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."
Back in the Crowd
Tom Waits Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
If you don't want these lips to kiss you
If you've found somebody new
Put me back in the crowd
Put the sun behind the clouds
Put me back in the crowd
[Repeat x2]
Between the blue and the grey
And if you don't want my love
Don't make me stay
Take back your name
Take back these wings
Take my picture from the frame
And put me back in the crowd
Put the sun behind the cloud
Put me back in the crowd
Put me back in the crowd
Put the sun behind the cloud
Put me back in the crowd
Tom Waits’s “Back in the Crowd” is a song about unrequited love and an unfulfilling romantic relationship. The singer is feeling neglected by their lover, who has seemingly moved on to someone else. The lyrics begin with a plea to be released, “If you don't want these arms to hold you/ If you don't want these lips to kiss you/ If you've found somebody new/ Put me back in the crowd.” It becomes clear that the relationship is one-sided and the singer is conflicted, they still have strong feelings for their love interest but feel trapped in a relationship that does not allow for reciprocity.
The metaphorical use of the battle between blue and grey highlights the turmoil that the singer is facing. The blue and grey signify two different emotional states that are polarized, and the artist is feeling stuck in the middle. It is a situation of emotional pain where an innocent person has become a victim of love. Waits implores his lover to take back the name, the wings, and the picture from the frame before putting them back into the crowd. The lyrics, “put me back in the crowd, put the sun behind the cloud,” display a desire for anonymity and an end to emotional turmoil.
Line by Line Meaning
If you don't want these arms to hold you
If you don't want to be embraced or cared for by me
If you don't want these lips to kiss you
If you don't want my affection or to be intimate with me
If you've found somebody new
If you have found someone else to love
Put me back in the crowd
Release me from your life and let me return to anonymity
Put the sun behind the clouds
Take away the brightness and joy that I once felt
Put me back in the crowd
Release me from your life and let me return to anonymity
There's a battle going on
My heart is in turmoil
Between the blue and the grey
Between sadness and confusion
And if you don't want my love
And if you don't want to be loved by me
Don't make me stay
Don't force me to remain in a situation where I'm not wanted
Take back your name
Remove all association with me
Take back these wings
Remove all the attributes of me that once made you fly or feel free
Take my picture from the frame
Erase all memories of me from your life
And put me back in the crowd
Release me from your life and let me return to anonymity
Put the sun behind the cloud
Take away the brightness and joy that I once felt
Put me back in the crowd
Release me from your life and let me return to anonymity
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: KATHLEEN BRENNAN, THOMAS A. WAITS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Михаил Сергопольцев
Если не хочешь, чтобы тебя обнимали эти руки,
Если не хочешь, чтобы тебя целовали эти губы,
Если ты нашла кого-то,
Смешай меня с толпой,
Спрячь солнце за тучами,
Смешай меня с толпой.
Между синевой и серостью идет битва,
Если тебе не нужна моя любовь, отпусти.
Между синевой и серостью идет битва,
Если тебе не нужна моя любовь, отпусти.
Забирай свое имя,
Забирай эти крылья,
Выброси мое фото из рамки
И смешай меня с толпой.
Спрячь солнце за тучами,
Смешай меня с толпой.
Спрячь солнце за тучами,
Смешай меня с толпой.
George Bistolas
If you don't want these arms to hold you
If you don't want these lips to kiss you
If you've found someone new
Put me back in the crowd
Put the sun behind the clouds
Put me back in the crowd
There's a battle going on
Between the blue and the grey
And if you don't want my love
Don't make me stay
Take back your name
Take back these wings
Take my picture from the frame…
Put me back in the crowd
Put the sun behind the clouds
Put me back in the crowd
Leibovskіy
If you don’t want these arms to hold you
If you don’t want these lips to kiss you
If you’ve found somebody new
Put me back in the crowd
Put the sun behind the clouds
Put me back in the crowd
There’s a battle going on
Between the blue and the gray
And if you don’t want my love
Don’t make me stay
There’s a battle going on
Between the blue and gray
And if you don’t want my love
Don’t make me stay
Take back your name
Take back these wings
Take my picture from the frame
And put me back in the crowd
Put the sun behind the cloud
Put me back in the crowd
Put me back in the crowd
Put the sun behind the cloud
Put me back in the crowd
Justine Stevens
You know Waits styles his voice like that right? He actually has a super great voice. And his range of styles is awesome. Have you ever listened to "The Early Years" either volume? Beautiful. Not only that, but he is a brilliant lyricist and composer as well. I think people automatically reject him because he doesn't sound like everybody else, but he wears that as a badge of honor. And we as fans feel a certain pride in being able to transcend the popularized drivel that passes for music today.
smios
From Closing Time up to Bad as me, Tom's songs are so powerful, which makes difficult to believe how good he is.
GIARC SNOMMIT
All bow to the king of lyric writing.
Connie Milne
I love this song. Its so beautiful. I can't even imagine anyone else singing it.
Brian Smith
yeah Puddles version is fantastic
Debra Hall
Tom Waits wrote song for many other artist to sing. Puddles Pity Party does a nice cover of this song.
ThePapabear27
Puddles. You're welcome.
Marcel Versteeg
After 10 years it is time for Tom to give us new songs on a new album !
David Clinch
In brilliant form. He's a mighty singer/songwriter/musician/person!
m tracy
Yes, he's all those things👍