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."
Satisfied
Tom Waits Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
When I'm gone
Roll my vertebrae out like dice
Let my skull be a home for the mice
Let me bleach like the bones on the beach
I'll be hard like a pit from a peach
Now the ground has a branch
The old tressel's just junk
The Edsel is on blocks
The old said so won't talk
I'm a blimp that's straining, cut 'er ties
I'm a moth in training, flutter by
Huh
When I'm gone
When I'm gone
I said I will have satisfaction
I will be satisfied
I said I will be satisfied
When I'm believing: satisfaction
When I'm grieving: satisfaction
When I'm shaking: satisfaction
When I'm praying: satisfaction
When I'm staying: satisfaction
When I'm carousing
When I'm a thousand
I said I will have satisfaction
I will be satisfied
Before I'm gone
Before I'm gone
I will have satisfaction
I will be satisfied
I will have satisfaction
I will be satisfied
Now Mr. Jagger and Mr. Richards
I will scratch where I've been itching
Now Mr. Jagger and Mr. Richards
I will scratch where I've been itching
Before I'm gone
Before I'm gone
Before I'm gone
Before I'm gone
Let me go back into the barrel
Let the bullet go back into the barrel
Let the bullet go back into the barrel
Let the bullet go back into the barrel
Before I'm gone
Before I'm gone
I said I will have satisfaction
Let the bullet go back into the barrel
Let the bullet go back into the barrel
Take a left off the straight and the narrow
Let the bullet go back into the barrel
Before I'm gone
The song "Satisfied" by Tom Waits is a bleak and haunting reflection on the inevitability of death and the futility of material possessions. The lyrics paint a vivid picture of a world in decay, of abandoned trains and cars rusting away, of the inevitability of the natural cycle of life and death as symbolized by the singer's request to have his bones left on the beach to bleach in the sun.
In the face of this bleakness, the repeated refrain of "satisfaction" becomes an almost desperate cry for meaning and purpose. The singer seems to be grasping for some sense of satisfaction in his life, declaring that he will find it in all circumstances, whether he is grieving, praying, carousing, or even a thousand years old. The reference to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards suggests that the singer sees himself as an artist in the same vein as these rock icons, forever searching for the elusive goal of satisfaction.
Line by Line Meaning
When I'm gone
When I have died
Roll my vertebrae out like dice
Don't care about my body after I'm gone
Let my skull be a home for the mice
Let my skull rot away
Let me bleach like the bones on the beach
Allow me to decay naturally
I'll be hard like a pit from a peach
My remains will be solid like a peach pit
Now the ground has a branch
The land is changing
Now the hound has a ranch
The dog now has a home
The old tressel's just junk
The old bridge is now useless
The Edsel is on blocks
The old car is broken down
The old said so won't talk
The wise people are now silent
I'm a blimp that's straining, cut 'er ties
A blimp that needs to be released
I'm a moth in training, flutter by
A butterfly that has not yet fully emerged
When I'm believing: satisfaction
Belief in something brings satisfaction
When I'm grieving: satisfaction
Satisfaction can still be found when grieving
When I'm shaking: satisfaction
Satisfaction can be found in shaking things up
When I'm praying: satisfaction
Satisfaction can be found in prayer
When I'm staying: satisfaction
Satisfaction can be found in staying put
When I'm carousing
When I'm out having fun
When I'm a thousand
When I live to be very old
Now Mr. Jagger and Mr. Richards
Speaking to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones
I will scratch where I've been itching
I'll do what I want
Let me go back into the barrel
Let me be forgotten
Let the bullet go back into the barrel
Avoid violence
Take a left off the straight and the narrow
Live life unconventionally
Before I'm gone
Before I'm dead
I said I will have satisfaction
I will find satisfaction in life
I will be satisfied
I will find contentment
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: PAUL BRENNAN, STEVEN DRAKE, DOUG ELLIOTT, CRAIG WILLIAM ANDREW NORTHEY, PAT STEWARD
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@bssaxtonhale
I just realized a few things. -Tom Waits is sixty years old. -I'm seventeen and will never be as cool as this or he. -GOD, this is awesome.
@roryanri804
How does it feel to be in the start of getting old now? I'm 17 right now. Somebody remind me in eight years to come back and talk about how I feel getting old.
@jdubskiwright2380
Amateurs you cannot even begin to bitch about getting old until atleast 33.. the realization of time didn't hit me until my 30th birthday when I was like oh I'm not in my 20s anymore... I'm almost 35 with 2 kids and I don't look forward to bdays anymore... but it's ok embrace it we all age it's what we do as humans..everything ages you can't stop it so enjoy life and remember once you are older you can tell the younger folks good advice and how things use to be..I dont consider myself old because I'm not..not yet anyway
@colinwilliams553
Yeah, well guess what?
Since the release of this video,he has aged ten more years therefore,he is now a VERY COOL SEVENTY years YOUNG!!
@mouved1
Satisfaction
@louismiles7028
I was a little bit younger when I discovered Tom Waits, I'm 42 now, now your 26, a more accurate description would be this is awesome Tom Waits is God
@Hellriegel361
If Music was a big family Tom Waits would be that awesome uncle who you're not quite sure whether he's related but he gives you one hell of a time at least once a year. No matter how old you get he just gets better and better every year!!
@DavidYorka
Tom lives in another world. I sure am pleased as punch when he comes to visit.
@KingJeorge13
The most accurate description of Tom I have heard is: he's the human incarnation of an alley cat.
@DelinquentDemon
The first time I heard him (tonight), I thought “hobo blues”