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."
Candy Apple Red
Tom Waits Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Splashin' bagdad on the hudson in panther martin's eyes
He's high and outside wearin' candy apple red
Scarlet gave him twenty seven stitches in his head
With a pint of green chartreuse ain't nothin' seems right
You buy the sunday paper on a saturday night
Can't you hear the thunder someone stole my watch
Some one tell those chinamen on telegraph canyon road
When you're on the bill with the spoon there ain't no time
To unload, so bye bye baby baby bye bye
Droopy stranger lonely dreamer toy puppy and the prado
We're laughin' as they piled into olmos' el dorado
Jesus whispered eni meany miney moe
They're too proud to duck their heads
That's why they bring it down so low
So bye bye baby baby bye bye
The pointed man is smack dab in the middle of july
Swingin' from the rafters in his brand new tie
He said I can't go back to that hotel room
All they do is shout
But I'll stay wichew baby till the money runs out
So bye bye baby baby bye bye
The lyrics to Tom Waits's song Candy Apple Red are characterized by their surreal and strange imagery that is open to a wide range of interpretation. The first stanza, for example, describes a bizarre beverage that falls out of the sky and lands in Panther Martin's eyes. He is depicted as being "high and outside" and wearing a "candy apple red" outfit, suggesting a sense of disorientation and detachment from reality. In the same stanza, Scarlet, who is introduced without any context or background, apparently gave him "twenty-seven stitches in his head." The second stanza is similarly odd in its depiction of a thunderstorm and the singer's purchase of a pint of green chartreuse on a Saturday night. The reference to selling "a quart of blood" to buy "a half a pint of scotch" is strikingly vivid and suggests a sense of urgency or desperation.
The third stanza introduces a group of characters, including Droopy, Stranger, Lonely Dreamer, Toy Puppy, and Prado, who are piled into Olmos' El Dorado and are "laughin'." The reference to Jesus and his saying "eni meany miney moe" creates a sense of dissonance between a religious figure and a children's game. The final stanza returns to the pointed man who is apparently swingin' from the rafters in a brand new tie and refuses to go back to a hotel room where all they do is shout. The line "But I'll stay wichew baby till the money runs out" suggests that the singer is willing to endure any situation as long as there is money involved.
Overall, the lyrics to Candy Apple Red create a dreamlike and otherworldly atmosphere that resists straightforward interpretation. The images are random and seemingly disconnected from one another, creating a sense of disorientation and confusion that is reinforced by the repetition of the final line "so bye bye baby baby bye bye," which suggests a finality or sense of closure.
Line by Line Meaning
Check this strange beverage that falls out from the sky
Listen to what I have to say, because it's as unexpected as a drink that randomly falls from the sky
Splashin' bagdad on the hudson in panther martin's eyes
Describing a chaotic scene in NYC by referencing the war in the middle east; Panther Martin is getting blinded or overwhelmed by the scene
He's high and outside wearin' candy apple red
Panther Martin is out of his mind on drugs and wearing a bold and flashy outfit
Scarlet gave him twenty seven stitches in his head
Someone named Scarlet physically injured Panther Martin badly (27 stitches worth)
With a pint of green chartreuse ain't nothin' seems right
Green chartreuse is a very strong liquor known to make people feel like things aren't quite right
You buy the sunday paper on a saturday night
Panther Martin's actions and choices are disorienting, backwards, and unorthodox
Can't you hear the thunder someone stole my watch
It's so chaotic and strange that Panther Martin is claiming he got his watch stolen during a thunder storm
I sold a quart of blood and bought a half a pint of scotch
Panther Martin's choices are so extreme that he's selling his bodily fluid to only buy a small amount of alcohol
Some one tell those chinamen on telegraph canyon road
Panther Martin is summoning a non-existent audience to help him express his next thought
When you're on the bill with the spoon there ain't no time to unload, so bye bye baby baby bye bye
When you're on the road as a performer, there isn't always time to rest or relax, so he's saying goodbye to someone close to him
Droopy stranger lonely dreamer toy puppy and the prado
Panther Martin is with a group of unlikely characters that don't seem to fit together (a melancholy person, someone lost in their thoughts, a toy dog, and a fancy car)
We're laughin' as they piled into olmos' el dorado
Everyone is piling into the El Dorado car despite how strange or uncomfortable it may be
Jesus whispered eni meany miney moe
A chaotic moment where Panther Martin is invoking a child's game as a way to describe how random events feel like they're happening to him
They're too proud to duck their heads, that's why they bring it down so low
People refuse to humble themselves or show vulnerability, so they bring their destructive or sinister behavior down to a covert level
So bye bye baby baby bye bye
A repeating line to say goodbye to someone close to him, or to say goodbye to a version of himself that's being left behind
The pointed man is smack dab in the middle of july
A description of an odd or unexpected situation, like someone pointedly standing in the middle of a hot summer day
Swingin' from the rafters in his brand new tie
Someone is celebrating or acting out in a flamboyant way, even in a mundane setting like work
He said I can't go back to that hotel room, all they do is shout
Panther Martin is refusing to return to a stressful or frustrating environment
But I'll stay wichew baby till the money runs out, so bye bye baby baby bye bye
A repeating line to say that he'll stay with someone close to him until the money or means to stay runs out, and then have to say goodbye
Contributed by Zoe V. Suggest a correction in the comments below.