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."
November
Tom Waits Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
No stars
No moon
No care
November
It only believes
In a pile of dead leaves
And a moon
No prayers for November
To linger longer
Stick your spoon in the wall
We'll slaughter them all
November has tied me
To an old dead tree
Get word to April
To rescue me
November's cold chain
Made of wet boots and rain
And shiny black ravens
On chimney smoke lanes
November seems odd
You're my firing squad
November
With my hair slicked back
With carrion shellac
With the blood from a pheasant
And the bone from a hare
Tied to the branches
Of a roebuck stag
Left to wave in the timber
Like a buck shot flag
Go away you rainsnout
Go away, blow your brains out
November
Tom Waits's November is a song that captures the dreary and melancholic feeling that comes with the Fall season. The lyrics first paint a picture of an empty and deserted landscape with no sign of life, no shadow, no stars, no moon to provide any guidance or comfort. November only believes in a pile of dead leaves and a moon that’s the color of bone. This personification of November as a living entity serves to highlight just how much it dominates the scene and creates a feeling of isolation and detachment.
The second verse talks about how there are no prayers for November to linger longer, and how we need to stick our spoon in the wall to slaughter them all. This line is particularly interesting because it’s not quite clear who the “them” is in this context. It could refer to people who are trying to hold on to the last vestiges of Autumn or it could be November itself that needs to be slaughtered.
The third verse talks about how November has tied the singer to an old dead tree, making April the only one who can rescue him. The description of November’s cold chain made of wet boots and rain and shiny black ravens on chimney smoke lanes paints a dark and dreary picture of the season. In addition, the imagery of being tied to a tree and left to wave in the timber like a buckshot flag, captures a sense of powerlessness and being completely at the mercy of the season. November seems odd, but it’s also the singer’s firing squad, implying that it’s both a victim and a perpetrator of the sense of isolation that comes with the season.
Line by Line Meaning
No shadow
There is no sun to cast a shadow
No stars
The sky is cloudy and there are no stars visible
No moon
The moon is not visible in the night sky
No care
There is no concern or attention being given
November
The month of November is being personified
It only believes
November is characterized by a certain belief or sentiment
In a pile of dead leaves
The only thing November believes in is the sight of dead leaves piled up
And a moon
The only other thing November believes in is the moon
That's the color of bone
The color of the moon in November is a pale, bone-like color
No prayers for November
There are no prayers or hopes for the month of November
To linger longer
There is no desire for the month of November to stay longer
Stick your spoon in the wall
This line is cryptic and could mean a number of things, but it suggests that November is lifeless and stagnant
We'll slaughter them all
Again, this line is cryptic, but it suggests a destructive force in November
November has tied me
The singer feels trapped or bound to the month of November
To an old dead tree
The singer is bound to a lifeless object
Get word to April
The artist wishes to be rescued from November by the arrival of spring (April)
To rescue me
The artist wants to be saved from the despair of November
November's cold chain
The singer feels trapped in the cold, lifeless grip of November
Made of wet boots and rain
The chain is made of the miserable elements of November
And shiny black ravens
The artist sees ominous ravens in November
On chimney smoke lanes
The ravens are perched on smoky chimneys
November seems odd
November is an unusual or strange month
You're my firing squad
November is personified as a group of people who are going to 'execute' the singer
With my hair slicked back
The artist is trying to look presentable in the face of November's dreariness
With carrion shellac
The singer is using a substance made from animal remains to slick back their hair
With the blood from a pheasant
The singer has blood on their hands from killing a pheasant
And the bone from a hare
The singer also has a hare bone as a personal item
Tied to the branches
The hare bone is attached to a tree branch
Of a roebuck stag
The artist has also tied the hare bone to the antler of a deer
Left to wave in the timber
The antler is waving in the wind among the trees
Like a buck shot flag
The antler looks like a flag that has been shot with buckshot
Go away you rainsnout
The artist is telling the rain to go away
Go away, blow your brains out
The artist is speaking angrily to the rain and commanding it to disappear
November
The song ends with a repetition of November, underscoring its power and significance in the artist's life
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, JALMA MUSIC
Written by: THOMAS A. WAITS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Wolcamophone
This album is perfect for Halloween.
Dial Tone
It could be...idk...It could be perfect for Christmas
King von Kresseling
*Post-Halloween.
Old Hunter Nadir
Perfect for November lol
Алексей Бараненко
Prefect ever and forever)
James Conner
This whole album is just spectacular!!!
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Two White Guys
what an uplifting song
J Kim
Some of the best saw I’ve ever heard.
J Kim
My hair slicked back with carrion schellack
Old Hunter Nadir
@J Kimthat’s my favorite part