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."
Everything You Can Think
Tom Waits Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Before the ocean was blue
We were lost in a flood
Run red with your blood
Nigerian skeleton crew
Everything you can think of is true
The dish ran away with the spoon
We're decomposing as we go
Everything you can think of is true
And fishes make wishes on you
We're fighting our way up dreamland's spine
Red flamingos and expensive wine
Everything you can think of is true
The baby's asleep in your shoe
Your teeth are buildings with yellow doors
Your eyes are fish on a creamy shore
The lyrics of Tom Waits's "Everything You Can Think Of Is True" are open to interpretation. The song appears to be a surreal meditation on the elusive nature of reality and the human experience in the world. The opening line, "Everything you can think of is true," creates a sense of uncertainty and challenges the listener to question what they believe in. The next few lines present a series of disjointed images and metaphors: "Before the ocean was blue/We were lost in a flood/Run red with your blood/Nigerian skeleton crew." These phrases conjure up a world of apocalyptic chaos, of a world before creation, and a time of great upheaval.
The second verse presents more surreal imagery that seems to evoke childhood nostalgia: "The dish ran away with the spoon/Dig deep in your heart for that little red glow/We're decomposing as we go." The reference to the nursery rhyme about the dish and spoon running away together evokes memories of innocent fairy tales but then takes an unexpected turn. Tom Waits reflects on human mortality and how the human body disintegrates with time. The third verse adds to the surrealism with references to animals and wine. The final verse is the most enigmatic: "The baby's asleep in your shoe/Your teeth are buildings with yellow doors/Your eyes are fish on a creamy shore." The images are bizarre and poetic, suggesting that everything we see and know is only our individual perception of reality. Overall, "Everything You Can Think Of Is True" is a song that invites the listener to think deeply about the nature of existence and the mysteries of the universe.
Line by Line Meaning
Everything you can think of is true
The world is as big as your imagination
Before the ocean was blue
Back in history, things were different from what they are now
We were lost in a flood
We have been through what seems like a disaster before
Run red with your blood
We have all struggled and fought in our own battles
Nigerian skeleton crew
A group of people who work hard with very little and are never recognized
The dish ran away with the spoon
Strange things happen, things we cannot explain
Dig deep in your heart for that little red glow
Search for the passion and love that live inside you
We're decomposing as we go
We die a little every day, but life goes on
And fishes make wishes on you
Even the most unexpected things can happen
We're fighting our way up dreamland's spine
Life is a struggle, but there is always hope
Red flamingos and expensive wine
Sometimes people that seem different can go together perfectly
The baby's asleep in your shoe
Life can be unpredictable and things don't always make sense
Your teeth are buildings with yellow doors
Your imperfections are what make you unique
Your eyes are fish on a creamy shore
You see the world in your own unique way
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, JALMA MUSIC
Written by: KATHLEEN BRENNAN, THOMAS ALAN WAITS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@meatspectre6208
Everything you can think of is true
Before the ocean was blue
We were lost in a flood
Run red with your blood
Nigerian skeleton crew
Everything you can think of is true
The dish ran away with a spoon
Dig deep in your heart for that little red glow
We're decomposing as we go
Everything you can think of is true
And fishes make wishes on you
We're fighting our way up dreamland's spine
With red flamingos and expensive wine
Everything you can think of is true
The baby's asleep in your shoe
Your teeth are buildings with yellow doors
Your eyes are fish on a creamy shore
@stacy7861
This man is so underated...
Love your stuff my friend
@christophemazzucco6903
so deep in soul
@meatspectre6208
Everything you can think of is true
Before the ocean was blue
We were lost in a flood
Run red with your blood
Nigerian skeleton crew
Everything you can think of is true
The dish ran away with a spoon
Dig deep in your heart for that little red glow
We're decomposing as we go
Everything you can think of is true
And fishes make wishes on you
We're fighting our way up dreamland's spine
With red flamingos and expensive wine
Everything you can think of is true
The baby's asleep in your shoe
Your teeth are buildings with yellow doors
Your eyes are fish on a creamy shore
@stephensoderlind3914
I love Tom waits, but does he sound a little bit like Cookie Monster on this song?
@andreasscharrer4440
I love this song. But actually Tom Waits stole this one. It's an old (guess from 1949) German song called "Die Kraniche fliegen im Keil - Lied von den Kranichen)" by Andre Asriel (German words by Kurt Demmler)
@tortis6342
Considering how many popular Victorian poems Carroll parodied in his Alice books by simply changing the lyrics, that’s pretty on brand
@sauldelgado9865
This brings me back to the year 2017 I started questioning our existence in life. Started feeling entities in the sky they got mad that we figured it out how living inside a computer simulation could be true. Immediately we were slammed with a tropical storm at 3am trees yanked out around the neighborhood
@joshjosh320
Um, I like the Mellotron.
@notanotherjamesmurphy5574
I like turtles.
@johnrivers6252
Dude how come hip hop producers don't sample Tom waits tracks?