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."
Muriel
Tom Waits Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
The clubs closed down
And there's one more burned out lamppost
On Main Street
Down where we used to stroll
And Muriel
I still hit all the same old haunts
And Muriel I see you
On a Saturday night
In a penny arcade
With your hair tied back
And the diamond twinkle
Is in your eye
Is the only wedding ring that I'll buy you
Muriel
And Muriel how many times
I've left this town
To hide from your memory
And it haunts me
But I only get as far
As the next Whiskey bar
I buy another cheap cigar
And I'll see you every night
Hey Muriel
Muriel
Hey buddy
Got a light?
The lyrics of Tom Waits's Muriel tell the story of a man who is haunted by the memory of a woman named Muriel, whom he loved and lost. As the song progresses, we see the man wandering through the streets of his hometown, visiting the same old bars and clubs where he and Muriel used to go. Despite her absence, he feels as though she is following him wherever he goes. He imagines her sitting in a penny arcade, with her hair tied back and a diamond twinkle in her eye, and he vows that if he ever marries her, that will be the only wedding ring she will receive from him. The song is a poignant reflection on the pain of lost love and the difficulty of moving on.
The lyrics of Muriel are notable for their vivid imagery and the way they evoke a sense of melancholy longing. Throughout the song, Waits uses vivid imagery to paint a picture of a man who is haunted by his memories of Muriel. The burned-out lamppost on Main Street serves as a symbol of his lost love, as does the diamond twinkle in Muriel's eye. The repetition of the name "Muriel" serves to emphasize the depth of the singer's longing for her, while the reference to the next Whiskey bar suggests that he may never be able to escape the pain of his memories.
Line by Line Meaning
Muriel since you left town
Since you left town, Muriel, the clubs closed down, and I see one more burned-out lamppost on Main Street where we used to stroll.
And Muriel I still hit all the same old haunts
Muriel, I still go to all the same places we used to go together.
And you follow me wherever I go
I can still feel your presence wherever I am, Muriel.
And Muriel I see you on a Saturday night
On Saturday nights, Muriel, I imagine seeing you in the penny arcade with your hair tied back and the diamond twinkle in your eye.
In a penny arcade with your hair tied back
And the diamond twinkle
Is in your eye
Is the only wedding ring that I'll buy you
The diamond twinkle in your eye at the penny arcade is the only wedding ring I'll ever get for you, Muriel.
And Muriel how many times
I've left this town
To hide from your memory
And it haunts me
I've left this town so many times to try and escape your memory, Muriel, but it continues to haunt me.
But I only get as far
As the next Whiskey bar
I buy another cheap cigar
And I'll see you every night
No matter how far I go, I always end up at the next whiskey bar, buying another cheap cigar, and thinking of you every night, Muriel.
Hey Muriel
Muriel
Hey buddy
Got a light?
Hey, Muriel, do you also miss me? Hey, buddy, do you have a light for my cigar?
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, JALMA MUSIC
Written by: TOM WAITS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
ikidearitashi1030
Muriel since you left town
The clubs closed down
And there's one more burned out lamppost
On Main Street
Down where we used to stroll
And Muriel
I still hit all the same old haunts
And you follow me wherever I go
And Muriel I see you
On a Saturday night
In a penny arcade
With your hair tied back
And the diamond twinkle
Is in your eye
Is the only wedding ring that I'll buy you
Muriel
And Muriel how many times
I've left this town
To hide from your memory
And it haunts me
But I only get as far
As the next Whiskey bar
I buy another cheap cigar
And I'll see you every night
Hey Muriel
Muriel
Hey buddy
Got a light?
Mark of CAIN
Mr Waits let's every note linger and steers it to almost undetectable perfection. My ears embrace the mastery of the instruments that gracefully capture an atmosphere so Well that one can't help but hear glass klinking, and see people chatting at a close distance under dim lights and smoke.
Emma MacGregor
My real name is Muriel and I had no idea there was a song with my name! Both thrilling and a little jarring to hear my name sung/spoken so many times in a few moments. LOL Thank you for posting. ;)
The Unlimited Stars
we also have one called muriel <3
itspetey1
Keep listening Muriel, he only gets better.
Mike Smith
One of his best. Tom might not love these 70's gems any more but I certainly do!
Lloyd Redwing
I agree.
Cynthia Kilian
Qué lindo tema!!
A Mintz
My beloved Bubbe (grandmother), Muriel Shapero, just passed at the age of 91...this was, and will forever be our song. She smoked Eve 120's, played the sax, loved dogs, and didn't take shit from nobody...
Take care out there, folx.
ikidearitashi1030
Muriel since you left town
The clubs closed down
And there's one more burned out lamppost
On Main Street
Down where we used to stroll
And Muriel
I still hit all the same old haunts
And you follow me wherever I go
And Muriel I see you
On a Saturday night
In a penny arcade
With your hair tied back
And the diamond twinkle
Is in your eye
Is the only wedding ring that I'll buy you
Muriel
And Muriel how many times
I've left this town
To hide from your memory
And it haunts me
But I only get as far
As the next Whiskey bar
I buy another cheap cigar
And I'll see you every night
Hey Muriel
Muriel
Hey buddy
Got a light?
Ruby Emanuel
wonderful lovely sax performance