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."

Fish in the Jailhouse
Tom Waits Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Peoria Johnson told Dirty Ol' Joe
I can break out of any old jail, you know
The bars are iron, the walls are stone
All I need me is an old fishbone

Fish in the jailhouse tonight, all right, oh boy
They're serving fish in the jailhouse tonight, all right, oh boy
They're serving fish in the jailhouse tonight, all right, oh boy

They're serving fish in the jailhouse
Fish in the jailhouse tonight

[?] hammerhead shark
Well, a steelhead salmon or a mud bank carp
I said, one side dull, and then the other side sharp
And on Saturday night I'll be in Central Park

Fish in the jailhouse tonight, all right, oh boy
They're serving fish in the jailhouse tonight, all right, oh boy
They're serving fish in the jailhouse tonight, all right, oh boy
They're serving fish in the jailhouse
Fish in the jailhouse tonight

Ask Little Slow Jackson, on a forty-four trip
Ask Whipperfield Farraday, ask what I did
From the jail to the city, there's a rollin' fog
From Natchez(2) to Kenosha, runnin' down to New York

They're serving fish in the jailhouse tonight
All right (all right), oh boy (oh boy)
They're serving fish in the jailhouse tonight
All right (all right), oh boy (oh boy)
They're serving fish in the jailhouse tonight
All right (all right), oh boy (oh boy)
They're serving fish in the jailhouse
Fish in the jailhouse tonight

Fish in the jailhouse tonight, all right, oh boy
They're serving fish in the jailhouse tonight, all right, oh boy
They're serving fish in the jailhouse tonight, all right, oh boy

They're serving fish in the jailhouse
Fish in the jailhouse tonight

Overall Meaning

"Fis in the Jailhouse" is a song by Tom Waits that describes the desire to escape jail using only a fishbone, as Peoria Johnson suggests to Dirty Ol' Joe. The tone of the song is somewhat whimsical and fantastical, with the idea of using a fishbone to escape a jail seeming absurd. However, the repetition of the phrase "fish in the jailhouse tonight" suggests that this is a kind of code or chant that prisoners share, bonding over their shared experience of incarceration.

The song also contains other references to fish, including a hammerhead shark, steelhead salmon, and mud bank carp. These references seem purposefully random and incongruous, adding to the overall surreal tone of the song. The final stanza of the song shifts the focus to other prisoners and their stories, referencing "Little Slow Jackson" and "Whipperfield Farraday" as people who might know of Peoria Johnson's escape plan. The song ends with the repetition of the phrase "fish in the jailhouse tonight" suggesting that despite the various ways that prisoners attempt to escape, they are ultimately all stuck in the same situation.

Line by Line Meaning

Peoria Johnson told Dirty Ol' Joe
A certain person called Peoria Johnson informed another person named Dirty Ol' Joe

I can break out of any old jail, you know
That this particular person believes that they can escape from any prison with ease

The bars are iron, the walls are stone
The prison's security features are well fortified and challenging to escape from

All I need me is an old fishbone
Despite the formidable prison design, this person has figured out a loophole and only requires a simple tool to break out

Fish in the jailhouse tonight
A metaphorical way of indicating the possibility of an escape taking place soon

They're serving fish in the jailhouse tonight
The phrase is repeated to emphasize that a prison break is imminent

[?] hammerhead shark
A reference to the kind of fishbone that Peoria Johnson needs to facilitate their escape. They mention several kinds of fish

Well, a steelhead salmon or a mud bank carp
The artist further describes the different types of fishbone that would serve their purpose

I said, one side dull, and then the other side sharp
This further describes the particular bone's shape, which is such that one end is blunt, and the other is pointed

And on Saturday night I'll be in Central Park
The artist is confident that their escape plan will work and they will be free and far away by the following weekend

Ask Little Slow Jackson, on a forty-four trip
A nod to a person named Little Slow Jackson who went on a specific trip or had a particular journey

Ask Whipperfield Farraday, ask what I did
Referring to another person named Whipperfield Farraday and telling the listener to ask them what the artist did

Fish in the JailhouseTom Waits Lyrics

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Fish in the Jailhouse
Tom Waits Lyrics