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."
Red Shoes by the Drugstore
Tom Waits Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
As the rain splashed the nickel
Spilled like chablis along the midway
There's a little blue jay
In a red dress, on a sad night
One straw in a root beer
A compact with a cracked mirror
He told her to wait in by the magazines
He had to take care of some business it seems
Bring a raincoat and a suitcase
And your dark eyes
And wear those red shoes
There's a dark huddle at the bus stop
Umbrellas arranged in a sad bouquet
Lil' Caesar got caught
He was going down to second
He was cooled
Changing stations on the chamber
To steal a diamond
From a jewelry store for his baby
He loved the way she looked in those red shoes
She waited by the drugstore
Caesar had never been this late before
And the dogs bayed the moon
And rattled their chains
And the cold jingle of taps in a puddle
Was the burglar alarm
Snitching on Caesar
Now the rain washes memories from the sidewalks
And the hounds splash down the nickel
Full of soldiers
And Santa Claus is drunk in the ski room
And it's Christmas eve in a sad cafe
When the moon gets this way
There's a little blue jay
By the newsstand
Wearing red shoes
So meet me tonight by the drugstore
We're goin' out tonight
Wear your red shoes
The lyrics to Tom Waits's song Red Shoes by the Drugstore are a poetic and melancholic tribute to a peculiar and mysterious woman who wears red shoes. They create a vivid image of a rainy night in a city, where an unlikely love story unfolds between two characters living on the fringes of society. The opening verse sets the scene: the woman wears her red shoes by the drugstore, under the pouring rain that turns the pavement into a nickel-colored stream. The mention of chablis, a white wine often associated with luxury, suggests an underlying theme of glamour and escapism. The little blue jay in a red dress is a metaphor for the woman's colorful and unique personality, which stands out in a bleak and mundane environment.
The second verse adds more detail to the story: the man asks the woman to wait by the magazines while he takes care of some business. He tells her to bring a raincoat and a suitcase, implying they are going somewhere. The compact with the cracked mirror and the bottle of Evening in Paris perfume evoke a sense of nostalgia and longing - perhaps the woman wants to relive a past glamourous life that is now a distant memory. The man's request to wear the red shoes carries a hint of obsession and fetishism, as if he is drawn to the woman's eccentricity and uniqueness.
The rest of the lyrics are more fragmented and surreal, painting a picture of a city that is simultaneously dark and enchanting. Lil' Caesar's capture and the changing of stations suggest a criminal element in the story, while the mention of Santa Claus and Christmas eve adds a touch of melancholy and loneliness. The final verse is a call to action - the man invites the woman to meet him by the drugstore again, and promises a night out. The red shoes, once again, represent a symbol of adventure, individuality, and seduction.
Line by Line Meaning
She wore red shoes by the drugstore
The woman was wearing red shoes while standing by the drugstore
As the rain splashed the nickel
The rain was falling and hitting the nickel and creating a sound
Spilled like chablis along the midway
The rain was falling heavily, like spilling wine, throughout the midway
There's a little blue jay
There is a small blue jay
In a red dress, on a sad night
The blue jay was wearing a red dress on a sorrowful evening
One straw in a root beer
A root beer had a single straw in it
A compact with a cracked mirror
Someone had a portable makeup kit that had a broken mirror
And a bottle of evening in Paris perfume
They also had a bottle of 'Evening in Paris' perfume
He told her to wait in by the magazines
A person asked her to wait by the magazines
He had to take care of some business it seems
The person had some work to take care of
Bring a raincoat and a suitcase
The woman was supposed to bring a raincoat and a suitcase
And your dark eyes
The man asked her to bring her dark eyes too
And wear those red shoes
The man specifically requested the woman to wear her red shoes
There's a dark huddle at the bus stop
There was a shady group huddling near the bus stop
Umbrellas arranged in a sad bouquet
A collection of umbrellas was assembled, resembling a mournful bouquet of flowers
Lil' Caesar got caught
Someone named Lil' Caesar got caught
He was going down to second
Lil' Caesar was walking down to second
He was cooled
Lil' Caesar had been caught by law enforcement
Changing stations on the chamber
Someone was changing the radio stations on the car controller
To steal a diamond
They were driving to steal a diamond
From a jewelry store for his baby
They were stealing the diamond to give as a gift to someone special
He loved the way she looked in those red shoes
Lil' Caesar loved the way the person he was stealing the diamond for looked in her red shoes
She waited by the drugstore
The woman was standing by the drugstore, waiting for someone
Caesar had never been this late before
The person Caesar was unusually overdue
And the dogs bayed the moon
The dogs were howling at the moon
And rattled their chains
The chains on the dogs were clinking and rattling
And the cold jingle of taps in a puddle
The taps attached to the dog's feet were clinking against the puddles in the street
Was the burglar alarm
The sound of the dog's foot taps was acting as an accidental burglar alarm
Snitching on Caesar
The dog's barking act as a snitch against Lil' Caesar
Now the rain washes memories from the sidewalks
The rain was washing away reminiscences from the pavement
And the hounds splash down the nickel
The hounds were running around the area, causing rainwater to splash with the nickel
Full of soldiers
The area was full of military troops
And Santa Claus is drunk in the ski room
Santa Claus was intoxicated in the ski room
And it's Christmas eve in a sad cafe
It was Christmas eve, and the atmosphere in the cafe was sorrowful
When the moon gets this way
The moon's behavior was unusual tonight
There's a little blue jay
There is a small blue jay
By the newsstand
The blue jay was near the newsstand
Wearing red shoes
The blue jay was wearing red shoes, similar to the woman earlier in the song
So meet me tonight by the drugstore
The singer is inviting someone to meet them by the drugstore
We're goin' out tonight
The artist is proposing they go out together tonight
Wear your red shoes
The artist specifically asks the other person to wear their red shoes
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
Written by: TOM WAITS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind