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."
Buzz Fledderjohn
Tom Waits Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
To get a better look at the Fledderjohns' lawn
Big sharp pistols, ammo too
Nothing but books about World War II
Rottweiler, Dobermann, a Pinkerton guard
I ain't allowed in Buzz Fledderjohn's yard
I ain't allowed
I said, I ain't allowed in Buzz Fledderjohn's yard
I seen a python swallowing a Dobermann whole
Piranhas swimming in a mixing bowl
Buzz Fledderjohn
Paper's full of stabbings, the sky's full of crows
She's singing in Italian while she's hanging out her clothes
Carp in the bathtub and it's raining real hard
I ain't allowed in Buzz Fledderjohn's yard
I said that I ain't allowed
No, I ain't allowed
No, I ain't allowed in Buzz Fledderjohn's yard
Well, the sailor's ringing doorbells, the sinner's in the pew
Weathervane's squeaking to the west
I seen the cliffs of Dover and the deepest ocean blue
One thing in the world I can't recommend to you
Because I ain't allowed
I said, I ain't allowed
No, I ain't allowed in Buzz Fledderjohn's yard
I said, I ain't allowed
No, I ain't allowed
I ain't allowed in Buzz Fledderjohn's yard
I ain't allowed
I ain't allowed
I said, I ain't allowed in Buzz Fledderjohn's yard
The song Buzz Fledderjohn by Tom Waits is a cryptic narrative about a man who is not allowed in Buzz Fledderjohn's yard. The first stanza describes the singer's efforts to get a peek at Fledderjohn's lawn. He lists some of the things he saw in the yard, including guns, books related to World War II, and guard dogs. Despite his curiosity, the singer is not allowed in the yard, as noted in the repeating refrain of "I ain't allowed in Buzz Fledderjohn's yard."
The second stanza continues to paint a picture of bizarre and unsettling occurrences, including a python consuming a Dobermann and piranhas swimming in a mixing bowl. The singer also notes the presence of crows in the sky and an Italian woman singing while hanging clothes. The final stanza adds to the surrealism of the song with references to sailors, sinners, and weathervanes. The singer notes that he has seen the cliffs of Dover and the deepest ocean blue, but the one thing he cannot recommend is being denied entry into Buzz Fledderjohn's yard.
Overall, the song can be interpreted in various ways, with themes including the danger of curiosity, the restriction of freedom, and the mystery of what happens behind closed doors.
Line by Line Meaning
I stood on the roof, stood till dark
I climbed up to the roof of my house and waited there until nightfall
To get a better look at the Fledderjohns' lawn
In order to see more clearly what is going on in the yard of the Fledderjohn family who live nearby
Big sharp pistols, ammo too
I can see from my spot on the roof that the Fledderjohns have a lot of guns and bullets
Nothing but books about World War II
The only reading material they seem to have is all about the Second World War
Rottweiler, Dobermann, a Pinkerton guard
They have a Rottweiler and a Dobermann, as well as a security guard from the Pinkerton detective agency
I ain't allowed in Buzz Fledderjohn's yard
I am not permitted to enter the piece of land that Buzz Fledderjohn owns
I seen a python swallowing a Dobermann whole
One day, I witnessed a large snake devouring an entire Dobermann dog
Piranhas swimming in a mixing bowl
I also saw piranhas swimming in a bowl, which is quite unusual
Paper's full of stabbings, the sky's full of crows
The newspapers are reporting many incidents of knife crimes, and the sky is filled with black birds known as crows
She's singing in Italian while she's hanging out her clothes
A woman is singing in the Italian language while she hangs her garments outside to dry in the fresh air
Carp in the bathtub and it's raining real hard
In the house, there is a bathtub filled with carp, and outside it is raining heavily
Well, the sailor's ringing doorbells, the sinner's in the pew
Sailors are visiting various homes and ringing their doorbells as a way of causing mischief, while people who have committed sins are attending church services
Weathervane's squeaking to the west
The weathervane on the roof is making a loud, high-pitched sound as it turns to point towards the western direction
I seen the cliffs of Dover and the deepest ocean blue
At some point in my life, I had the opportunity to view the picturesque white cliffs known as Dover, as well as the vast, beautiful ocean
One thing in the world I can't recommend to you
There is something that I do not believe is a good idea to advise another person to do
Because I ain't allowed
The reason why I cannot recommend this thing is because I am prohibited from doing it myself
No, I ain't allowed in Buzz Fledderjohn's yard
Once again, I am emphasizing the fact that I am not allowed to go into the yard that belongs to Buzz Fledderjohn
I ain't allowed
This phrase is used throughout the song to reiterate the same point of me not being permitted to enter Buzz Fledderjohn's yard
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, JALMA MUSIC
Written by: Kathleen Brennan, Thomas Alan Waits
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@iamonekim
1 a ma favs n sea of luv too. ty Mr Waits..°•°•. . .gits deep in my craw
@fadisafi8030
She s singing "Volare"
@chrisdenton5452
He can play a mean dog