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."
Old Shoes
Tom Waits Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I've been putting it off for a while,
Cause it's harder by now, and the truth is so clear
That I am crying when I'm seeing you smile.
So goodbye, so long, the road calls me dear
And your tears cannot bind me anymore,
And farewell to the girl with the sun in her eyes
Can I kiss you, and then I'll be gone.
And every time that I tried to tell you
that we'd lost the magic we had at the start,
I would weep my heart when I looked in your eyes
And I searched once again for the spark.
So goodbye, so long, the road calls me dear
And your tears cannot bind me anymore,
And farewell to the girl with the sun in her eyes
Can I kiss you, and then I'll be gone.
Oh you know that there's something calling me dear
and by morning, I'm sure to be gone
For I'm older than you and you know so well
That our time for to love was a song
So goodbye, so long, the road calls me dear
And your tears cannot bind me anymore,
And farewell to the girl with the sun in her eyes
Can I kiss you, and then I'll be gone.
Now I can see by your eyes, it's time now to go
So I'll leave you crying in the rain,
Though I held in my hand, the key to all joy
Honey my heart was not born to be tamed.
And goodbye, so long, the road calls me dear
And your tears cannot bind me anymore,
And farewell to the girl with the sun in her eyes
Can I kiss you, and then I'll be gone.
Can I kiss you, and then I'll be gone.
The opening lines of Tom Waits's song "Old Shoes" refer to the artist's reluctance to express his emotions, a sign of the singer's internal emotional turmoil. The decision to finally sing the song indicates a turning point, where the artist has no more hesitations about confessing his feelings, for he’s done keeping the truth inside, his feelings have become unbearable. The lines "Cause it's harder by now, and the truth is so clear/That I am crying when I'm seeing you smile" suggest that he's realized the love he shares with the girl has been lost, and staying with her will only cause him further pain. The artist recognizes that he can't be held captive by emotions anymore, and must follow his path, implying this wasn't an easy decision for him.
As the song progresses, the artist talks about how he tried to regain their lost magic, but every attempt was fruitless, and the spell couldn't be rekindled. He recognizes that their love has now become a memory, and he must follow the road ahead. Waits uses the road metaphorically to symbolize the artist's personal journey, and the journey of life itself. Finally, the singer recognizes his duty to leave the girl with the sun in her eyes for his time to love was "a song," emphasizing that it was only meant for a time that has passed.
Overall, "Old Shoes" explores deeper themes of heartbreak, the inevitability of change and the difficulty of transition. The song is a Proustian reminder that love's spell cannot last forever, and change is an inevitable part of the human experience. The song also highlights the visceral power of Tom waits's poetic skills, using both onomatopoeia and metaphorical language to create a somber mood.
Line by Line Meaning
Well I'm singing this song, cause it's time it was sung
I need to say these words out loud, even if it's difficult
I've been putting it off for a while,
I've been avoiding talking about the truth of our situation
Cause it's harder by now, and the truth is so clear
Because it's now harder to deny that we've lost what we had
That I am crying when I'm seeing you smile.
It makes me sad to see that your smile doesn't have the same effect on me
So goodbye, so long, the road calls me dear
I need to leave and move on, even though it's difficult
And your tears cannot bind me anymore,
Your tears can't make me stay, as much as I want to
And farewell to the girl with the sun in her eyes
Goodbye to the person who used to shine so bright in my life
Can I kiss you, and then I'll be gone.
One last goodbye kiss before I leave
And every time that I tried to tell you
I never could find the right words to say what I was feeling
that we'd lost the magic we had at the start,
That our love had fizzled out and we couldn't get it back
I would weep my heart when I looked in your eyes
It hurt me to see that we weren't on the same page anymore
And I searched once again for the spark.
I tried to find that feeling we used to have, but it was gone
Oh you know that there's something calling me dear
I can't ignore the feeling that there's something else out there for me
and by morning, I'm sure to be gone
I need to leave and start this new chapter of my life
For I'm older than you and you know so well
I have more experience in life and know what I need
That our time for to love was a song
Our love was beautiful while it lasted but now it's over
Now I can see by your eyes, it's time now to go
I can tell that it's time for me to leave, even though it's hard
So I'll leave you crying in the rain,
I have to go and leave you behind, even if it makes you sad
Though I held in my hand, the key to all joy
Even though I had love in my life, it wasn't enough
Honey my heart was not born to be tamed.
I need to follow my heart, even if that means leaving you behind
And goodbye, so long, the road calls me dear
I have to answer the call of the road and move on with my life
Can I kiss you, and then I'll be gone.
One last kiss before I go, even though it's hard
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
Written by: TOM WAITS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Fluffypuppy
If Tom were the only musical artist in the world I would be musically satisfied for this life on his music alone.
mateuszmattias
So many people associate Waits with the growly bar-fly voice he developed gradually mid-70s- early 80s, and I guess it's a cool persona to have as an artist, but I really like his actual "clean" singing voice as on the first 2-3 records. (And at least for many years I do beleieve it was a role, since there are snippets of him using his normal voice every now and then on later live performances as well.).
K. B.
agreed, the rougher voice does come across a bit artsy at times imo
James McCormick
Couldn't agree more. He had a splendid singing voice over these albums and I don't know why he went for 'full gravel' after this.
J Farmhouseinthecountry
I watched a VH1 special 30 plus years ago about Tom waits and he purposely did that gravelly voice. he would smoke cigars and drink whiskey before he went on to help him perform in such a gravelly voice
The Fancullini Brothers
He “went “ for full gravel because he has been drinking for years, bottles of whisky etc etc, he has also been through it all… Didn’t he get brought up in a brothel? Anyway, if you know music and culture and life you’ll you’ll get Tom 🎉
mateuszmattias
@The Fancullini Brothers Well, yes and no. As I wrote (and mind you, I know both Tom Waits' music and music as well as life in general very well, at 53 I even sing in a band myself although not professionaly). The fact of the matter is that his cultural persona is in part just that, a persona. Not him. It's important to make and maintain that distinction.
As for the voice, if it were only due to drinking and smoking it would be more or less the same all the time, and it is not. You have songs like In the neighborhood from 1983 (Swordfishtrombones), Innocent when you dream from 1987 (Franks wild years) and several ones on Rain Dogs just to mention a few from his 1980s period. But you also have Time from that same record, and there he clearly sings in a very different voice.
So no, it's not all just the result of drinking and smoking, although he did his fair share of that. As I wrote in my original comment it is kind of a cool persona to add to your artistry, but that is not the same as him actually being that. Remember he may have been drinking through the 80s, but he has also been a family man, married to the same woman (Kathleen Brennan) since the early 80s, raising kids and leading a rather quiet life. I maintain the picture is more complicated than just the barfly image some people like to attribute to him.
Anders Gimse
This is the song that made me fall in love with Tom's music back in 1973.
Linda Garland
Me too...still listening 🎶. Wiw, it's been 50 years!
arbuckle
One of my favorite albums. Pure simplistic brilliance.