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."
Misery Is The River Of The World
Tom Waits Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
The more he shows his tail
Call no man happy 'till he dies
There's no milk at the bottom of the pail
God builds a church
The devil builds a chapel
Like the thistles that are growing
All the good in the world
You can put inside a thimble
And still have room for you and me
If there's one thing you can say about mankind
There's nothing kind about man
You can drive out nature with a pitch fork
But it always comes roaring back again
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
The higher that the monkey can climb
The more he shows his tail
Call no man happy 'till he dies
There's no milk at the bottom of the pail
God tempers all the ruins for the new shorn lands
The devil knows the Bible like the back of his hand
All the good in the world
You can put inside a thimble
And still have room for you and me
If there's one thing you can say about mankind
There's nothing kind about man
You can drive out nature with a pitch fork
But it always comes roaring back again
For want of a bird
The sky was lost
For want of a nail
A shoe was lost
For want of a life
A knife was lost
For want of a toy
A child was lost
And misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Everybody row!
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Everybody row!
The opening lines of Tom Waits' "Misery Is The River Of The World" seem to be a warning about pretension: the monkey that climbs the highest is also the one that shows his backside the most. Furthermore, it warns not to envy happiness, as no one is truly happy until they die. The last line of the verse continues the theme of emptiness: "There's no milk at the bottom of the pail." This is a clever allusion to one of Aesop's Fables in which a crow drops stones in a vessel of water just to reach the bottom, only to see the water level rise high enough for it to drink. In other words, the hard work the crow had done didn't get them anywhere.
The second verse puts down organized religion, suggesting that both the churches that God and the devil build are for show. The thistles around a tree are a metaphor for temptation: they thrive where the soil is most fertile. The next two lines are also a jab at how little human progress matters in the overarching scheme of things. The singer emphasizes that all the good in the world could go into a thimble if it were measured, and there would still be space for all.
Line by Line Meaning
The higher that the monkey can climb
As one becomes more successful, they are exposed to more scrutiny and criticism.
The more he shows his tail
The more successful someone becomes, the more they reveal their flaws or negative attributes.
Call no man happy 'till he dies
One cannot judge another's life as happy or fulfilled until they have completed their journey.
There's no milk at the bottom of the pail
Once something is completely used or depleted, there is no more to gain from it.
God builds a church
Good things in life are often built over time and with effort.
The devil builds a chapel
Evil things in life are often built quickly and without regard for long-term consequences.
Like the thistles that are growing
Negative aspects of society, like weeds, are persistent and difficult to eradicate.
'Round the trunk of a tree
Negative aspects of society often grow around and even affect the positive aspects.
All the good in the world
There is not a lot of true goodness in the world.
You can put inside a thimble
All the goodness in the world can fit in a small space.
And still have room for you and me
There is still plenty of room for people to do good in the world.
If there's one thing you can say about mankind
In general, people are not kind.
There's nothing kind about man
People are not naturally good, but rather sinners.
You can drive out nature with a pitch fork
Humanity's arrogance and abuse of nature is futile, as nature always fights back.
But it always comes roaring back again
Nature is resilient and will always bounce back.
For want of a bird
A small thing or event can lead to catastrophic consequences.
The sky was lost
The consequences of small actions can be both unforeseeable and dire.
A shoe was lost
Small mistakes can have a domino effect and cause greater, sometimes irreversible, consequences.
A knife was lost
An object's intended purpose can change completely depending on who uses it.
A child was lost
The most innocent and vulnerable are often the ones most affected by society's mistakes or flaws.
Misery's the river of the world
Suffering and struggle are fundamental aspects of life.
Everybody row!
Everyone must work together to overcome the suffering in the world.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, JALMA MUSIC
Written by: Kathleen Brennan, Thomas Alan Waits
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@Baribrotzer
Musicians on Blood Money:
• Tom Waits - vocals, piano, calliope, Chamberlin, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, toy piano, pump organ, songwriter, producer
• Ara Anderson - trumpet
• Nik Phelps - euphonium, trumpet
• Dan Plonsey - clarinet
• Bebe Risenfors - bass clarinet, accordion, saxophone, clarinet
• Colin Stetson - baritone saxophone, tenor saxophone, alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet, baritone horn
• Charlie Musselwhite - harmonica
• Dawn Harms - violin, Stroh violin
• Matt Brubeck - cello, bass
• Joe Gore - electric guitar
• Myles Boisen - guitar
• Matthew Sperry - bass
• Larry Taylor - bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitar
• Gino Robair - marimba, bells, gongs, bongos, timpani, floor tom
• Andrew Borger - marimba
• Bent Clausen - marimba, bass drum, performer
• Stewart Copeland - drums, log drum
• Casey Waits - drums
@ejm1225
The higher that the monkey can climb
The more he shows his tail
Call no man happy 'till he dies
There's no milk at the bottom of the pail
God builds a church
The devil builds a chapel
Like the thistles that are growing
'Round the trunk of a tree
All the good in the world
You can put inside a thimble
And still have room for you and me
If there's one thing you can say about mankind
There's nothing kind about man
You can drive out nature with a pitch fork
But it always comes roaring back again
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
The higher that the monkey can climb
The more he shows his tail
Call no man happy 'till he dies
There's no milk at the bottom of the pail
God tempers all the ruins for the new shorn lands
The devil knows the Bible like the back of his hand
All the good in the world
You can put inside a thimble
And still have room for you and me
If there's one thing you can say about mankind
There's nothing kind about man
You can drive out nature with a pitch fork
But it always comes roaring back again
For want of a bird
The sky was lost
For want of a nail
A shoe was lost
For want of a life
A knife was lost
For want of a toy
A child was lost
And misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Everybody row!
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Everybody row!
@pickandhoop
This album is like a living organism.
@psychologicalsigma9917
The same could be said for you buddy 😏😂
@quazzydiscman
A living organism from another galaxy sent to end humanity... yes...I agree.
@ZZombyWooff
yea it keeps crawling from my stereo speakers like some mutant horror monster every once in a while. but I keep it in order with my torch and musket
@stimulant7
best comment and replies n interweb history
@paulawhannell18
Oh yeah 😎
@robbelk6465
I love how his later work is very percusion driven. The marimba reminds me of a zappa esqe vibe on the dark side👍👍👍
@JoseFernandez-zd8yh
Blood money, the first Tom Waits album I bought. I think it's very underrated, I don't know why, it's a very great album and one of my favourites.
@Garatzeos
Actually, in Greece we say "the higher the monkey will climb, the more you can see its a$$"....Tom, you 're the best!
@psychologicalsigma9917
Modesty, back then.
Or over censored