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."
On the Other Side of the World
Tom Waits Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
And a string of pearls with one good eye
In a rainy town the chimney smoke will curl
No one likes clowns on the other side of the world
And the children know she'll never let me go.
There's a one legged priest that tangos with the farmers wife
Beauty and the beast is taking her own life
And a crow turns into a girl on the other side of the world
And she tastes like the sea and she's waiting for me
In the spring the weeds will show that he brought back the only rose
And he gave it to his girl on the other side of the world.
And I drink champagne from your thin blue veins
She visits his grave wearing her mother's shawl
Should I shave or end it all.
There's an old sailor song that the children know
As their fingers curl around the other side of the world
On a bone white mare lost in kathleen's hair
In the spring the weeds will show that he brought back the only rose
And he gave it to his girl on the other side of the world.
Tom Waits’ song “On the Other Side of the World” is characterized by cryptic and enigmatic lyrics. The song describes different characters and events that take place in a rainy and uninviting town on the other side of the world. The opening contrast between the beauty of the blue-eyed girl with the red bow tie and string of pearls and the prejudices against clowns sets the tone for the song, which deals with the dichotomy between beauty and grotesque, between life and death. The reference to the children recognizing the girl’s embrace of death and calling on the old sailor song hints at the continuity of life even as it is impermanent.
The following verses present the one-legged priest who dances the Argentine tango with the farmer’s wife, a reference to the unconventional and controversial dance that was once met with disapproval in the religious community. Their dance represents an absolute transgression of their social roles and individual limits, alluding to the possibility of liberation and self-discovery. The lines “And she tastes like the sea and she's waiting for me” convey the idea of addiction, desire, and perhaps a nostalgia for something that no longer exists.
The song ends with a reference to an old sailor song that the children know, as their fingers curl around the other side of the world. This gesture indicates the power of imagination and the possibility of creating new worlds in the minds of children, despite being located on the other side of the planet.
Line by Line Meaning
There's a blue eyed girl with a red bow tie
There is a girl with striking blue eyes and a unique fashion sense wearing a red bow tie.
And a string of pearls with one good eye
She also has a string of pearls, but only one functioning eye.
In a rainy town the chimney smoke will curl
This all takes place in a town where the smoke from chimneys curls up into the rainy sky.
No one likes clowns on the other side of the world
On the other side of the world, people do not typically enjoy clowns.
And the children know she'll never let me go.
Despite this, the children are aware that the girl will always hold onto the singer.
There's a one legged priest that tangos with the farmers wife
In this world, there exists a priest with only one leg who dances the tango with a farmer's wife.
Beauty and the beast is taking her own life
Some sort of tragedy involving the story of Beauty and the Beast is leading to someone taking their own life.
And a tear on a letter back home turns into a lake of your own
A tear on a letter sent back home becomes a metaphorical lake that the singer is trapped in.
And a crow turns into a girl on the other side of the world
Metamorphosis is a theme in this world, as a crow transforms into a girl.
And she tastes like the sea and she's waiting for me
This girl who now tastes like the sea is waiting for the singer, drawing him towards her.
In the spring the weeds will show that he brought back the only rose
In the spring, the singer's actions become clear as weeds surround the only rose he found and gave to his beloved.
And he gave it to his girl on the other side of the world.
He presented this rose to his girl on the other side of the world, showing how love can transcend great distances.
And I drink champagne from your thin blue veins
The singer drinks champagne from the thin blue veins of his beloved, evoking the theme of blood and life sustaining liquids.
She visits his grave wearing her mother's shawl
The woman who received the rose visits the singer's grave wearing her mother's shawl, connecting the past to the present.
Should I shave or end it all.
The singer is grappling with whether he should shave his beard or just end his own life.
There's an old sailor song that the children know
A song about an old sailor is popular with the children in this world.
As their fingers curl around the other side of the world
The children's fingers curl around something on the other side of the world, perhaps indicating a connection to something far away.
On a bone white mare lost in kathleen's hair
The singer visualizes himself on a white horse, lost in Kathleen's hair and perhaps her spirit.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: KATHLEEN BRENNAN, THOMAS ALAN WAITS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind