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."
In The Morning
Tom Waits Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
and you'll go rolling down a mustard hill
Play a lullaby on a fishbone harp
ride away on the gray mare's tail
In the morning
In the morning
In the morning when I/you rise
In the morning
In the morning I/you will be my/your true love's bride
Weave a rosemary wreath in your auburn hair
and you'll be the envy of all the girls
He'll wear your heart - and you will wear his ring
and you'll go rolling down a mustard hill
Play a lullaby on a fishbone harp
ride away on the gray mare's tail
In the morning
In the morning
In the morning when I/you rise
In the morning
In the morning
In the morning I/you will be my/your true love's bride
Oh the blood of the lamb is in the well
and it runs from the crack along the wedding bell
Perhaps a wind has blown the barrel from its mark
I heard the bird but could not hit it in the dark
I have bought and sold my only love
and my rifle, it has let me down
In the morning
In the morning
In the morning when I/you rise
In the morning
In the morning
In the morning will I/she ever be his/my bride?
The lyrics of Tom Waits's song "In the Morning" convey a dreamlike quality that is at once both romantic and ominous. The singer (or perhaps the subject of the song) describes a series of surreal and mystical events that seem to take place in the early morning hours. The use of repetition, particularly of the phrase "In the morning," gives the lyrics a sense of ritual or incantation, as if the singer is trying to conjure a specific outcome.
The imagery in the song is both otherworldly and rooted in nature. The mustard hill and gray mare's tail suggest a pastoral landscape, while the fishbone harp and rosemary wreath feel more mythical. The lines "He'll wear your heart - and you will wear his ring" and "In the morning I/you will be my/your true love's bride" suggest a traditional romantic union, but the use of animal imagery ("gray mare's tail," "blood of the lamb") and references to a broken rifle and a missed shot create a sense of foreboding.
Overall, the lyrics to Tom Waits's "In the Morning" convey a sense of longing and uncertainty, with the singer hoping for a romantic union but acknowledging the possibility of loss and disappointment.
Line by Line Meaning
He'll wear your heart and you will wear his ring
He will take possession of your emotions and you will accept his commitment
and you'll go rolling down a mustard hill
You will embark on a journey filled with adventure and excitement
Play a lullaby on a fishbone harp
Create a calming melody on an unusual and unconventional musical instrument
ride away on the gray mare's tail
Depart on a journey with a powerful and dependable companion
In the morning
In the morning
In the morning when I/you rise
In the morning
In the morning
In the morning I/you will be my/your true love's bride
The start of a new day brings hope and a promise of commitment to each other as true loves on the path towards marriage
Weave a rosemary wreath in your auburn hair
Enhance your beauty by placing a fragrant and symbolic ornament in your hair
and you'll be the envy of all the girls
Your beauty and uniqueness will be the source of admiration and jealousy for other women
Oh the blood of the lamb is in the well
and it runs from the crack along the wedding bell
The purity of love and sacrifice flows from the sacred well and is marked by the ringing of the wedding bell
Perhaps a wind has blown the barrel from its mark
I heard the bird but could not hit it in the dark
Uncertainty and inability to reach one's goals due to external factors and lack of clarity
I have bought and sold my only love
and my rifle, it has let me down
The pursuit of material gain and possessions resulted in losing the only love while a powerful asset, the rifle, failed to deliver
In the morning
In the morning
In the morning when I/you rise
In the morning
In the morning
In the morning will I/she ever be his/my bride?
Despite the promise of commitment and the start of a new day, doubt remains whether the bride will ever truly belong to her love
Contributed by Caroline T. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
@TheTomTerrible
No living singer/songwriter can touch him. Most dead ones can barely caress his mad excellence.
@erictorres8133
I was in piano class back in 2006 an this senior put this song in my ears with headphone changed my life
@ventiproduction8186
One of the best songs in the album!
@christuttle6100
Every time I hear a rooster crow I remember this song
@2carlaribeiro
That has been my theme song ever since I can remeber, and I have excellent memory.
@_loser_on_line_
"Tonight I'll shave the mountain
I'll cut the hearts from pharaohs
I pull the road off of the rise
Tear the memories from my eyes
And in the morning I'll be gone"
Tom has this way of getting in your head. the words just resonate with you at some point in your life.
@b00gi3
No kidding. This one is pertinent as a lady mule in a colombian stag party to my situation today. Thanks for verse uno, the words help.
@EnlighthenedOne123
Feels like the absurd start of the collective consciousness of FRP community, I swear by the Almighty.
@roberthale6572
Tom is God mia
Rain dogs ,wet dogs, smells so sweet
Fragrant memory
@windchimes4227
One of his songs I’d love to hear a live version of.