. Savage
Read Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man is Hard to FInd" and All will be revealed.