Tom Waits (born Thomas Alan Waits, in Pomona, California, on December 7, 19… Read Full Bio ↴Tom Waits (born Thomas Alan Waits, in Pomona, California, on December 7, 1949) is a prolific American singer, songwriter, composer, and actor.

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 Good Old World
Tom Waits Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

When I was a boy, the moon was pearl the sun a yellow gold
When I was a man, the wind blew cold the hills were upside down
But now that I have gone from here there's no place I'd rather be
Than to float my chances on the tide Back in the good old world

On October's last I'll fly back home rolling down winding way
Scare crows are all dressed in rags out at the edge of the field I lay
And all I've got's a pocket full of flowers on my grave

Oh but summer is gone I remember it best

Back in the good old world
And all I've got's a pocket full of flowers on my grave

Oh but summer is gone and I remember it best
Back in the good old world

Overall Meaning

The lyrics "When I was a boy, the moon was pearl the sun a yellow gold / When I was a man, the wind blew cold the hills were upside down / But now that I have gone from here there's no place I'd rather be / Than to float my chances on the tide Back in the good old world" speaks to the nostalgia for a simpler time when things seemed golden and idyllic. As the singer has grown older, life has become more difficult and the world has become topsy-turvy. However, there is still a longing for the past and a sense of comfort in the familiar. The phrase "there's no place I'd rather be" suggests that the singer wants to go back to a time when things were more predictable, even if it means taking a chance and starting over.

The rest of the lyrics continue to evoke a sense of longing for the past, especially the line "And all I've got's a pocket full of flowers on my grave." This suggests that the singer knows that his time on earth is limited and he wants to return to a time when he felt more alive. The line "Oh but summer is gone I remember it best" speaks to the idea that we tend to idealize the past and remember the good times more vividly than the bad.

Overall, "Back in the Good Old World" is a song about nostalgia and the longing for a time when life seemed simpler and more golden. It speaks to the universal human experience of wanting to go back to a time when we felt more alive and hopeful.

Line by Line Meaning

When I was a boy, the moon was pearl the sun a yellow gold
As a child, I saw the world with a sense of wonder and magic, where even the moon was a rare and beautiful pearl and the sun was the color of precious gold.

When I was a man, the wind blew cold the hills were upside down
As I grew older, I faced challenges and obstacles that left me feeling disoriented and out of place, with the wind feeling harsh and cold and the world seemingly turned upside down.

But now that I have gone from here there's no place I'd rather be
Despite the difficulties of life, now that I have traveled beyond my hometown and seen more of the world, I have come to appreciate the beauty and value of the place where I started out.

Than to float my chances on the tide Back in the good old world
I am willing to take risks and let life carry me where it will, trusting that I can find my way back to the familiar and beloved places of my past.

On October's last I'll fly back home rolling down winding way
As autumn draws to a close, I plan to return to my hometown, traveling along a winding and unpredictable path that reflects the twists and turns of life itself.

Scare crows are all dressed in rags out at the edge of the field I lay
As I journey home, I pass by the fields where I once played, now filled with ragged scarecrows that serve as a reminder of the passing of time and the frailty of human life.

And all I've got's a pocket full of flowers on my grave
Despite the hardships and losses I have faced, I still hold onto reminders of beauty and hope, carrying a pocket full of flowers that I hope will someday adorn my own grave.

Oh but summer is gone I remember it best
As the seasons change and time marches on, I hold onto the memories of the summers of my youth, when life felt full of promise and joy.

Back in the good old world
Ultimately, I long to return to the world of my past, where life felt simpler and more innocent, and to reconnect with the people and places that shaped who I am today.

Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Written by: KATHLEEN BRENNAN, THOMAS ALAN WAITS

Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind

To comment on or correct specific content, highlight it

TRACKS