Episode 150: Damon Linker / Tom Waits [Part 1]

Summary

Political Beats – Episode 150: Damon Linker / Tom Waits [Part 1]

Release Date: September 4, 2025
Host(s): Scott Bertram and Jeff Blehar
Guest: Damon Linker (Senior Lecturer, University of Pennsylvania, author of Notes from the Middle Ground)

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode of Political Beats delves deep into the early career of the singular, gravel-voiced songwriter Tom Waits, exploring his evolution from jazzy, piano-based troubadour to the literary, enigmatic outsiders’ poet of the American underbelly. Hosts Scott Bertram and Jeff Blehar, alongside guest Damon Linker, discuss why Waits matters, how his artistry and persona developed, and which albums and songs define the first phase of his prolific career (1973–1982). The conversation combines music commentary and personal anecdotes with sharp humor and critical engagement, aiming both to enlighten longtime fans and create accessible entry points for Tom Waits newcomers.

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Episode Structure & Key Segments

Intro & Housekeeping
[00:07-03:38]
The hosts discuss the podcast's reach, Patreon supporters, and introduce their guest, Damon Linker. Linker describes his political and philosophical journey and introduces his Substack, "Notes from the Middle Ground."

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I. Discovering Tom Waits: Personal Histories

[05:12-24:28]

• Damon Linker’s Origin Story

  • Exposed to Waits as a child by his father—Small Change became a formative influence.
  • Captivated by Waits’ intensely charismatic blend of “ugliness with great beauty and pathos.”
  • “It sounded like you could hear him bleeding from an open wound coming from the speakers. And this combination of ugliness with great beauty and pathos, even to my seven year old ears, I just found incredibly charismatic.” —Damon [07:18]

• Jeff Blehar’s Entry Point

  • Discovered Waits starting with the avant-garde era (Rain Dogs).
  • Initially repelled by the jarring differences from more mainstream artists, but eventually hooked by the persona and art-rock inventiveness.
  • “It was a baptism, just a cold baptism...I became an art rocker...Tom Waits was the guy who really explained to me musically that there was a world going on underground.” —Jeff [14:16]

• Scott Bertram’s Perspective as a Newcomer

  • Unfamiliar with Waits beyond the reputation and a couple covers, Bertram approaches the discography with curiosity and skepticism.
  • Compares Waits in his mind with Nick Cave and John Hiatt: “Both guys who ended up writing a ton of great songs that ended up being covered by other artists through the years.” —Scott [20:29]
  • Finds Waits a challenging yet intriguing listen—some songs “brilliant,” others “I can’t rush to skip even after three or four or five full spins...” [20:29]

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II. Tom Waits the Performer, Persona, and Outsider Poet

[24:28-28:59]

• Jeff emphasizes Waits’ role as a stage actor and adopter of personae, likening him to David Bowie for the way he “decided to make a break” and reconstruct his musical identity.
• Waits as an “engine of creativity” who connects to the “weird left corners and back channels in popular music.”
• “He brings stage props to his shows because he loves making it a production. He's always been about a certain performance in his music.” —Jeff [43:28]

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III. Early Jazz-Lounge Years: Album-by-Album Breakdown

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1. Closing Time (1973)

[28:59-43:28]

• Waits’ debut, an outlier among the Laurel Canyon Asylum set.
• Damon: Celebrates the “incredibly beautiful ballads,” especially “Old 55,” “Martha,” “Grapefruit Moon," and the wordless title track.
  • “I have a mix on Spotify with 43 ballads from Waits's entire career…almost every album has a few…that I think are some of the most beautiful songs ever written.” —Damon [29:48]
• Scott: Highlights the shifting influences—Gordon Lightfoot, Dylan, country rock. Praises cuts like “Rosie” and “Ice Cream Man.”
• Jeff: Notes Waits’ early attempts to “try on new skins” and predicts his lean into what will become his artistic strengths.
  • “He can sing, but he cannot be pretty. He's always going to have that sort of gutty kind of bluesy authenticity.” —Jeff [43:28]

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2. The Heart of Saturday Night (1974)

[45:28-57:17]

• More picaresque, literary; Waits’ persona moves further toward boozy, late-night chronicler.
• Jeff: “The watchword…is piano-based lounge jazz…songs get a little more detailed about all these picaresque details.”
• Scott: Responds positively to much of the album, especially ballads (“Please Call Me Baby”), while disliking the more overtly talk-sung tracks like “Diamonds on My Windshield.”
  • Notable quote: “If I exercise my devils, my angels might leave too. And when they leave, they’re so hard to find.” —Scott [51:55]
• Damon: Praises the “classic” “San Diego Serenade” and “Shiver Me Timbers” but calls the record “a recapitulation” that doesn’t match the debut’s freshness.

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3. Nighthawks at the Diner (1975)

[59:04-68:42]

• A studio/live hybrid, heavy on beat poetry and stage patter.
• Jeff defends its “phenomenon of sound” and party atmosphere; adores Waits’ patter and “Better Off Without a Wife.”
• Damon and Scott (fiercely) disagree—Scott: “I am allergic to the very concept of this record…the beat poetry performing, the speaking, not singing...”
  • “If you like someone just sort of reading ‘Stratocasters slung over Burgermeister beer guts and swizzle stick legs jackknife over naugahide stools’ over a baseline, then Nighthawks…is the album for you.” —Scott [65:40]

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4. Small Change (1976)

[74:18-96:56]

• An artistic pivotal point: Waits debuts his infamous, ruined croak.
• Damon’s sentimental favorite (“close to me...managed to invoke a line from Tom Traubert's Blues in my father's obituary").
  • “It is truly shocking the way he sings... It's as if they did a movie musical of Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh.” —Damon [76:21]
• Jeff: Sees Waits as an actor playing a broken man at the end of his rope. “Step Right Up” is lauded as comedic genius.
• Scott: Unreservedly loves “Step Right Up” but finds the hobo persona off-putting overall, craving more musicality or narrative distance.

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5. Foreign Affairs (1977)

[97:51-107:09]

• More cinematic, jazz-noir, story-songs.
• Scott: Prefers this new direction, especially “I Never Talk to Strangers” (duet with Bette Midler) and “Sight for Sore Eyes.”
• Damon: Feels it’s Waits “spinning his wheels,” beginning to succumb to self-parody.

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6. Blue Valentine (1978)

[109:13-124:25]

• Raymond Chandler via song—grittier, with blues influences and richer stories.
• Jeff: Praises “Somewhere” and “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis.”
• Damon: Points to “Kentucky Avenue” as a rare, moving twist song: “a trap door falling out from under you.”
• Scott: Declares this his favorite Waits album so far, connecting emotionally with its cinematic, noir storytelling, especially on “Red Shoes by the Drugstore,” “Sweet Little Bullet,” and the closing “Blue Valentines.”

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7. One from the Heart (1982)

[129:01-134:52]

• Soundtrack for Coppola’s Las Vegas romance, featuring Crystal Gale.
• Damon: “He was starting to feel like he was in a rut and that he wanted to do something different…But the honest truth is he did a pretty good job of it.”
• Scott: Highlights "Old Boyfriends" for its detail: “Why do you keep turning them into old boyfriends?”

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8. Heartattack and Vine (1980)

[135:50-154:22]

• Last of the “Asylum” era; embraces guitar-driven, blues-inflected sound.
• Jeff: “I love Heartattack and Vine. I love the sense of sentimentality, I love the obvious Bruce Springsteen tribute (Jersey Girl).”
• Damon: “Very much better than the last two…It is not surface, it’s not anywhere like [what comes next].” Praises “Saving All My Love for You,” “On the Nickel," and especially “Ruby’s Arms" (inspiring a scene in Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day).
  • “Hearing that character admit that his heart is breaking inspired Ishiguro to say, ‘You know, I have to have a scene in this novel where we see the facade crack.’” —Damon [147:36]
• Scott: Endorses the album’s more dynamic, funky elements, especially the title track and “Mr. Siegal.” Marvels at Waits’ ability to create vivid snapshots of seedy bohemia: “The song fades out because the stories never end.” [150:49]

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IV. Reflections, Picks, and Teasers for Part 2

Two Albums and Five Essential Songs [156:23-161:49]

Damon Linker’s Picks:

• Albums: Small Change, Closing Time
• Songs:
  • “Grapefruit Moon” (Closing Time)
  • “San Diego Serenade” (Heart of Saturday Night)
  • “Tom Traubert’s Blues” (Small Change)
  • “Kentucky Avenue” (Blue Valentine)
  • “Ruby’s Arms” (Heartattack and Vine)

Scott Bertram’s Picks:

• Albums: Blue Valentine, Heart of Saturday Night
• Songs:
  • “Martha” (Closing Time)
  • “Please Call Me, Baby” (Heart of Saturday Night)
  • “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis” (Blue Valentine)
  • “Sweet Little Bullet from a Pretty Blue Gun” (Blue Valentine)
  • “Heartattack and Vine” (Heartattack and Vine)

Jeff Blehar’s Picks:

• Albums: Small Change, Heartattack and Vine
• Songs:
  • “Closing Time” (instrumental)
  • “Better Off Without a Wife” (Nighthawks at the Diner)
  • “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis” (Blue Valentine)
  • “Heartattack and Vine” (title track)
  • “Jersey Girl” (Heartattack and Vine)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Tom Waits was as much an actor and an adopter of personae...as David Bowie was. He was more consistent...but when he decided to make a break, he made similarly an intellectual decision to change up his music.” —Jeff [16:51]

• “It is truly shocking the way he sings...It is, I want to erase, not almost. It is truly shocking...No one with a voice like this would ever choose to sing.” —Damon on “Tom Traubert’s Blues” [76:21]

• “If you like someone just sort of reading...over a baseline, then Nighthawks at the Diner is the album for you.” —Scott [65:40]

• “Maybe that's why you have to break your voice like that. It's a great observation.” —Jeff (on Waits’s style permitting sentimentality) [117:39]

• “Hearing that character admit that his heart is breaking inspired Ishiguro to...have a scene in [Remains of the Day]...where we see the facade crack. And he wrote the novel inspired by that [Waits song].” —Damon [147:36]

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Timestamps for Essential Segments

• 05:12 – Damon’s first exposure to Tom Waits and “Small Change”
• 14:16 – Jeff’s “baptism” into avant-garde Waits with Rain Dogs
• 20:29 – Scott’s initial reactions as a Tom Waits novice
• 28:59 – Start of Close Read: Closing Time
• 43:28 – Discussion of Waits’ “performance” and affectation
• 59:04 – Nighthawks at the Diner & the great debate
• 74:18 – Small Change and the signature “hobo croak”
• 109:13 – Blue Valentine and the maturing of Waits’ cinematic, lyrical storytelling
• 135:50 – Heartattack and Vine as the end of an era and sign of transition
• 156:41 – Each panelist’s pick for two essential albums and five must-hear sings

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Overall Tone & Language

The conversation is highly engaged, witty, and often passionate—especially in dissecting the merits and flaws of Waits’s “beat poet” personae and the live storytelling approach. Each participant maintains the spirit of deep music fandom, with critical disagreements handled in an amused, good-natured manner, all set against a backdrop of personal reminiscence and erudition.

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Conclusion & What’s Next

The episode wraps by hinting at major transitions awaiting Tom Waits in the next era—new love, a new city, a radical sonic shift ("gonna get weirder"), with the promise that what comes in Part 2 will challenge both expectations and ears. Damon Linker is expected to return as guest. Listeners interested in the strange and inspiring left corners of American songcraft are encouraged to stay tuned.

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For new listeners & seasoned fans alike:
This episode is an expertly guided, honest, and entertaining journey through Tom Waits’s first decade—a capsule of American music where the night never ends, hearts are always breaking, and “everybody’s a winner.”

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[End of Part 1: Tom Waits]
Stay tuned for Part 2—Tom Waits in the wilder years.

Transcript

[A]

Hello again everybody and welcome into another edition of Political Beats, a presentation of National Review. You can find us on X politicalbeats. We're also on Facebook. Subscribe to our feed, get new episodes through Apple Podcasts and elsewhere. Leave reviews where possible and find us all [e-mail] click the podcast tab and find all the fine NR audio there, including older episodes of Political Beats. We also invite you to join us at Our Patreon page patreon.com politicalbeats support us there. Help the show stay ad free as it has been. We have entry level support for voting privileges and a few posts from time to time. Mid level for early access to our shows and higher audio quality and our upper level best friends get early access, higher audio quality, monthly exclusive content shows covered 1980, the year in music, earlier this month, the remastered episodes, playlists and more. So do join [e-mail] politicalbeats now the part of the program where we say thank you to some of our Patreon supporters, specifically and individually. Our new supporters since our last full episode include Chuck D, David Judaica, Mike Demaria, Anthony Fechner and John Andrew. And thank you to some of our longtime supporters, including Just Carl, Dave Hogg, Matt Zepp, Dan Goldbeck, Victor Naring, Jonathan Wells, Jeremy G, Phil Wegman and Derek Wilczynski. Thank you for helping us and supporting us here at Political Beats. You can find [e-mail] politicalbeats My name is Scott Bertram. Find me on xcott Bertram, my tag team partner. Standing by as always, Jeff Blair. Jeff, how are you?

[B]

I'm working on my line of repartee. Step right up. Step right up. Everybody's a winner. Everybody's a winner.

[C]

Podcast galore.

[B]

Podcast galore. 1/10 of a $1 1/10 of a gala. We got a lot of talk for you today.

[A]

It'd be great if if your voice could sort of change halfway through the episode. More gravelly. We'll see how it goes. Jeff can be found at esoteric CD on X& our guest for today's program is a senior lecturer in political science at the University of Pennsylvania. Also publishes a substack newsletter, Notes from the Middle Ground. You can find him on Xamonlinker and his [e-mail] and so his name is indeed Damon Linker. Damon, how are you?

[C]

I'm good. Glad to be here again. I joined you guys for your marathon Bowie episode and I am back very excited for this.

[A]

We are very excited.

[B]

We had to have you for this one in particular just because we need a gravelly voice man.

[D]

That's right.

[A]

We are excited to have Damon back for this episode. And first, for people who didn't listen to the three part Bowie episode, Damon, tell us a bit about what you do. Tell us a bit about the substack. What should people know about you?

[C]

Oh, sure, I guess you could say my career is kind of a bit of an ideological journey. I began my career as a political philosophy student studying with students of Leo Strauss and so ended up like most Straussians on the political right. I ended up working at First Things magazine, which your readers have probably heard of, but then had a falling out with them over various things, including the Iraq war, broke from the right and then became, I guess what you'd consider the most conservative liberal you've ever met. So I pretty much vote for Democrats now, but philosophically still kind of remain something of a philosophical conservative. And I guess my sub stack reflects that. Notes from the Middle Ground with a little Dostoevsky reference in there. And the title is. Is an attempt to kind of make sense of what's going on politically from something sort of in between and hovering slightly above the two parties in our system.

[A]

And Damon returns for another multi part episode. David Bowie was three parts. This one will be just two very interesting two parts on Tom Waits. This is part one. We'll delineate our plan here in just a second. But Damon, you have the floor first to tell us why you love Tom Waits, why people should care about this music, and maybe how you found out about this artist.

[C]

Sure, I'll start with the last of those. Might sound a little bit like child abuse, but I swear it wasn't. My father is responsible for introducing me to some of the best music, music of the 1970s when I was a little kid. I was born in 1969, so through the 70s I was in my single digits, as it were. And my dad brought home, you know, Springsteen's Born to Run, Bob Seeger, Tom Petty, Jackson Brown, all the great kind of, you know, mainstays of 1970s rock and roll. Billy Joel as well. The Turnstiles album was big, for my dad was a big piano guy, so he loved Billy. But in the midst of all that, somehow, just to give you a sense of how different the world was back then, my father heard Tom Waits on the radio. I believe it was on wnew. He heard a song we'll talk about, I think at greater length later in the show today. Tom Roberts Blues waltzing Matilda from the Small Change album. He heard that on the radio. And my father, instead of turning the dial as quickly as he could, he said, this sounds like a great songwriter. I gotta get this record.

[D]

I'm an innocent victim of a blinded alley and I'm tired of all these soldiers here. No one speaks English and everything's broken in my stasis. I sort with me.

[C]

He brought it home. And aside from the mostly naked woman on the COVID I was immediately. I was admittedly taken with this record. My dad played it and I had, of course, at the age of, I guess had never heard anything remotely like this. The guy's voice sounded like it had been like ground up in a food processor before he took to the microphone. But it was also somehow beautiful at the same time as it was incredibly ugly that the song underneath the singing was this gorgeous string saturated epic of like almost seven minutes long. It sounded like you could hear him bleeding from an open wound coming from the speakers. And this combination of ugliness with great beauty and pathos, even to my seven year old ears, I just found incredibly charismatic. And it captured my imagination. And as a result, as I got older, I ventured a little bit back to the few albums he had made prior to that one and discovered as I did later. And I recounted this at the beginning of the Bowie episode, how I discovered Bowie when I was 13, when let's Dance came out and Bowie's, you know, crooning with his baritone on the radio. And I go back and I listen to Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust and I'm like, who's this Anthony Newley guy with his high falsetto type voice and thick Cockney accent. Similarly with Tom Waits, I discover, oh, his early records. He sounds absolutely nothing like what I had heard from my dad.

[D]

I'm living my family I'm living all my friends My body's at home but my heart's in the wind where the clouds are like headlines on a new front page sky, my tears are salt water and the moon's full and high I know March and Eden and a bit proud of me Many before me have been called by the sea to be up in the crow's nest Singing my savior.

[C]

And then I followed him ever since, you know, on through the few records we'll talk about after Small Change Today and then the rest of his career ever since, as he continues to drop new music at this point at a rate of a record or two a decade, and it's been quite a saga. There's A lot to say about it, but he's. He's certainly a unique person. Plenty that we're going to say about his influences on him. So he's not completely sui generis, but he certainly does something that nobody else does. We maybe will have a chance in the second part to talk about how he once sued, I believe, a German conglomerate for, you know, that he. They wanted to use his voice on a. On an ad and he refused and they got someone to mimic his voice and he successfully sued them because his vocal is so distinctively him, he could prove a kind of copyright infringement. And that, you know, that's Tom Waits for you. A one of a kind guy.

[D]

When you walk through the garden, you gotta watch your back. Well, I beg your pardon? Walk the straight and narrow track. If you walk with Jesus, he's gonna save your soul. You gotta keep the devil way down in the hole. He's got the fire and the fury at his command.

[B]

That's brilliant, Damon. I think I'll go next, Scott. So you. You can end it for us. But you just framed it beautiful beautifully. And I think the funny thing is, a decade younger than you, I come to Tom Wa. My first experience with him was not through my dad, who liked, you know, that kind of music. But I think maybe Waits, if he'd ever even encountered him, was probably a step too far, a little bit in the weird direction I got him because I was in my late period of high school suddenly beginning to explore the avant garde. And this will be about the second episode we do on this man's career. This is a fascinating two part divide that we'll be covering on these two episodes because the man changes musically. Although there's a continuity through line. And I came in through the second part of Tom Waits's career when a guy I knew in high school was like, hey, you know what? I've heard this is a really great album. I saw it was like in the, like top 50 of one of these Rolling Stone lists and it's. It's apparently really, really weird. You should buy Rain Dogs. Oh, and by the way, you know that Rod Stewart song, Downtown Train? Hey, that's on this record too. You like Rod Stewart, right? Surely you'll like Tom Waits's version of Downtown Train. So I bought Raindogs, I took it home. First thing I do is I go straight to that track. I'm expect to hear, oh, you know what Rod sounds like epic ballad, right? Like the synth strings and like the big swelling choruses and all that. And instead I Hear well, I see you tonight On a downtown train and I'm like, oh no, what have I gotten myself into?

[D]

I'll see you tonight Rolling down something. Every night, every night is just the same oh baby, will I see you tonight Roll a downtown train Roll over my dreams before like rain Roll, baby, on a D.

[B]

And I was like, it was a baptism, just a cold baptism, an emerg, an immersion into like a world of music that I had no prior context for. I got into Tom Waits the hard way. Not with that. The early jazzy stuff, which we'll be discussing on this episode and is beautiful. Obviously, that's why this is a two part episode. But I mean, I was like injecting heroin straight into my head. I became an art rocker. I mean, not because of my experience, my exposure to Tom Waits, but definitely hooked on that path. Because that album in particular, which we'll discuss on our next episode, was one of those door kicker moments for me where I was like, okay, wow, there's a world going on underground. There is something else happening with Tom, weights with this kind of music that I had not previously thought was being made. And I almost had to step back and say, okay, what is the artifice here? What is the pretense? What is an act and what is for real? And that is what deepened my love for Tom Waits, which comes when I hit college. And then I said, well, I should get more by this guy. I get swordfish trombones next, again from the next episode. But then I get small change because, oh, it's from his earlier period. I hear it's kind of jazzy. That's all I knew about it, right? I put that record on and then I hear step right up, which is the same voice maybe sometimes somehow even more mangled in a weird way in his earlier years. But he's doing this carnival barker circus pattern. Step right up, up. Step right up. It'll change your life. He's selling some mystical item. It'll change your life. It'll change you into a nine year old Hindu boy. It will forge your signature. It will do everything. And I was like, this man has me wrapped. I will buy whatever he is selling.

[D]

No must, no fuzz. No spill. You tired of kitchen drudgery? Everything must go. Going out of business. Going out of business. Going out of business. 50% off original retail price. Skip the middleman. Don't set up a letter. How do we do it? How do we do it? Volume, volume. Turn up the volume. You got hooded advertisers. Don't Hesitate. Don't be caught with your drawers down. Don't be caught with your drawers down. You can step right up. Step right up. That's Riley. Filets and chops, dice and slices. Never stops. Lasts a lifetime. Mow your lawn and it mows your lawn. It picks up the kids from school. It gets rid of unwanted facial hair. It gets rid of embarrassing age bus. It delivers a pizza and it lengthens and it strengthens. And it finds that slipper that's been at large under the Cheese Lounge for several weeks. And it plays a mean rhythm master. It makes excuses for unwanted lipstick on your collar.

[B]

And it's only I will buy whatever Tom Waits is selling. And then I realized the personality is what unites all of it. Tom Waits, I suppose, if there's any theory I've been able to come up with about the man and all his art. And I've become a fan for, you know, know, decades now. At this point, I'll say he's a quintessential actor. I mean, he's actually a film actor as well. He has a sort of a side gig and doing like arty films with Jim Jarmusch and Francis Ford Coppola and stuff like that as small gigs. He's got talent on the screen, he's got screen presence because he's a stage actor. He's a stage actor in the sense that when he gets up on stage with his band and sings this music, he's adopting a certain affect. He was, you know. Well, we'll get into this when we explain his. His, you know, his origins. But he was essentially much like David Bowie. I mentioned this to Damon in our pre show notes. Is like, he was as much of an actor and an adopter of personae in his own way as David Bowie was. Now, the fact of the matter is he was more consistent about it and he evolved more like naturally over time. But when he decided to make a break, he made similarly an intellectual decision to change up his music in the same sort of way that somebody Bowie would have. So it's no surprise to me. And this is the thing about Tom Waits that really excites me most of all, is that when I go back and I reassemble all of the other artists that really excited me back from my early days of like, becoming a music lover, whether it was Radiohead or Scott Walker, some of these arty corners that, like, are obsessions for me, but maybe not known to most of our readers. Tom Wakes actually unites all of them of them. He is part of A continuum of the weird left corners and back channels in popular music that every now and then will percolate to the surface in a song here, a cover tune that you know from somebody else there. But he is the engine, and he taps into this engine of creativity that I. I think few other artists in our time have. Dylan, I think maybe is one of the other guys who still gets to this. And yes, it's a construction, it's an artistic statement. So has it ever been with Bob Dylan as well? Tom Waits was the guy who really, as I already said, he explained to me musically that there was a world going on underground. So this one is a really, really big one up for me. And you might be surprised about that, folks. I don't really get many chances to mention Tom Waits on this show, but he's had an influence on me that's as important as, say, Fairport Convention, to name another group that I constantly bring up. And I'm really glad to be discussing him.

[D]

So I spin on my button don't pick me I made me a letter from a bunch of river now leaned up camp in a lime tree Lean up get in a lime tree Lean up camp in a limb tree.

[A]

All right, Tom Waits, I.

[B]

And now for. Now for the. The other side.

[A]

Yeah, he's supposed to end on a high note. Aren't you? Tom Waits? Tom Waits. I was almost wholly unfamiliar with the music entering prep for the show now. I know who Tom Waits is. I know his reputation, I know his voice. That's about the extent. And yeah, as Jeff mentioned, I know Downtown Train from Rod Stewart, and I knew there was a Tom Waits song. And I grouped him with a couple other artists in my mind, and probably for no good rational reason. One is I grouped him with Nick Cave because both are really respected artists that I have not had any opportunity to dive into. And also many requests from our listeners to do shows on both these artists. So I kind of grouped there. And I also grouped him with John Hyatt, who I love. I love John Hyatt. Not necessarily musically together, but both guys who ended up writing a ton of great songs that ended up being covered by other artists through the years. And both have kind of interesting voices, too. John Hyatt doesn't have the Tom Waits gravel, but he does have. I sometimes think he sounds like Kermit the Frog, but I still love John Hyatt, though the artist does of associated with the name within my mind. But this is my first opportunity to get into Tom Waits. And I said in an email I've got really wildly different thoughts on Tom Witts. Very scattered. And there's some stuff I really love. There's some stuff I seriously dislike. Some songs are brilliant. Some I can't. Can't rush to skip even after three or four or five full spins to give them traction and opportunities to latch themselves into my mind. I can't deny a listener to this show, would not deny the talent, the. The wordsmithing. There are. There are a couple particular albums here in which Jeff had to know. Jeff knows me. I know Jeff. He had to know the hurdle that would be placed in front of me in terms of enjoying the music for various reasons that I'll. That I'll get into.

[D]

I want to pull on your coat about something here tonight. Yeah. Little news I'd like to throw your direction. See, I used to know a girl, yeah and it was a hubba hubba and ding ding, ding I said, baby, you got everything A week later it was a hubba hubba and ding ding dong, baby. The show didn't last too long. I know things are tough all over. They ain't getting any better.

[A]

Looking very much toward hearing what I might be missing from, from, from the other two co hosts on this program. Also offering the perspective of someone who had not been widely exposed to his music before and maybe giving those in the same boat as I am decent entry points to appreciate some of this stuff. But. And I'm also really intrigued by what comes next because again, I don't really know what comes next, but I know it's even more odd, different than the stuff we're going to cover today. So looking forward to diving into part two as well. But that's where I start part one. You know, it's. You know, Jeff likes to say we challenge each other sometimes with artists that we know will be more difficult for us to appreciate. And this, yeah, this was more of a challenge for me than it was for Jeff, certainly. But looking forward to getting into it.

[B]

See, what I don't understand is who doesn't love a good jazz ballad? And that's really what you need to understand about Tom Waits's early career. The first part, the Cesur, is going to be fascinating when we go to part two. But the first part, the watchword for what we're doing here is piano based lounge jazz. Okay. You have strings, you have like nice jazz instruments, so acoustic bass and things like that. And you say, well, how did this guy find his way into this kind of music? Music. And that's where you begin with Tom Waits, who was he? He was born. He was. In fact, Tom Waits is to me in some ways as easy to identify with as any musician we've ever covered, because he was purely middle class. This guy came from Richard Nixon's hometown, Whittier, California, I think, something like that. So, like, he was just like a middle class kid who like, was, as the standard line goes, was a talented, like, intellectual kid in school, but didn't really care for it, dropped out. What did he want to do? He got seduced by rock music. He went to like old bluesman singing in San Diego and he was like, my God, I want to tell stories. Like they tell stories. He, you know, he went and he saw James Brown and he's like, that man commands an audience. And he said, I will be an actor. But I think his real heart actually probably was drawn most to the beat poet generation.

[D]

Well, these diamonds on my windshield and these tears from heaven When I'm pulling into town on the interstate I got a steel train in the rain and the wind bites my cheek through the wing and it's these late nights and this freeway flying Always makes me sing There's a duster trying to change my tune he's pulling up fast on the right Rolling restlessly by a 24 hour moon and a Wisconsin hiker with a cue ball head he's wishing he's home in a Wisconsin bed but there's 15ft of snow in the east Colder than a well digger's ass and it's colder than a well digger's ass Oceanside When.

[B]

I think of Jack Kerouac or I think of Neil Cassidy, guys who really Inspired a whole mid-60s group of kids that Waits just missed out on because he was young. Those are the guys who I think he was looking towards who were sort of jazz poets. And so who was he at the time? Well, he was nobody. He had no musical talent. He picked up piano, he became a keyboardist, but really what he was was a bouncer. He worked bouncing, like, you know, standing outside clubs and like late at night, hey, can I get a couple minutes in to do a few songs? That's how he developed his craft. And of course, because he was a young guy who was up and coming and full of all these, you know, poetic dreams, you know, he. He came up with, I'd say, a whole host of 30 or so tracks that I think have since also since been released. There's like some like, semi official release of Tom Waits demos that we're not going to bother with really. All really need to know, though, is that these songs, which are written primarily on piano and have that smoky late night balladry feel to them, are both like, thoughtful and considered. But even in the years that this is happening, which would be 19, 71, 72, when he's just like, you know, coming up with ideas for songs, this stuff is already out of touch with what, whatever the times are, the pop times. And yet it catches the earth year of, you know, people that he has gotten to know living in Los Angeles. And that's the other thing. He hangs around the Troubadour. He gets to know people. He's a very affable guy. He meets David Geffen. David Geffen, who has appeared on this show so many times, most particularly in our Neil Young episode we ever do Joni Mitchell. Geffen will be coming back again. He meets Tom Waits hanging out the scene in la and he gives him a contract because David Geffen happens to be starting a new record label called Asylum Records. It's going to be big. He stole Bob Dylan away from Columbia. He's going to go out with a bang. He's got Jackson Brown. Tom Waits is part of that initial stable of artists and a very strange person to pick up. Kind of like Laura Nairo was another person who was on that early label. Some people never caught on. Waits took a while to become the legend he was. But his opening debut shows a very different sort of a guy, a singer, songwriter type that I think we've all agreed is much more akin in some ways to Jackson Brown than he is to the weirdo of the 80s and 90s. Guys. What do we think about the first album? What do we think about closing time?

[D]

Now it's closing time the music's fading out. Last coffee drinks I'll have another stout. Well, I turn around to look at you Nowhere to be found Search the place for your lost face Cause I'll have another round and I think that I just fell in love with you.

[C]

I think it's a great day. It's, it's, you know, obviously it's partly a taste thing. If you, if you don't like jazzy, smoky ballads and upright bass, walking bass lines, you're going to be like, what, what, what is this? I love that I'm not a beatnik, you know, I'm not reading on the road. Why am I in this club? But I, I love it, I think. And I have to make clear from the very get go, because this is going to come up again and again. I love Tom Waits as the writer of ballads I think he has written I have on and listeners can go find it. I think it's public on Spotify. I have a mix on Spotify with 43 ballads from Waits entire career. And almost every album has a few to as many as maybe half a dozen ballads that I think are some of the most beautiful songs ever written. And there are a bunch on this debut that I truly love. Old 55, which ended up being covered by the Eagles on their third album on the Border. And that, you know, that that's. It's a kind of its own topic, the kind of weird way in which on this. On this debut album he is so much. Waits is so much a part of that troubadour David Geffen Laurel Canyon early 70s scene that you can hear him going potentially in any number of directions, including in the direction that the Eagles went or Jackson Brown kind of more mainstream, bringing in a lot of, you know, background singers to make nice vocal harmonies and. And old 55 sounds kind of like a demo for the Eagles version of the same song. They're very similar in feeling.

[D]

Morning gave me no warning I had to be on my way well, this truck's all a passing and the lights all are flashing I'm on my way home from your place and now the sun's coming up I'm riding with LA freeway causing trucks Stars beginning to fade and I lead the.

[C]

But other great songs on the album that I love. I hope that I don't fall in love with you. A very. A simple kind of standard ballad. You know, if you kind of song you hear and you feel like I've heard this whole. All My Life like this. This was written by someone else in the 40s, right?

[D]

Well, no.

[C]

Tom Waits wrote it in 1973, Martha. Which is sort of like his take on Harry Chapin's Taxi, which had come out within about a year of this song. A beautiful. A beautiful track of kind of lost Lost past and paths taken where a guy ends up on the phone with next lover and they talk about, you know, how they could have ended up together but different didn't. It's very sad.

[D]

I feel so much older now. You're much older too, as a husband and has your kids. You know that I got married too. Lucky that you found someone to make you feel secure. Cause we were all so young and foolish and now we are mature and. And those were days of roses O dream frozen mother All I had was you and all you had was me There was no tomorrow we packed away our sorrows and we saved them for rain.

[C]

Grapefruit Moon. Absolutely gorgeous ballad with beautiful strings, string arrangement, trumpet, piano. And finally the last song, an instrumental. The title you're stealing this from, I won't say much about it. You can take it from there, Jeff.

[B]

They're no words, man. There's nothing to say.

[C]

There's no words. And they were apparent. The song was apparently recorded live in one take as a kind of improv with the whole band. And it is an absolutely gorgeous piano ballad with no singing. So if you don't like his. His singing even on this early stuff, and it's not a great voice, I didn't say much about that. We'll get to it. But it. It just gorgeous, gorgeous song and. And so that's what I love about it. You know, I left out about half the record, which is more the kind of the walking ace and him sort of talk singing and telling stories of the down and out people in. In that area of lo. But that's sort of how I feel about it. It's just a great compendium of what you can see. Like this is a talented singer songwriter. Definitely in that world of Joni Mitchell and the young Jackson Brown and doing work, I think, you know, at the level of. Of those people, we can't really tell where it's going to end up going. But. But yeah, that's. That's the. How it all gets started.

[B]

And so here's. Here's. By the way, Scott, did you. Scott had the good taste to not reveal this, but I will. So before we actually even booked this episode on Tom Waits, I. I thought I had promised him. It's like, listen, I know it's a difficult kind of. He's a difficult artist, but I really think you're going to like the early years. I was clearly maybe not correct, but. Well, I'm. Do you really. Do you have a problem with this early balladeering version of Tom Waits? I want to know because I found. I would have thought this stuff was inoffensive at the very worst and I think pretty brilliant.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Best.

[A]

Okay, let me set the table. I meant to do this in the introduction and didn't. So I'll set the table. Table here. I think that this is. I have no problem with the bookends of this era we're covering today. It is the meaty middle that I really have a problem with. So once we get toward the end, Heart Attack and Vine. Good. And the beginning here. I actually disagree a bit with Damon in that I don't think that this album, once you accept the premise as Jeff sort of laid out like this is what this is going to be. I don't think the hurdles are here at the beginning the way they are. A few albums down the line, you don't have as much of that talk singing. The voice isn't lowered and gravelly. That sort of beat poetry is a little less evident on Closing Time. I think it's actually somewhat fun to see some of the various influences in. I mean. I mean, he would adopt that voice very soon. I hear him trying out different voices here in a way. Certainly the Laurel Canyon Jackson Brown that Damon lays out. But the second song in this record, I hope I don't fall in love with you. I hear Gordon Lightfoot. In fact, in my mind when I hear him sing that song, there's a very Dylan delivery on Virginia Avenue. There are all these little things that you can sort of pick up as you run through the record. And I don't think any of it is really going to turn people off. As long as you come into it with the right mindset, you would have something that boy, I don't remember him going back to it all in old shoes and picture postcards, which I like a lot. But it's just a country rock waltz. It's not something that would be like a definitive Tom Waits sound. But he tries it here and I think it's. I think it's an effective tune. Damon mentioned Martha, which, strangely enough, is one of those Tom Wait songs I knew coming in because it was covered by Meatloaf on his welcome to the Neighborhood album. And so I did know that track. And I think those two tracks right in the middle, the ballad Martha and. And Rosie, the two named after women. Those are two. I think my two favorite tracks back to back. One closes side one, one open side two. I think Rosie's just a really nice song. Upright bass, pedal steel. So there is that country influence, then, some of the California influence on that track. We're going to. Rosie. Why do you evade me, Rosie? How can I persuade the. This. This. This. This lovelorn track right smack dab in the middle of the. Of the. The album. I like that song. Ice Cream man is fun because clearly it's exactly the same thing that Van Halen would go for, what, seven years down the. Down the road, different approaches, approach. This has a. This has a more of a sinister vibe to it than. Than sort of the fun time vibe that David Lee Roth brought to us, right? This is. Yeah, this is a little more sinister. But the same idea. The double entendres and the cherry popsicles and the big stick that'll blow your mind he's your ice cream man Van Halen would say, you know, stop me when you're satisfied but this is Tom Waits version. And, you know, there's. There's one. There's at least one, you know, straight up love song here in Little Trip to Heaven, which I really like quite a bit. And we'll talk a lot about lyrics and writing and so Little trip to heaven I don't have to take no trip to outer space All I have to do is look at your face before you know it, I'm in orbit around you it's the kind of song, and Damon alluded to this a little bit. It's the kind of song that maybe you'd hear Tony Bennett singing, right? It's that sort of approach, that sort of delivering. Yet it's a Tom Waits original, written in 1973, the Straight up love song. And the other thing I'll mention very quickly is, especially on Martha and Rosie, those two songs I like a lot. I mean, it's just proof he can. He can sing. He can sing. It's, you know, the voice changes and the approach changes, but clearly on this first record, he's showing you that, you know, if he wants to, he can do things like that. He can sing.

[B]

I have a little notebook, Scott. I have a little notebook, like a little file on my computer that I've compiled during, like, the run up to this show of points later on in Tom Waits, his career, where he suddenly breaks into a falsetto or sings in a gentle voice and then you remember, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, he actually can do that.

[C]

He can do it.

[B]

He chooses not to.

[D]

The Girl with the sun.

[A]

So, yeah, I would say as an intro, as an introductory point, you could do far worse than Closing Time from this era if you've not heard Tom Waits before, because I think there are enough pieces and differing pieces, you know, the country rock, the ballad, the sort of funky, high energy ice Cream man that you probably will find something to listen like here.

[B]

Yeah, I actually do like this album a lot. And I will say, though, that the. The comments that both of you have made already about how it seems like it's trying on new skins, I think that that is the most important aspect of things. I don't really have much to add to what you've already said about the individual songs. I do really like the song Lonely, which no one mentioned. But beyond that, what's really Important is that he's. He's okay. He's doing these. These long ballads. He's doing the Jackson Brown thing. He's doing like, you know, a little bit of, like a wobbly drunk. And what he chooses to lean into may be perhaps governed by his voice. He's like, oh, that sounds a little bit like Jackson Brown. Why didn't he continue to do that thing? Well, because he sounds like Tom Waits, you know, like, at a certain point, he can sing, but he cannot be pretty. He's never going to be a pop crooner. He's always going to have that sort of gutty kind of bluesy authenticity and a jazzy one as well, which is why I think he sort of. I don't know. I can't know. I feel, though, like he chose to lean into what his strengths were, and this kind of governs the pursuit Persona that he's going to sort of sink into over the next several records. And it really is a Persona to the point where you see weights at times in interviews acknowledging it. It's like I kind of became an alcoholic because I felt like I had to be to write the songs that I was trying to write about, like spending time on skid row with people and doing things like that. A lot of it's written from experience, but a lot of it's sort of an aspirational experience. And a guy like Waits, who was accustomed to playing roles, and of course, as you'll see in later on in his life, he really did like being an actor. He brought stage props to his show precisely because he loved making it a production. He got obsessed with German opera from the Weimar era, precisely German stage shows precisely because he had that similar idea. This man's always been about a certain performance in his music. And so over these next few albums, he sinks into this style, which I'll admit it does a lot for me, but it apparently really triggers Scott Friday.

[D]

Left Me Family where the blue and it's hard to win when you always lose Because a night spot Spend your spirit beat your head against the wall Two dead ends and you still got.

[B]

To choose.

[D]

You know the by taking they all know my name they catch me when I'm pulling up lane and I'm a pool shooting shimmy shotster Shaking my head when I should be living clean instead.

[B]

It does, it does. And of course, it comes with the next record, which is the heart of Saturday Night. And it was just the sort of the boozy, broken down old drunk. The voice gets grittier, the songs get A little more detailed. Detailed about all these picaresque details about guys, you know, who are, like, you know, getting 3:00am diner, you know, steak and eggs, or, like, hanging out with hookers, down and outs and, you know, that sort of things. Diamonds on My Windshield, which is not the title track of the Heart of Saturday Night, his second record, but to me, it's pretty much the most quintessential song. It's Diamonds on My Windshield and these tears from heaven, all that. Pulling into town on the interstate and I got a steel train in the rain. You know, there's a big walking bass line behind him. As Damon so, like, aptly described it, It's a jazz standard. It's a talking blues. It's not musical, it's a personality. And this, for me, is actually why the Heart of Saturday Night is one of my least favorite Tom Waits albums from this period. I know you probably didn't like it that much yourself, Scott, because I can see where this sort of. It's a discursive and very literary style might not do a thing for you. Well, the idea is nice, but I don't know if I like it nearly as much on this record. This record does a surprisingly long little. Forming. I'm sorry, you were gonna say.

[A]

I was gonna say doesn't go whole hog yet. Which is why we still.

[B]

I like the whole hog.

[A]

We still split here. We still split here. So you don't. You don't love it, apparently.

[B]

You hate what I like is clearly the issue.

[A]

I hate what you like. This is. This is going to be crystal clear very quickly. I mean, there's only two songs here that I would sort of place into that next category of. Of things that are coming next, and that's Diamonds and Ghost of Saturday Night. And I don't like those. But I accept that the premise of the rest of the album, which is essentially this picture of an American Saturday night, all the things that might happen and could happen and do happen and the people who are around. He does this neat thing. Well, I mean, new coat of paint. It's the mission statement. This very slinky, sultry feel. And I think about, like, what we don't know about what's going to happen tonight, right? What's around the corner? You wear a dress, I'll wear a tie. Let's see where this night leads us. And so it's the rest of the record that sort of unfolds. The things that might and could and do happen during the evening.

[D]

All this long old town, set them up. We'll be knocking up down. You wear a dress, baby, I wear a tie. We'll laugh at that old bloodshot moon in that burgundy sky.

[A]

Something that he does. Again, I'm the newbie here, as Jeff says, when we do some of these shows, so I might be totally off base, but the things I picked up on. There are occasionally these songs that are either back to back or sometimes a few songs apart that sort of. That complement each other and help move the narrative forward. Here I think about these two songs back to back. Semi Sweet and Shiver Me Timbers. Semi Sweet is about this truck driving man stopping where he can. He's on the road and he's got a woman. But he says, you know you're on his mind. You're the only girl he's gonna find. But the only place a man can breathe is on the road. And then of course, you have the sailor who very much has the same approach. Swallow me, don't follow me, I'm traveling alone. My body's at home but my heart's in the wind. And I think like, these are the two, like, two types of people you'll see right as you walk around. If you're maybe near a pier along the water on a Saturday night. The truck driver who's in town for a night. The sailor who's in before he sets off to sea. Once again, like, it's. I think both those songs continue the same kind of story. Essentially. The title track, looking for the Heart of Saturday Night, I like that one a lot too, because it's such a comfortable song and it's laid back. And I hear that the comfort of this tavern, the place you go every week, is sort of reflected in the style of the song. The crack of pool balls and the neon boat buzzing and telephone ringing. The barmaid smiling. All these things that you see and feel and experience on a weekly basis. If you head out to the. The same place, the same bar, the same tavern. You're barreling down the boulevard looking for the heart of Saturday night.

[D]

Exit kind of special down in the core and you're dreaming of them Saturdays that came before us. Found you stumbling, stumbling onto the heart of Saturday night. And you're stumbling, stumbling onto the heart of Saturday night.

[A]

My favorite song here is Please Call Me Baby. I think that's, you know, I guess I'm attached to some of these ballads early on, like Martha on the last album. And this one is just. He has a way with a good melody in this song. The. The strings accompany him really well. I love. I won't love the philosopher. Philosophizing, philosophizing, the more it comes. But like, when he says, if. If I. If I exercise my devils, my angels might leave too. And there's. When they leave, they're so hard to find. Like, if I. This is what we talk about with songwriting a lot, too. People who get clean. Right. If. If. If my devils leave me.

[B]

You have Tweety disease, Right?

[A]

Right. Can I still do these things that I did when I was. When I was, you know, when I was using, when I was messed up?

[B]

That's.

[A]

That's a great question to ask. And. And it's set to this wonderful, wonderful, beautiful song. That's my favorite track on. On this record. And. And yeah, Jeff, because you don't love it, it doesn't go far enough. I. I like it a lot because it kind of goes just far enough that.

[C]

That it keeps me around when we're.

[D]

Always at each other's throats, you know, it drives me up a wall most of the time. Just. I wish to God you'd leave me, baby I wish to God you'd stay Life's so different than it is in your dreams Please call me, baby wherever you are it's too cold to be out walking in the streets Crazy things when we're wounded Everyone's a bit insane I don't want you catching your death.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, I won't add too much to. To this. I mean, I. One theme for me that I think we're gonna hear throughout the. This and in the follow on episode is that I think one of Tom Waits's weaknesses as an artist is that he has a tendency to kind of go up and down. He gets in ruts. He has limited talents. They are real and they are substantial, but they are limited. This album I see as a kind of recapitulation of closing time, but the songs just aren't as good. He sort of already on only his second album, beginning to sort of spin wheels a little bit. So, I mean, it's only as good as the songs. And for me, the. The three songs that stand out as. As being strongest are San Diego Serenade, which is another one of these songs, like, I hope that I don't fall in love with you. That, for me, sounds like it's like ancient. Like this song has always existed, almost like it was, you know, found through an oral culture and then recapitulated down through the. Through the decades or even centuries. It's classic, it has a gorgeous melody, beautiful, very simple imagery.

[D]

Caught up in a B night I never spoke out Love love you till I cursed you in vain Never felt my heart strings until I nearly went insane Never saw the east coast until I move to the west Never saw the moonlight until it sh of your breath.

[C]

Chevron timbers also very much, I think like that and looking for the heart of Saturday Night, sort of the title track. Those three, I think are the strongest songs on it, to my ear at least. But if this were what he did for the rest of his career, I think it wouldn't have gone much past a third or fourth record before he ended up being dropped and kind of forgotten. Just because it feels to me like the first record again redone. A few small peripheral changes, but sort of rehashing and not with the song's not quite as strong as they were the first time around and. But you know, as we're to hear very quickly, he does not simply spin his wheels. He. He takes some real hard left turns in his career and that keeps it fresh and keeps it interesting. But here I feel like it's a step down from the debut.

[B]

I think that's fair enough. I actually, it's funny, I have. I have my own concept of the career trajectory of Tom Weights. And I think these first four albums are sort of working towards the realization of a conceit. You know, it starts with Closing Time. This is like an attempt at refining it. What comes next, which Scott hates and I like, is another attempt. And then when you get to Small Change, it really. It's where he figures that shtick out. And then everything after that begins to feel a little bit anticlimactic until even he himself acknowledges it was time for me to change, it was time to move on. But the kind of conceit he's working for here, maybe. Okay, I'm wondering, there may be something about the fact that this is just sort of musical music that is to the manner born for me. I like the vibe in a way that maybe other people don't. This sort of smoky, drunken, like late night. It's actually not something I have any personal experience with, but it's like romantic. It's my idea of like urban romance. Hey, you know me, I'm an urban guy, right? The 3am Jazz Club, that kind of stuff.

[D]

But the Sailors jockey for the fast lane so 101, don't miss it. This rock rolling hills, the concrete fields and the broken lines on your mind the eights go east and the fives go north and the merging nexus back and forth you see your sign cross the line Signaling with a blink and the radio's gone off the air and it gives you time to think and you hear the rumble as you fumble for a cigarette and play Breezing through this midnight jungle Remember someone that you met One more block the engine talks Whispers home at last Whispers home at last Whispers home at last this is.

[B]

Sort of like the, The. The. The. The. The life I've never led, to be perfectly honest. But it. It has an appeal to me every time I've sort of walked into a situation like that. And he's living in it, and he's living in. In it with this album. And I guess I would say actually, you know, dam real thought with Shiver Me Timbers, Captain Ahab Ain't Got Nothing On Me. That's probably my favorite song on the album, Even if Diamonds on My Windshield is the most quintessential one on the record, because just of what it sounds like and what it's going to come to represent. And I think that really, actually is probably the most natural way for us to go to a divisive, apparently record, which is Nighthawks at the Diner. This, to me, is a phenomenon of sound. It is an experience. It. It is a party. It is. It's not. Okay. It's often classified as a live album, but it was performed in a studio. It was played at the Record Plant in Los Angeles. What they did is they got drinks, you know, they got tables. They put tables out in the studio area so that guests come and sit down and applaud. They had a stripper hired to do, like, entertainment before the show began. And it was recorded live. And I don't know if there are any overdubs, but it certainly feels live. And it is performed like a live show with patter. There's stage patter, introductions, long instrumental introductions, where the band will vamp and Tom will talk. He'll tell these stories.

[D]

All the bats was out there tonight. Yeah. For anybody who's never whistled this song. Maybe you whistled it, but you lost the sheet music. This is.

[B]

Well, actually.

[D]

I don't mind going to weddings or anything as long as I'm not my own. I show up. But I've always kind of been partial to calling myself up on the phone and asking myself out, you know? Oh, yeah, you call yourself up too, huh? Yeah. One thing about it, you're always around.

[B]

This should get boring, right? I've heard these same stories told by Tom Waits to me since 1999, 2000. So we're talking about a quarter century now, right? Right. Every single time he makes These jokes. I realize it's not. I can't get tired of his stage patter because I realize I've internalized it so much that I speak the way I feel he speaks on this record. Sometimes I get into a Tom Weights mode every now and then, usually after I've had a few, but. But more often, sometimes even in my writing. This sort of gritty, streetwise, casual, dissolute, but sly and wise and thoughtful and kidding, kidding on the square, all these jokes. This is an experience of an album. And of course, the problem is, I agree with you, Scott. There aren't a lot of songs per se. What few there are very, very good. But really it's more about the experience of an entire live record. This is actually early. Tom Waits is like, I understand why they went for this thing. I think the vibe comes off beautifully. It's. It's one of these double edges album records. It just has to be heard as like, hey, I'm going to a show for the next hour.

[D]

Well, unebriated. Good evening to you all. Welcome to Raphael's Silver Cloud Lounge. Slip me a little crimson Jim. Give me the low down brown. I want some scoop at it. Poop. I'm on my way into town. Christ. Everett, like to thank Dwana for opening the program for us. I'm so goddamn horny the crack of dawn Better be careful around me.

[C]

I don't know which of us are gonna jump in here.

[A]

You know, I talked a lot about the last one.

[B]

Go ahead, disagree away, man.

[C]

I'm happy to. Briefly.

[B]

I'll go song by song on this.

[C]

I will set this up for Scott, because this is where Scott and I, I think, are gonna be completely allied. I mean, I. I really have no interest in this record. You remember the old Rolling Stone Record Guide, edited by Dave Marsh?

[B]

Oh, yes, boy. But that comes up a lot on our show.

[C]

Yeah, it probably came up on the Bowie thing, though, that I did with you guys. Because, I mean, it's. Anytime I get really geek out into, you know, music history, I have to reference that book because it was like my. My pop culture bible when I was a kid. And they used to. They used to give, you know, the five star ratings, but then they had a special rating that was a box like a square. That meant essentially like, melt down the vinyl. It has no worth. I am tempted to give Nighthawks a square. Like, I just. I'm not saying if I had been old enough in 1975 or six to like to attend this event, I wouldn't have gone and maybe enjoyed myself a little bit just for the feel of it. But as I'm recording I just. There. I don't hear any songs here really. It, it's, it, it is a party. But I don't necessarily want a record that's a kind of soundtrack, real time soundtrack of a party.

[D]

This is kind of about 2:30 in the morning. You've been standing on a corner of 5th and Vermouth and you climb in at the helm of a 1958 monkey shit brown Buick super on your way home. A luxury automobile bought it dollar bills easy autos for next to nothing.

[C]

10. I, I'm kind of shocked and always have been that this was his third record that like, wow. He, he had a kind of like career suicide wish because there was no way that this record was going to get any traction in any capacity commercially to find an audience. And so it, it's like a giant question mark for me in his career. And I, I don't really probably stand alone then.

[B]

I'm, I'm more than happy to. I will, I will go chapter and verse on this. But wow. I'm.

[D]

It's.

[B]

It's Scott. I know you're going to agree, but explain even further why I'm apparently out on an island.

[A]

Well, I am allergic to the very concept of this record. Meaning that again, as you mentioned, kind of the pseudo live aspect of it, the beat poetry performing, the speaking, not singing, the intros that flow into the songs and the songs are part of the intro and the stage patter and the stuff about ordering veal cutlets and like I, I don't care about any of that. And the way the crowd laughs at stuff that's not really all that funny. But they're in a live, you know, the crowd so they have to act as if it's a little funnier than it might be. Like all of that. I'm allergic to all of this and even the songs. And so there are. I pushed through all that to try to find a few things like Better Off Without a Wife. Pretty, Pretty good song. But I, I'm listening to two songs back to back. The Warm Beer and Cold Women and then Putnam county and Putnam County. I don't like it's. It's. Well, in Warm Beer and in Putnam county he uses the word naugahide. And if you use it once, I kind of think, oh well that's a neat way that you wove that into the song. If you use it in two different songs and play them back to back, then it becomes like, what is this, a crutch? So one of the ways I think I can measure if you like this album from Putnam county, there's this. A couple of verses or a couple of lines. The stratocasters slung over Burgermeister beer guts and swizzle stick legs jackknife over naugahide style stools. Okay, so if you like that and like someone just sort of reading that over a baseline, then Nighthawks at the diner is. Is going to be the album for you. If you kind of find that a little pretentious and wish there were a melody behind it, then. Then you can skip it. Unless. Unless Jeff is able to convince you otherwise right here.

[D]

And the Stratocasters slung over the burger meister, beer guts, swizzle stick legs jackknifed over naugahide stools. Yeah. And the witch hazels spread out over the linoleum floors. Pedal pushers stretched out over midriff bulge. And the quaffed brunette curls over maybelline eyes, wearing French mazabelli or something. Yeah. Estee Lauder smells so sweet.

[B]

I guess I just have to indulge in my inner beatnik. I don't know what to tell you guys. I mean, I'm a hipster. I mean, clearly I. I even have a chin beard. So, my gosh, I maybe am Gil guilty of this. Listen, the atmosphere of it. Okay, I debated whether this would make my top two albums at the end of the show. I guess it won't because you've overawed me with your discontent. But I will defend it nevertheless as first of all, an experience. The things that you say that actually get up your nose. Well, it goes to show you how differently perspectives can come from. I find the jokes funny. I don't find the laughter over. Over amped. I find it an audience that was like, came in off the street, didn't know what it was they were gonna hear. Yeah, you're right. About. It's just. It's a smart point to say, like. Well, I guess we're being recorded for a show. We're supposed to laugh. We can't boo, right? We can't boo, right? But I mean, it sounds like it's genuine laughter. And even I double over even. There's some. Some really sophomore jokes. Like, I'm so horny, even the crack of dome better look out. I mean, it still makes me giggle like a teenager every time I hear it right at the beginning of the. Of the thing, the emotional weather report, but the so themselves, even though most of them are spoken I think are pretty good jazz poetry. And I suppose if you have no time for that, you won't like this. Better off without a wife though a song that you mentioned, I think is more than just that. It's a very sad and very beautiful song. That lyric is actually much more subtle than people give it credit for. It's like all my friends are married. Every time Dick and Harry, he says, you got to be strong if you're going to go it alone. I'm going to become drunk. He's going to hang down with the Bowery bums and the slums and, you know, because I want to able to sleep until the crack of dawn or crack of noon actually, you know, I don't want to have any of that life. You're better off without a wife. But of course, implied within the song, it's just how pathetic a life this person leads. He's lonely. It's a sad piano ballad. He's trying to make you think everything is all right, but in reality it's not. He's up at 3am singing this song into a piano. Drunk. Or that's the piano is drunk, not me. He's singing that song. Trying to make you think that it's okay, but it's not okay. Better off without a wife really gets to the heart of the character. The kind of Persona that Waits was going for during this period.

[D]

All my friends are married every Tom and Dick and Harry. You must be strong if you to go it alone. It's to the bachelors and the bow Revol those who feel it they're the ones that are better off without a wife Sound like I sleep until the crack of noon Midnight hell and the moon Going out when I want to and I'm coming on when I please don't have to ask permission Wanna go out fishing Never have to ask for the key.

[B]

And I guess maybe that may not have appeal to people, but these. These down and outers, these dissolute Bowery bums. This was his sort of calling to write about this sort of character and this. These. These people during this period of his life. And I really just think it's a really impressive job of it. This album conveys the. It's nighthawks at the diner. It's like getting, you know, or bacon and eggs, you know, at 2:00am and you know, who are the kinds of people who gather around for conversation? Who are the kinds of people who are going to be there, you know, having eggs and sausage in a Cadillac with Susan Mickelson, which is you know, the great song that's about that. Like, hey, you know, it's the title track, really, in a way, in my mind, you know, that's an experience, a feeling of vibe that you can still get certain places in America these days, but you don't get any more. And yeah, I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for this album precisely because I feel I'm transported to a place that no other album has ever taken me. No other album has tried to put me in a place that I can actually go walk out my own door and find at 3am if I'm so inclined.

[D]

Nighthawks at the diner Emma's 49er there's a rendezvous of strangers around the coffee all the gypsy hacks and the insomniacs now the people's been with now the waitress S Eggs and sausage and a side of toys Coffee and a roll Hash browns are easy Chili and a bowl with burgers and fries what kind of pie? It's a creamy charade Masquerade.

[A]

I'm curious because I don't think we went this far in our email thread. I know Jeff loves the album that comes next Small Change. I will put cards on the table and say I still have massive problems with the small, small change, but that means I'm not sure what Damon thinks about this next record, but judging by his introduction, I'm gonna say he's a pretty big fan of the next studio record from Tom Waits, which is small change in 1976.

[C]

I am indeed. This will definitely be one of my top two choices. Now, of course, the bio sketch I gave at the beginning will tell you that, you know, that has a kind of sentimental hook in my heart because this is how I discovered the guy and my it's wrapped up with my father. In fact, one of the piece of writing I've done over the years that I'm proudest of is an obituary I wrote when my dad died a few years ago, and I managed to invoke a line from Tom Traubert's Blues in the obituary. So this is very, very close to me. Not that anyone has to be on guard about letting her rip. When we get back to you, Scott, it's perfectly fine. I'm eager to hear what you think of all all this, but I just have to start in talking about this album by by just flagging the the amazing change in his voice here. Like, there's a little gravelly stuff on the second record and on Nighthawks, but the sound of this album beginning. It begins with Piano and the kind of rich string arrangement, very, very, almost syrupy string arrangement at the beginning of Tom Traubert's Blues. And then Waits begins to sing. And it sounds like Louis Armstrong after gargling gravel or broken glass Wasted and.

[D]

Wounded it ain't what the moon did God, would I pay for no. See you tomorrow if Frank, Can I borrow a couple of bucks from you to go? Halting Matilda Holding Matilda are you.

[C]

It is unlike anything anyone could ever have heard before because no one with a voice like this would ever choose to sing. And the fact of the matter is, when I was a little kid and I first heard this, I thought, oh, my God, this guy has a voice like this. But it is an affect. He made a conscious choice at this moment in his career to effectively relaunch his career as a singer, sounding like he was playing the lead in a tragic comic hobo musical. And that is three penny opera. Yeah, but like, even three penny opera would never cast a guy with this voice in. In a part. It's. It's almost. It is. I don't. I want to erase. Not almost. It is truly shocking the way he sings. I know this. I have played it for my own kids. I've played it for friends down through the decades. And invariably, even if you've heard him before, when you first hear these opening lines where he goes. You let. You can't believe what you're hearing, even.

[B]

If you hear him afterwards. That's the thing. He didn't always stick in this tone. This is clearly over the top.

[C]

And he's trying to be as drunk.

[B]

And as brilliant, broken and as emotionally destroyed as he possibly can be. And it comes from a personal place.

[C]

He.

[B]

He actually toured like Amsterdam and Copenhagen. That's why it's three sheets or four sheets to the wind in Copenhagen.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

He wrote it about conversations he had with, like, broken down bar flies. And he was kind of in that mood himself.

[D]

Well, I got a bad liver and a broken hose yeah, I drunk me river since you told me apart I don't have a drinking problem except when I can't get a drink. I wish you'd have known her. We were quite a pair she was sharp as a razor and soft as a prayer so welcome to the continuing circle. She was my better half Nice. Just a dog and so here I am slumped I've been chipping I've been chomped on my.

[B]

That's where that sound comes from. Wow.

[C]

And, you know, I mean, this song is really a kind of declaration of a whole thing that will become his career for quite a while. I mean, I think it's important that listeners know that the phrase Waltzing Matilda, which obviously is referring to a woman named Matilda, but to be Waltzing Matilda is also a turn of phrase that is common in Australia, which means when you're a hobo and you have all your belongings and a giant backpack that's very heavy and you're like half drunk and you're, you have a, you know, a sprained ankle because you've been living down by the railroad tracks for a while and you're lumbering along that lumbering back and forth that you have when you're a hobo with all your belongings on your back is called the Waltzing Matilda. And. And it is the case that it's as if he decided, I like writing songs about these people who are drunks living on the street. They've been wounded in love and the wound will never fully heal. As he says toward the end of the song in the lyrics, I'm actually going to perform being that person. And for several albums in a row. And then in a different way in the latter half of his career that we'll talk about when we get there. He continues and deepens that aspiration that he is performing a role as. It's like, it's as if they did a movie musical of Eugene Oneals. The Iceman Cometh. You know, the, the. The twelve drink sodden apostles sitting around the bar philosophizing about life and love and the l tell each other while getting drunk day and night on rot gut saloon. Like that in a rotgut saloon. And, and rotgut whiskey. That's what the. He decided he's gonna make a career of that. And I, I will pause now and let others jump in. I, I could go on. There are as usual some lovely ballads on this album that of course are like scraped up by a broken bottle because of his delivery of is singing. But then there are also these crazy like white man hobo scat rap songs on here that are like the early weights. But now it's this guy who's like.

[B]

Yeah, it's psychedelic is what it is. It's actually psychedelic. So like elevated the rap you're talking about. Step right up. Okay. Is, you know when I even. I did that right at the beginning. Step right up, 10, four down. And it is a. A carnival huckster from hell. Basically he's going to sell you some sort of item that will change your life, change you into a nine year old Hindu boy. It'll you know all the various things he's promising you. It's a parody of the guy who will sell you, sell you, sell you. Bargain, bargain. Volume, volume. Turn up the volume. It's stream of consciousness though.

[C]

It's really brilliant though. I mean I think lyrically is piece of crazy.

[B]

It's also comedy. I can't.

[C]

I laugh.

[B]

I have listened to that song like hundreds of times since 1998 or so when I first got it. I laugh every single time. I get to like it. Can lay down a mean rhythm master. It doubles on sax. This thing is actually his own band practically. Whatever it is he's telling you. This mystery item, this black box, this.

[D]

Pig in a poke forges your signature. Not completely satisfied me or back on your use portion of product. For complete refund of price of punches. Please allow 30 days for delivery. Don't be fooled by cheap imitations. You can Living it, living it, laughing and loving it Swimming it, sleeping it Living it swimming and laughing and loving it Removes embarrassing stains from conduit sheets. That's right. And it entertains visiting relatives. It turns a sandwich into a banquet. Tired of being the of the party. Change your shorts, Change your life. Change your life. Change into a nine year old Hindu boy. Get rid of your wife. Then it walks your dog and it doubles on sacks. Doubles on sacks. You can jump back, Jack. See you later alligator. See you later alligator. And it steals your car. It gets rid of your gambling debts. It quits smoking. It's a friend, it's a companion. It's the only product you will ever need. Follow these easy assembly instruction is never need signing well. It takes weights off hips, bust, thighs, chin midriff gives you dandruff. It finds you a job.

[B]

Step right up. He could make me buy anything on.

[C]

That, that, that track Pasties in a G String which is like the X rated version of the same thing with the only accompaniment being a tomtom drum, right? So and then, and then the piano ballad version as the piano has been drinking. These songs are really, for my money, extremely funny. They are among the funniest novelty tracks you've ever heard. I mean the piano has been drinking, my necktie is asleep and the combo went back to New York. The jukebox has to take a leak. The whole this vibe of this like the CD bars in which he's singing about and in which he was recorded a kind of an imagined version of it in nighthawks. He like inhabits this world and is like the carnival barker narrating.

[B]

Also Damon, listen to how the piano is playing on that song.

[C]

Oh, sure.

[B]

Give, give. Tom, we talking about his lyrics so much, but he's a great musician. He's a great musical composer. You know, he actually understands the formal quality of how to put together a piano ballad. And that thing is. Is as avant garde really as he's ever gotten. You can see the future of that. Because the piano is drunk. He actually plays that. It's out of key. It's. It's in a different. It's in a different key than whatever it is he's groaning on about. Even. Even live performances, it's even more exaggerating. It's a great way to. To like, you know, orally represent the sound of like a guy, you know, again in the late night hours, drunk at the piano. Just, you know, he doesn't know what he's doing because the notes are.

[D]

The piano has been drinking. My neckties are sweet. And the combo went back to New York as the jukebox says to take a leak and the carpet needs a haircut and the spotlight looks like a prison break. Cause the telephones at a cigarette and a balcony is on the makeup and a piano has been drinking.

[C]

Scott, tell us why you hate this record. Or don't like it, don't appreciate it? No, I wanna.

[A]

I'll start here. I unreservedly love love. Step right up. That is by far my favorite song here. Jeff outlined why it really is so impressive of the. The flow, the phraseology, this. Yeah. This sort of infomercial, you know, non stop patter. It gives you dandruff, it. It takes weight off your hips, your bust, your thighs. That is a really good song. My favorite here. And I think as long as I'm saying good things. Oh, well, Damon already mentioned pastries and a G string, which too, I think is an interesting presentation. And I like that one too. Okay, so what don't I like most of the rest? I hear and understand all that you both have explained about Small Change. And yet there is something, again, despite multiple attempts, something sort of deeply unappealing to me about the Persona that he takes on this full on hobo, or as I love Damon's phrase, the white man hobo skin. That rap, I just don't like it. And, and, and, and on Small Change, much like on, on Nighthawks, I think there's. There's nothing standing in the way. Right. He doesn't get too, you know, the instrumentation is. Is bare in a lot of places and lets that character come through. You know, there's a Lot of songs that don't necessarily have, you know, a melody, you know, small changes. Change is just a spoken word. One that got away is another one like that where there's nothing standing between me, the listener, and this sort of Persona, this hobo Persona, which is not just hobo, but, like, really bottomed out. And, you know, that comes through in the lyrics, the approach.

[D]

The voice Pisses and a cheese drink beer and a shot Portland threw his shot glass in above Buffalo squeezes Wrinkles and cherry and Twinkie and Pinky and Fifi live from Gay Perry fanfares rim shots backstage, who cares? All this hot burlesque for me. Cleavage, cleavage, thighs in the hips from the nape of her neck to the lipstick lips chopped up and channeled and lowered and lured and the Cheetahs Sticks, Bare Bear movies. She's hot and Reddit, creamy and sugared. And the band is awful and so are the tunes.

[A]

By the way, the voice. Don't feel bad or, you know, don't make fun of me too much for this. You gotta laugh the first time you hear that voice on Tom Tropert's Blues. And then once you.

[B]

I did too.

[D]

I did too.

[B]

It was too over the right. It's too much over the top.

[A]

Right. And intentionally so. As you mentioned, Jeff, I don't want to, like, I know what he's doing, all right? I understand what he's doing. And it's just not something that resonates with me, the idea of sort of inhabiting the worldview, the point of view of this hobo, this white man hobo sketch.

[B]

It's.

[A]

You know, if it were a song or two in the midst of a collection, I'd probably be more open to it in terms of really enjoying it. And again, there are a few things here that I do really like, but I think that, you know, clearly Damon feels this is a shift or a change from, no pun intended, what was happening on Nighthawks. I almost see it another way in that he sort of liked the presentation and enjoyed that so much. This is an advancement of Nighthawks in a way where he took what he did there and instead is applying this now to these songs that. That are far more. Not biographical, but they're character sketches of this hobo type lifestyle. And there's just a lot of that that I don't find appealing. And there's not enough to sort of gloss over the directness with which he's presenting it to me. And I just don't. I don't enjoy. I don't enjoy this Record.

[C]

Well, I mean, I. Yeah, I'm not gonna try to. To argue you out of it because it either it touches you or it doesn't. I would say there's nothing remotely as beautiful on Nighthawks as Tom Trbert. I wish I was in New New Orleans. Invitation Blues. All of those. Those three are gorgeous ballads of, you know, classic Tom Wats, but they are over the top. I mean, like, it's not only the graveliness of the voice. It's. It's the kind of mannered, like slurring of words as if he's drunk. And in Invitation to the blues.

[D]

Mercy, mercy.

[C]

Mr. P. I will say quickly, that's.

[A]

The one song where I think the Delivery. I actually, I liked it there. There are some things there where it's so over the top, the slurring and the mashing together that I did. I. I smiled especially an invitation to the blues on those deliveries.

[D]

Yesterday is deliver tickets for the Bachelor. She's moving violation from a conk down to a jewel. But it's just an invitation to the blues and you feel just like acne. Looks like Rita Hayward the counter of the Schwab's drugstore. You wonder if she might be single.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, one last thing, and then I'll give it all up to. To Jeff, just because this album does mean so much to me that, like, I would just say that the combination. I hear what you're saying, Scott, about how this is a continuation of Nighthawks. In some ways, I would just, Just say that the. The kind of beatnik jive bar, spoken word thing is just done so much better on this album. Like, there's nothing remotely as good on Nighthawks as Step Right Up Pasties in a G String or the Piano has Been Drinking for that. And then just the. The beautiful ballads that I mentioned. And then I've got to read you the last verse of Tom Tr Blues, which I think is just, just, just heartbreaking, heartbreakingly beautiful. It's a battered old suitcase to a hotel someplace and a wound that will never heal no prima donna the perfume is on an old shirt that is stained with blood and whiskey and good night to the street sweepers the night watchmen flame keepers and good night Matilda too. That's. That is. That is beautiful. Beautiful like that's, I think, Dylan esque, at Dylan's best. Beautiful.

[D]

And it's a battered old suitcase to a hotel someplace and a wound that will never heal no prima donna the perfume is on an old shirt that is stained with blood and whiskey and good night to the Street Sweepers, the Naive Watchmen, Flamekeepers, and Good Night material.

[C]

And it's combined with a song that is gorgeous. And, you know, poor Rod Stewart also did a cover of this one that I think is, like, just insipidly bad.

[B]

Yeah. Does nothing. HE SINGS.

[C]

It's better technically.

[B]

But none of the Feeling. Yeah. With none of the Feeling, though. Yeah.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

But I long to hear a really great cover of that song without some of the, you know, over the top vocal stylings of Tom Waits himself. But it's a gorgeous, gorgeous song and a classic, in my view.

[B]

Yeah. Everything Damon said is correct. And by the way, the funny thing is, is that, you know, one of these things I've learned on political beats is that if I just sit back and I let my guest and my co host talk for long enough, they'll take up all my points. Anyway, I don't really have anything much more to offer about Small Change, despite the fact that, just like Damon, this is one of my favorite albums by Tom Waits ever, because you guys covered it all. The one thing I do want to point out is I really also think Invitation to the Blues is one of them. That's why I didn't understand. I remember actually listening to this song in particular, like, a year ago, something thereabouts, and suddenly decided to like DM Scott. I was like, we should do Tom Waits. I think you could get into this. I was like. And maybe, maybe what I didn't realize then is that you just don't like the Persona. You know, you don't like the character that he's playing. But the thing is, the character he's playing is not quite a character. It's not like Ziggy Stardust. It's also Tom Waits. I mean, and he's writing from his own experiences, from the heart, with a certain twist, which is, I guess, the way a lot of the greats do. I was to think of Bob Dylan and being basically this, you know, I think of Blood on the Tracks is basically Bob Dylan gets divorced. But no one song is about that.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Similarly, Small Changes is Tom Waits gets drunk, but no one song is necessary. Actually, every one of these songs is about that.

[D]

I'll drink you under the table.

[B]

To the point where you have to understand that there's a bit of an overlap. He. He. Again, I pointed this out once he acknowledged that this was some truth, that he felt like in order to do this, I had to drink this way and live this way. And then I actually kind of takes us to what comes next. Which is these interesting late 70s albums. Small change actually did well. Well, well enough for Tom Waits. I think his first charting album actually might have been Nighthawks at the Diner, which is like 196. This one got all the way to number 96 or so in the charts.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

You're pulling up the back echelon in the top 100. That for a guy as weird as this though, that's an achievement. And then he moves on to what I almost consider the crime fiction period of his career. Which is to say these things all sound like. Like Rema Williams or you know, like the crime novels. I mean, Raymond Chandler, stuff like that. We begin with the album Foreign affairs, which to me is a big calm down after what we saw earlier. Maybe I don't like Bette Bindler. I never have. And so the big feature duet on this piece, which a lot of people do today, does nothing for me. I actually much prefer Crystal Gale. We'll talk about later. But yeah. I don't know if you guys have stronger opinions about Foreign Affairs. This almost strikes me as the kind of album that Scott will perversely defend. Even though I don't like. Just because we've been so at cross purposes throughout the rest of this episode.

[D]

A barber shop beside burning clothes crap. Morning, Mr. Ferguson. What's the good word with you? Staying out of trouble like a good boy.

[B]

Should.

[D]

I leave? Still cutting hair. Still cutting glasses. Got a couple passes to the ring Brid Circus afternoon. You lost a little around the middle. You looking real good. Sitting on the wagon. Still under the Was a little down. Mr. Brown. I heard you boys leaving town. I buy myself a struggle. Bugger suckers. Pile of blue.

[A]

In fact I will. Although I knew it. Although I think it's a step up or it's my estimation. I like it better. I like Foreign affairs better than Small Change. Although I don't think it's fully to the place I like best. Which actually comes next. Surprisingly enough. Perhaps. But this Foreign affairs has much more. You may have already used the word but it's so cinematic in nature. They're. These fully. Fully formed stories are short stories. Yeah, absolutely. And you know I never talk to strangers would then be turned into an. An actual movie. This duet with. With Bette Midler and I love it when.

[B]

I mean we talked about this actually last episode with Jimmy Buffett who was similarly kind of writing short story songs around these points. Yeah.

[A]

The. I love it. When my worlds can collide so I never talk to strangers. I hear it. It's a duet with Bette Midler. And you've got like the last patrons at a bar at closing time. And they're strangers. And only suckers fall in love with perfect strangers. And they get to talking and they don't really know each other, but they know the stories, they know the kind of people they are. And at the end they say we're not really strangers anymore. There's a sketch, SNL sketch, that Sheila sauvage, which Kate McKinnon did, usually was right at the end of the shows, SNL shows. And she plays this barfly. And there's always a different. Usually it's the host man. And they're the last two people at a bar. And they don't really know each other, but they both know the other person's as desperate as they are. And that's exactly. It's not as funny as snl. It's not played for jokes here. But it's that same sort of approach. Like, I know that, you know, that we both know what we kind of want to get out of this, but we don't want to seem so desperate. So let's pretend to know each other before we move on. And I like when those worlds sort of collide. So I, I, I like the song for at least that reason.

[D]

Your life's a D. This town is full of guys like you and you're looking for someone to take the place ahead. You must be reading by mail in your bitter cuz it left you. That's why you're drinking in this bar. Well, only suckers fall in love with perfect stranger.

[C]

It always takes one.

[D]

To know one stranger. Maybe we just wiser. Now.

[A]

There are a couple other things. Sight for Sore Eyes, which begins with the melody from Auld Lang Syne. A palookas is a great word and we should use it more often.

[B]

I use that in my writing all the time.

[A]

I love the word palooka. Right. It's great.

[B]

It sounds Polish. I don't know where it comes from, but it's great.

[A]

It seems like a very Chicago thing. So it very well might be some sort of Polish origin since so many Polish in the Chicago area. But it's, you know, guy meets like a polka. Yeah. An old friend at a bar comes in. They haven't seen each other for a long time, you know, Good to see you. Anything that went wrong in the past, it's water under the bridge. And the chorus, they toast to DiMaggio and Don Drysdale and it's a salute. These friends reunite. And the next verse, we learn that everyone else they know is gone. They've all left town. One of them was killed in a crash. Except that one couple over, over there drinking here in the bar. And they don't even want to be here, right? And they drink again to the memory of those who have gone and to their younger selves. And by the end, the guy who's always at the bar is encouraging the friend to, hey, go ahead and hit on that girl who's playing pinball. And by the end, he's just as alone as he was when he started with the bartender. And so he toasts to the bartender who's his only friend. I love that little story in the way that the chorus means something, something different each and every time that they get through on sight for sore eyes. You can tell I like this stuff a little better.

[D]

And I'll play you some pinball. No, you ain't got a chance. Then go on over and ask for the dance and barkeep, what's keeping you, king? Pouring dreams for all these palookas. You know what? I think that we toast to the old days and too dry as dale and manifold and to you.

[A]

I like the title track right at the very end this examination. Like what. What really is home and. And where your heart is. That line where without fear or contradiction or fear of contradiction, bon voyage is always hollered in conjunction with a handkerchief from shore. Like, that's a great little picture. Like, bye, have a great time yet. We're going to miss you. And especially back when people traveled by ship, that was not a two day, four day, seven day journey. That was time. So you're happy, at the same time you're sad. And that's not a contradiction in the minds of those people. That's a really wonderful set of lyrics there too. I will say this is where I particularly notice and certainly the lyrics we talked about so much previously. But I think the songs here, because they're so cinematic in nature and they are these story songs, they become even thicker and worse wordier. Like paragraphs, not couplets. Like there's just. There's so much that. That now becomes packed into these songs.

[B]

Okay, so maybe one of the reasons I've always loved Tom Waits is because he writes songs like I write articles. It's just like too many adjectives, too many, like a positive phrase, clauses backed upon one another. Yeah, I know it. I know that. That idea.

[A]

Yeah. So, I mean, I think that's noticeable. Noticeable here on this record. I don't think it's necessarily a detracts from, From. From the quality. And like, again, I'm just a guy who just started listening to Tom Waits a month ago, but I. I like Foreign Affairs a lot more than the past two records.

[C]

Well, I. You know, I am. I introduced earlier this idea that Waits kind of has, you know, some great work and then seems to spin his wheels for a while. While for me, Foreign affairs, as well as the followup from it, Blue Valentine, are him spinning wheels. I feel like he kind of hit on something very distinctive and special with small change and then just sort of tried to redo it a couple of times. And I'm sensing a kind of exhaustion in it, at least for me. There are some songs I like on Foreign Affairs. I'll Never Talk to Strangers. I'm not a huge Bette Midler fan either, but I think it's an effective track.

[B]

Bur it's a comedy track, right?

[C]

Yeah. And then aside for Sore Eyes, I like as well as Scott went into in a lot of depth. That was great. And then there is one song on Blue Valentine when we get there that I'll highlight that I think is a truly enduringly great weight song. But for the most part, the problem with a guy like weights who is so distinctive in his sound, and especially once he has the full guttural singing vocal effect going, is the. The danger of self parody that he's gonna sound like he's mimicking his own affect. And I was. I sense there's some of that on these albums where, like, he's sort of. Yeah, a little bit like a retread problem. So neither of them. The. These two albums really grab me that much. And so they're where. I guess if I. If I'm listening to his albums kind of in a row chronologically, this is where my attention starts to flag a little bit. And then it comes back around 1980.

[D]

When we get there without fear of contradiction. Bon Voyage is always in conjunction with the handkerchief, I'm sure, by a girl who drives a Rambler and furthermore is overly concerned that she won't see him anymore. Planes and trains and boats and buses. Characteristics, again, you folk, a common attitude of blue. Unless you have a suitcase and a ticket and a passport and the cargo that they're carrying.

[B]

Actually, Damon and I are. Or morally less on the same page. There are things I really do like about Foreign Affairs. I like his tribute to Neil Cassidy and Jack Kerouac, the California Here I Come. It's interesting because it's. To me, this is a. One of those songs that I've really only focused on recently. I came to that whole Merry Pranksters, you know, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, seen via the Grateful Dead. Very different way to under. To encounter that culture and hear about it. Then you hear, you know, you know, Tom Waits singing in his broken down voice about the same ideas and the same stories that actually are incorporated in the early Dead songs from a completely different perspective and of somebody who, who ironically enough, like, you know, he says, california here I come as a homecoming. But this, this guy is around this time, psychologically about to leave for New York because he, he feels like he's had enough of California. That kind of brings us to the next record. I. I like it a little bit more, I think, than Damon did, listening to what he said about Blue Valentine. This one is the one that grew on me the most among Dom Wa's albums over time. When I first heard it 20 years ago or so, I. I think I had the same opinion that Damon just expressed. It's. It's part of this trough where that he's grinding his gears or he's spinning his wheels in place, either way. But the more I come back to it, the more I find that this one is. Is maybe has like different phases. And if we're doing the Raymond Chandler short story phase, this is the one that. That feels like it's more realized right up actually even from the COVID that opens the album. From west side Story, Tom Waits does an unusually harsh felt version of Somewhere, which shouldn't work. Why? For every reason that Tom Waits doing a Broadway number shouldn't work, but it always seems to tug on my heartstrings somewhere. And that actually, the first side of that, right, the first side of Blue Valentine, to me is probably the most impressive. There's a song on here called Christmas Card from a hooker in Minneapolis. I don't know if any of you guys, I. I'm assuming Scott's not familiar with I am.

[A]

Nico Case covered it some years ago. So that is one of the other songs I was familiar with.

[B]

Nico has some taste. It's a beautiful track. You know, it's written from the point of view of her. Hey, Charlie, I'm pregnant. I'm living on 9th street right above a dirty bookstore off you Euclid Avenue. I stopped taking dope and I quit drinking whiskey and my old man plays the trombone and works out on the track. Listen, you know, she's telling him a good story, but at the end of it, she's actually really in trouble. Like, yeah, I don't have a husband, he doesn't play the trombone. And I need to borrow money to pay this lawyer. And listen, I'll be eligible for parole come Valentine's Day if you can pay, which is. Is, you know. Well, what did you expect from a Christmas card from a hooker in Minneapolis? It's one of those sad little vignettes and I think it actually kind of brings that Tom Waits sort of observational style together better than anything else from this era.

[D]

Don't have a husband, you don't play the trombone. I need to borrow money, pay this lawyer, Charlie Hay. I'll be eligible for parole come Valentine Day one.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, I. I won't. I don't have that much to say about it. I already said I'm. It's not my favorite. I. I think the COVID of Somewhere at the Beginning is. Is where he ventures into self parody a little bit. I mean, it's just like way into.

[B]

The soundtrack at the end.

[C]

It's just so over the top in its mangled, grizzled delivery that it. Articulation, almost like he's. He's parroting himself. The one song on this album that I think rises above the rest, at least to. To My Soul, is Kentucky Avenue on the second half, which is another one of Tom Waits is great, like short story songs. And it sort of tells the story of these scrappy, very impoverished kids growing up and playing in junkyards and doing their thing. And he sets the scene for a long time. We meet characters, Ronnie Arnold and stealing money from your mama's purse. And then only about two thirds of the way through, as the talk singing begins to take shape as a more formed melody and the piano and the strings come in, you learn that one of the two kids is in a wheelchair and that they're gonna. The guy, his friend going to take the spokes from his wheelchair and a magpie's wing and tie them to your shoulder and your feet. I'll steal a hacksaw from my dad and cut the braces off your legs and we'll bury them tonight out in the cornfield. It's one of those moments in a song where you get something pretty rare, which is like a trap door falling out from under you, which you get in a movie or a play play or a novel where you, you know, you've seen it one way and then you're given some new information and suddenly you realize everything's different than you thought it was. And you feel yourself do a double take when you find out that that one of the kids is. Is stuck in a wheelchair and has braces on his legs. It, it's. I, I think it's very moving and the song builds to such a dramatic conclusion. Just put a church key in your pocket we'll hop the freight train in the hall and we'll slide all the way New Orleans in the fall it makes you feel like again, his attempt to illustrate a very dramatic cinematic moment. I think it really works as a song of, like, feeling this, this craving of these poor kids to, you know, escape their horrible lives. And, you know, I don't know, I enter into a fantasy where, where they're. One of them isn't crippled. And so for get dam.

[D]

Damon, I'll take the spokes from your wheelchair and magpie's wings and I'll tie them to your shoulders and your feet I'll steal a hacksaw from Alan Cut the braces off your legs we'll parry them tonight out in the cornfield Just put a church key in your pocket we'll hop that freight train in the hall we'll slide all the way down the drain To New Orleans in the fall.

[B]

Damon, you've given me a profound insight into one of the things that I realize now that I love about Tom Waits, which is that he. He gives me permission to be sentimental.

[C]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

I mean, because. Because he's so off putting with the gritty broken voice and the weird avant later in his career, the avant garde sounds. It's like he can actually sell you a straight up story about like, you know, like heartache and all these romances. The broken romances. But this as well. Yeah. I mean, who else could do it without sounding like Terry Jack singing We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun, you know, like that. Maybe that's why you have to break your voice like that. It's. It's a great observation, Scott. Do you have any thoughts on this before we move on? Blue Valentine?

[A]

I like this record, guys, and I really do. And as Damon talked, something occurred to me, which is the stories on this record, I mean, we've got naive girls coming out to the West Coast. We've got, you know, we've got the Christmas card from a hooker in Minneapolis. We've got a dead sheriff. These are still dark, depressing stories. From Romeo's bleeding. Right.

[B]

Just sit out on the street. He won't admit it yet.

[A]

From parts of society that we don't necessarily always want to look toward. And yet I find this story telling so much more engaging. And appealing than again, to quote Damon, the white man hobo scat rap era. I just like this so much better in terms of the stories he's telling. Christmas card from a hooker in Minneapolis. Jeff mentioned. Great, great song. And before that, you know, Damon had mentioned sort of getting stuck in a. In a rut or repeating himself, you know, Blue Valentine. We have the introduction of this sort of blues oriented sound which would, which would blossom on the next record that we really didn't have previously. And on a song like Red Shoes by the Drugstore. This new palette with like these strings being plucked, continuing that strong bass line, but these, these little keyboard decorations and that, that too will come to prominence on the next record. I like that there's a little bit, at least in my mind, a wider palette with which he's painting on this record. $29. This long song sounds like almost like. Like the, the music like early Ray Charles, which is such a neat little twist from the usual sound. This, this girl again comes to Chicago or from, From Chicago to la. And to me it begins like it's a. It's a pimp and working with like a new prostitute. But in the end, I think it's not. I think it's just this guy who seemingly is nice and you know, welcome to Los Angeles and I'll show you around and get in my car. And it turns out, you know, he's a psycho. And he stabs her and she loses half a pint of blood, $29 and an alligator purse, which is all she had to her name when she got there. Like, that's good storytelling.

[D]

The Sirens is an epilogue. The cops here always get there to leave home Stop for coughing wanna wear to the scene of the crime they always try so hard just like movie stars but they couldn't catch a cold Rabbit, don't waste your dime Lucky to be alive the doctor whispered to the nurse she only lost half a pound of blood. $29 alligator.

[A]

Sweet little bullet from a pretty blue gun. Same, same sort of setup with this bit very naive girl who comes out. She's from Nebraska, didn't bring a sweater. Nebraska will never let you come back home. And she has these big dreams and sweet dreams of doing great stuff. And what happens is nothing like what she expects. That she's got no way to get back home. She'd rather die before. She'd rather die like Marilyn Manson before she goes back. And at the end, again, again, I'm reading this through, listening just these past month or so. It's just, you know, It's a suicide. Sweet little bullet from a pretty blue gun to put those scarlet ribbons in your hair that trail of blood that might go through that blonde Marilyn Monroe, like, hairstyle. And the way he weaves in these little lines from nursery rhymes and child prayers to sort of underline the innocence, the naivete of our character here. That's really good.

[D]

And if the rain there. Nell's poem, Hollywood just fine. Swindle little girl out of her dreams Another letter in a sign now never trust a scarecrow when she's after dark Be careful of that old bow tie he wears Takes sweet little a bullet from a pretty blue gun to put those scarlet ribbons in your hair.

[A]

And then I got a blue Valentine's plural, not singular, that's the album, but Blue Valentine, this last song on the record. And I guess in saying all this, I just connect to these songs so much more than I had previously. Blue Valentines I listen and I hear she's sending me blue valentines they're insistent that our love must have a eulogy he's trying to remain at large he's always on the run he changed his name the Blue Valentines, at least in my mind, they're like legal documents, right? You're handed a subpoena and it's inside this blue, blue folder. And they're trying to track him down because that relationship is not done. There's some sort of alimony or palimony or there's something that's not wrapped up from this relationship. And she's trying to track him down. I love the word play there. It's a really simple slow song, just guitar and vocals, and yet I really like it. This might be my favorite, favorite Tom Waits album of this era. Recovering today. And again, not being familiar with Tom Waits fans, I don't know if that's an unpopular or an unlikely opinion, but I really like this record.

[D]

And I cut my bleeding heart out every night and I'm gonna die just a little more on each St. Valentine's Day. Don't you remember? I promised I would write you these. Blue Valentine. Blue Valentines. Blue Val Diamond.

[B]

Okay, so it's hilarious. Scott, once you had attended in our pre show conversations that you might have, well, different opinions than the ones I had. I figured that this is where you'd land. I actually understand why you do. And you're right. They're all little sketches. I know what it is I like about Tom Wade, and I know what it is now I'm listening to Damon. I understand what it is. He likes it. And I understand what it is you like about him. And this is the one record where they all kind of maybe kind of coexist in a nice way. And boy, I think actually what happens after that, and this is how we're gonna end our show is what happens is Tom Waits meets a pretty famous filmmaker who just wrapped up a movie called Apocalypse Now. He meets Francis Ford Coppola. This is going to sound like it's out of sequence, but it really isn't. At this point, Waits had decided after having finished up Blue Valentine, that he wanted to get out of Los Angeles. If you'll notice, all the songs that we've talked about, you know, up until this point, they're very LA centric. They're about the people wandering, you know, to the American dream out on the west coast and end up being broken down drunks or failing or strippers or, you know, those sorts of things, right, the down and outs. But he decided, well, you know, maybe that's a dead end. Maybe I'm repeating myself. Myself. So he went to New York. That's what he wanted to do. He wanted to move out to New York City. And then he got called back. He got called back to Los Angeles because Francis Ford Coppola, of all people, the director of the Godfather, the Conversation, the Godfather Part 2, and of course most recently Apocalypse now, said, I would like you to score, write the soundtrack for my next movie and listen if you're a marginally successful music musical artist. And Francis Ford Coppola off Apocalypse now says, hey, you want to work with me? You're like, yes, I am going to work with you. And that's where the, the album One from the Heart comes from. Now, technically this doesn't come out until after the next record comes out, but it was already under, underway and being produced until he took time off to record Heart Attack and Vine from 1980. And even though One from the Heart, because of production schedules and the way that Hollywood will delay a release a movie, you know, for several years, that comes out in 1982 as a record, but really it belongs to this last pre jazzy era where he is still writing ballads. These ones now are explicitly meant for a Hollywood film. I don't know if you guys have heard about the film One from the Heart. It's one of these things that I'm always amazed that people who say they love movies, they love Francis Ford Coppola as a director, they're like, he did that. It's like when you tell people he also directed Jack the Horrible Robin Williams film from the 1990s. Yeah. Francis Ford Coppola directed Some Slop. And one of the reasons why is this film is the one that really tanked his rep when it finally came out. It's a romance about. Or I don't even know if it's a romance. It's a dramatic slash comedy film about a couple that breaks up in Las Vegas on their fifth year anniversary and then somehow comes back together. And it is all scored to a jazzy ballad based soundtrack featuring Tom Waits and Crystal Gale, who is, what I believe, the younger or older sister of Loretta Lynn, the country artist. You might think this fusion seems crazy. I kind of like it. I think it's a really kind of nice farewell to an era of Tom Waits that is about to end with his first real studio album. I figured why don't we just talk about it briefly as we move on to the real ending of the episode.

[D]

I did and the Violets are too and I'm sick and tired of picking up after you I told you before I won't tell you again don't defrost it I box put a ball this railroad apartment Held together with glue Now I'm sick and tired Pick it up.

[C]

After you well, one from. So one from the heart first. That you want to do? Yeah, I mean, mean, it's, it's a collection of some nice Tom Wait songs. I mean, if you read interviews with him, he definitely wasn't thrilled about it. He may have been happy that Francis Ford Coppola wanted him involved in the project as an opportunity, but he really was getting, he was starting to feel like he was in a rut and that he wanted to do something different. And the whole idea behind. Yeah, like, like, oh, we want you to do what you've been doing for the last decade, except there's, there's going to be a good singer singing the songs. And I think he was, he, he felt like it was holding him back and it was a little frustrating for him. He didn't want to write the, the pretty jazz ballads anymore. But, you know, the, the honest truth is he did a pretty good job of it.

[B]

There's something every time I put it on.

[C]

Yeah, it's nice. And it is frankly, always. You know, I feel this way about some of Dylan that like, I enjoy the covers better than his versions because he is a limited vocalist and Tom Waits is a limited and off offputting vocalist far more even than Dylan. So it's nice to hear someone with a good voice tackle his kind of hard to sing melodies.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And even in his own singing, that's what's amusing about this, because a song like Broken Bicycles, which is a beautiful little jazz ballad, we hear what Tom Waits would have sounded like, like, if he had never taken the weird left turn into small change, like, oh, this is the guy from the first two albums. His voice is a little more horse than it was then, but he's basically the same guy. It's a thing.

[B]

Hollywood forced him to sand down the. The eccentricities on this record, which I find fascinating, which is probably one of.

[C]

The reasons he resented it.

[B]

Right, Exactly.

[D]

Broken bicycles Old busted chains Rusted and we're boss out in the rain Somebody must have an orphanage for all these things that nobody wants anymore September's reminding July it's time to be seen Goes.

[B]

By.

[D]

Summer is gone But I love will remain.

[C]

But.

[D]

But.

[C]

Yeah, that's a beautiful song. And he sings it perfectly fine. It's not the kind of thing that anyone's gonna listen to and be like, what's that? And then, you know, a song. It's a little song. It's only a minute and 37 seconds, but take Me Home is a beautiful little song that Crystal Gale sings beautifully. It's one of his most beautiful songs. I sort of wish it were developed and extended a little bit because it's gone so quickly, but that's definitely, like, on any list of my favorite Tom Waits ballads. That certainly makes the cut as well. So it's. It's a nice soundtrack. I don't think it's, like, a great statement by any means, but it shows how good he was at writing these. These kinds of songs.

[B]

It's one of those albums that, like, fell between the cracks because he was already in the middle of transitioning between phases, and also because it came out sort of out of sequence, because this is stuff he kind of returned to because Francis Ford Coppola asked him to give. It's a Coppola film. You're going to do what the guy asks you to do. Right. But what he was really working on. Unless, Scott, unless you have any opinions on One from the Heart, you don't seem like the guy who's into Hollywood schmaltz. So I assume that you wouldn't have strong opinions about this record, do you?

[A]

My only strong opinion is that Old Boyfriends is a fantastic song that Waits wrote for Gale, who sings it in Just a perfect delivery. And, you know, Waits writes it for, obviously, a female to sing and so still gets these little details right. Old Boyfriend's like a burned out light bulb at a Ferris wheel. And I love. There's a little line where he throws in. He says. The woman says to herself, why do you keep turning them into old boyfriends? Like, it's not always the other person's fault. It's my fault. It's my fault. Sometimes these things aren't working out. And I think Old Boyfriends is just a really, really well written song by Weights.

[D]

Oh, my old boyfriend Remember when you were burning for them? Why do you keep turning them into oh, boy friends? They look you up when they're in town to see if they can still burn you down. He fell in love, you see.

[B]

And so I guess this brings us to the ending of this episode, the last album we're going to talk about until something big happens. But that's really, I guess, the question that attends to Heart attack and vine. 1980s heart attack and Vine. Is this the end of an era? Is it the beginning of an era? Or is it a purely transitional album? Now, there's one little factoid. You know, Damon, you mentioned this earlier on Blue Val Valentine. Maybe it was Damon Scott. He stopped playing guitar, or rather he stopped playing piano halfway through that album. On Blue Valentine, I think he's a piano player, maybe only for two tracks. And he's on guitar for the rest of the songs on this record. He's a guitarist for all of them. It's not because he forgot how to play piano. It's because he's trying to change the sonic contours of his music. This is the last album I think he's going to do with Bones how who is his old producer from Asylum and a really classy guy, great producer. And of course came up in that slick jazz, you know, Los Angeles studio jazz style that Weights was about to move away from. You can already hear it on this record. The last one of his Asylum career.

[D]

For real scarlet. Getting 27 stitches in his hair With a pine of green chartreuse he never seems right you po. On a Saturday Night, Cassidy the Thunder, Someone Stole My Watch.

[B]

I love Heart Attack and Vine. I love this record. I love. I. I love the fact that the second track, he throws an instrumental into it. I love the sense of sentimentality. I love the obvious Bruce Springsteen tribute. This one is probably going to be the second one I choose as the best of this early part of his career. This is the one that you see a man on the run, a man changing. A man who all of a sudden decided to move to New York and is written Songs About Jersey Girls I like this album. What do you guys think?

[D]

We all look like Cadillacs. No one likes a stranger here. I come home but I'm afraid that you won't take me back. But I trade off everything just to have you near. I know I'm irresponsible I don't hate and I ruin everything that I do. I'll probably get arrested when I'm in my grave But I'll be saving all my love for you.

[C]

Well, I'm a big fan. I think it's very much better than the last two, in my opinion. I think it feels much more vital and fresh. It has stronger songs in my gimmick approach. Yeah. Although I would. I would very strongly say, in my opinion, that this very much belongs with the other Asylum albums. It is not. It. It is. It might, in retrospect, gesture in the direction of everything, but it's not surface. It's. Yeah, it's not anywhere like that album at all. I mean, you could tell he wants to break out and introduce new elements and has got very nice. They pointed out there are. There are glimpses of that already on Blue Valentine. And Jeff, as you said, the kind of shift toward guitar away from piano all the time. But there is still piano on here and there are beautiful ballads with. With rich string arrangements. I. I enjoy some of the more upbeat and kind of crazy tracks on this too. The title track, Heart Attack and Vine Downtown is wild. These are fun. But as usual, the ballad Saving All My Love for you is lovely. Jersey Girl as you. You didn't mention it by name, Jeff, but as anyone who owns the 5Lp live record of Springsteen that came out in 1985 6. It knows his. You know, Springsteen's Big Giant Stadium cover, that track. Exactly that.

[B]

All that romantic slop. I love it.

[C]

It's pure Tom Waits song. And the idea that Springsteen did not write that is just bizarre. It shows what a great, great Springsteen tribute it is. It's like the great Springsteen song that Springsteen didn't write.

[D]

Tonight I'm gonna take that ride.

[C]

Across.

[D]

The river to the Jersey sir. Take my baby to the carnival and I'll take her on all the rides cuz down the shore everything's all right. You and your baby on Saturday night. Now you know all my dreams come true. When I'm walking down the street with you.

[B]

Every everybody who knows Springsteen and her has also heard Jersey Girl knows that it is basically fourth of July, Asbury Park Sandy, the big ballad that's on his second album, my favorite Springsteen album While the Innocent. And, you know, Tom Waits wrote this. I'm like, but 1979, there is no question whatsoever in my mind he was intentionally writing it as a tribute to that style. Six years have gone by. I guarantee you he knows what Springsteen's up to. After Darkness on the Edge of Town and Born to Run. This is his version of a Springsteen song. And I have to tell you, his version is so much better, Better, so much better than even Springsteen's. Like, you can tell he wrote it in a range that Springsteen would sound okay covering it. But here's where that broken, cracked voice actually works. When he gets to those na na na na na na notes, and you're actually realizing, well, there's a melody there underneath that that he's singing. He's actually hitting all the notes he needs to, but he's doing it with that performative character that just is different. It feels more bracing, it feels more real. This is the Jersey girl that I always want to hear in my life.

[D]

So don't bother me Cause I got no time on my way to see that girl of mine yeah Nothing else matters in this whole wide world when you're in love with a Jersey girl.

[A]

Love.

[C]

Yeah, it's. It's. That's a great track. I also love the. The big schmaltzy ballad on the nickel. 6 minutes, 19 seconds with 3 very inyr face key changes in the middle of it with a big string arrangement and glocken spiel. It's. It's a great. A great. I say it. I say it actually as a criticism. A schmaltzy ballad. It's a great waltz weights ballad. And then I have to say a special word for Ruby's Arms, the closing.

[B]

You're stealing all my stuff. I love it.

[C]

Well, but do you know. Do you know the Ishiguro story?

[B]

No, I do not.

[C]

Kazuo Ishiguro, the novelist who wrote Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go, really one of my favorite living novelists. He won the Nobel Prize for literature several years ago. And in. In his Nobel speech, he talks about how the great moment toward the end of that novel and the film, if you know the film with Anthony Hopkins playing the butler back in the 1930s at an aristocrat's house where they're kind of planning to side with Hitler pre war. It's a really dramatic film, but the kind of emotional heart of the film is it's about this character of this butler in this great manor house who is in love with the head of the maids in the house. And he's so uptight that he cannot express his love for this woman played in the movie by Emma Thompson. And he never really does. And it's just this tragic, button down, restrained performance from Hopkins. And Ishiguro, in his Nobel speech, talk talks about how the thing that. One thing that makes that novel so great is that there is this moment toward the end where he doesn't. The butler doesn't confess his love, but he does begin to cry. And you can see in the novel it's clear and in the film it's clear by the. With the acting that there's a moment where he breaks. And you see the emotion that's been, you know, bottled up inside this guy the whole way through. And he got. Ishiguro got the idea to put that moment in the novel by listening to Ruby's Arms.

[D]

I will leave behind all of my clothes I wore when I was with you All I need my railroad boots jacket As I say goodbye to Ruby's arms Although my is breaking I will.

[B]

Still.

[D]

All through your blinds soon you will awaken.

[C]

He describes in the speech listening.

[B]

Are you serious? It comes from Tom Waits.

[C]

Yes. He get. He hears there's this song about this soldier who's getting out of bed with the woman he's been spending his time with on his shore leave or whatever it is. And he's about to leave and he puts on his boots in the early morning, and he's about to steal away in the dawn light, and he says, this kind of grizzled character, he says to himself, but my heart is breaking. And hearing that character admit that his heart is breaking inspired Ishiguro to say, you know, I have to have. Have a scene in this novel where we see the facade crack. And he wrote the novel inspired by that. And, and I, I love that he mentioned weights and talked about it, and he, he speaks about his songwriting with great affection in that speech.

[D]

As I say goodbye, I'll say goodbye. Bye. Say goodbye to.

[B]

Damn it. I, I, I, I had Ruby's Arms as like, one of my favorites here, but I can really have nothing to add. I have no note that will top what you.

[C]

That's what I'm here for. I bring the grub. Okay.

[B]

Well, you brought Kazuo Ishiguro into the conversation.

[C]

I did. We went high brow. Okay.

[D]

Yeah. Wow.

[A]

Yeah, it's a good album. Heart attack and vine, 1980. And the title track, the first track, tit you can tell things are gonna be a little different. Right. Man, if you listen closely to that track. Maybe not that closely. I had headphones on, as I always do. But the way that Tom Waits makes those disgusted noises throughout.

[B]

Yes. Little yelps in the background. That will come back.

[A]

Oh, man, that.

[C]

Right.

[A]

I love that. And it is a perfect combination of voice, inflection, action and that gut bucket guitar tone on the title track. And those little saxophone highlights. The lyrics are such really good visuals for the listener. And you know, this, this. There are all these little, you know, pictures. Photos of. Of. Of people you see at that intersection. And the. The song fades out because the stories never end. Right. You can go on and on and on.

[D]

Million of better off for now Power kiss your legs crawling alcohol Know there ain't no devil that's just God when you're struck this stuff will probably kill you. Let's do another line. What? Just that. You mean me down on All Exact.

[A]

And Damon had kind of connected this one to Downtown, which. Which I do too. They both have that very bluesy feel to it. And those characters, the scenes that you see in those areas. Downtown's a really fun, upbeat. One of the closest things he has to a chorus on a song. He's never not big on choruses, but Downtown has that downtown, downtown town going. Downtown. And one of the stars of the show is Ronnie Baron and his Hammond B3, which just sounds gorgeous on Downtown. And on the. In Shades the Sun. Second track, instrumental organ, guitar, led. I don't know if you guys know the great blues guitarist Roy Buchanan, but that sounds a lot like a Roy Buchanan blues song. And I really, really like it. I mentioned Jersey Girl on the nickel, Mr. Siegel, right near the end. I like that one a lot. This portrait of Vegas. And again, those lyrics. How do the angels get to sleep when the devil leaves his porch light on? Right. There's always that temptation there. Especially in Vegas, where the lights never turn off. You can drop 30k on nugget slots if you're a gangster, right. And are hanging out in Vegas. And keep asking yourself, how do I get out of here when the temptation to stay is so strong? That's a great little portrait of Vegas as well. Art Attack and Vine is again. I think there's a little bit of Blue Valentine time that comes more fully formed.

[D]

How do the angels get to sleep when the devil leaves the porch light on? Don't you know that ain't no broken bottle I picked up in my headlights on the other side of the Nevada line where we live our D. Well, you know the pit Boss said I should keep moving. This is where you go and you die.

[A]

I like the new sounds. I love Ronnie Baron playing the Hammond. I don't know how much of this is going to continue on the next record when we start up part two, but it's a fine wait.

[B]

I have to ask you, Scott, have you actually not listened forward? Do you not know what's coming next?

[A]

I know only because of your hints and allegations about what might be around the corner and how strange and weird things I've heard.

[C]

I mean, you. You know the guitar. You know Mark Rybo, right? Because.

[B]

From Elvis Costello. You know him?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Nothing else?

[A]

Yes. Correct. Yes.

[C]

Yeah. Elvis Costello's album Spike is kind of the Elvis version of what you get from Tom Waits.

[B]

No, actually, no, that's not fair because Spike is a bad album and what's.

[A]

Coming next is not.

[C]

Well, but Mark Rybo is all over that. That album.

[B]

Yes. He's almighty like a rose as well that. That late 80s version of Elvis. But yeah, boy, it's hilarious for me to find out, boy, this. We may have to reunite in chaos because. Because what you're about to discover, Scott, they scandalize you. It's gonna get weirder. But actually there's going to be a great continuity. I really don't have anything to add to actually to what it is you guys said about this album. The only thing I would note, you mentioned my favorite songs, Heart Attack and Vinyl. I talked about J Girl. The rhythmic attack is what signifies a change that is coming. He's not playing the piano as much as anymore. He's going for guitar sounds, he's going for bluesy sounds. He's going towards the gut bucket as opposed to the jazz. The weird perhaps, maybe as opposed to the jazz. There are a lot of things that are going to intervene between where we're leaving off right now and where we are about to resume, you know, next month. And I guess I'll get to that. I'll have to be the guy who explains what happens. In the meantime, he. He meets. Is his love of his life, who actually is the anti. Yoko Ono. And we'll tell that story when we get to the second part of Tom Waits, his career. But I think that brings us to the end of this one. Unless I'm wrong. Scott, are we.

[A]

No, you are correct at least about this. You are correct. Not about that middle portion of the.

[B]

Not about my opinions on the albums, apparently.

[A]

Time for the. The portion of the program where we bring you the two albums you should own the five songs you get got to hear from this particular era of Tom Weights, and we hand things off to our guest first, as always, Damon Linker is with us. Damon, your two albums, your five songs from this Tom Weights era.

[C]

Okay. Well, you know, given everything you've heard from me, none of this should be that surprising. I think, without a doubt, Small Change is one of them. One of the two albums, then Closing Time versus Heart Attack and Vine is for, for me, a difficult choice, but in the end, I have to choose Closing Time. There are a lot of songs on there that I love, and I need a representation of that early era of his career. So I. In the end, I narrowly choose that way. But I really do love Heart Attack and Vine. I think it's a great album and it's in competition. As for songs, I'm just going to pick a sprinkling of some of my favorites from across these albums. I think I mentioned to all of them Grapefruit Moon from the debut, San Diego Serenade from his second album, Tom TRS Blues, of course, from Small Change, Kentucky Avenue, which I quoted along the way from Blue Valentine. And then in the name of Ishiguru, I will pick Ruby's Arms from Heart Attack, and Vine is my fifth.

[A]

All right, not much. My two records, Blue Valentine, which again, is my favorite from this era, and the other one, not one of Jeff's favorites from the era. I'm gonna stick Heart of Saturday Night on these two records. You should have from. From this particular era, songs. Martha, from the first record, I think is just a beautiful example of songwriting. Please Call Me Baby from Heart of Saturday Night, Christmas Card from a hooker in Minneapolis. I think I also want to throw on Sweet Little Bullet from Pretty Blue Gun. And then the title track from the last album we talked about Heart Attack and Vine. Those are my five songs. Jeff, over to you.

[B]

One of the things I absolutely love about political beats is that the way you can tell that Scott and I are coming to an artist from completely different places is when our top two albums don't overlap at all. At all. That's just so funny. Okay, so obviously my top two are Small Change, as I've mentioned many times, and I think I'm gonna go with Heart attack and vine, 1980, and it's a hint of things to come, but, boy, it really doesn't tell you what's going to happen. What's going to happen is going to have a lot of importance for, heck, not only Tom Waits, but also for some of my favorite subsequent bands. Radiohead is going to Make a surprise series of cameo appearances in part two of this episode. But for now, those two albums are the picks for my top five songs. I'm going go with Closing Time again. Damon stole My Thunder so wonderfully on that. Just a beautiful instrumental from his first album. The closing track, Lightning in a Bottle, Caught in a Bottle. A moment of aching beauty. And it kind of is an harbinger to come of great Tom Waits instrumentals brawl. We talk about the man's cracked voice and whatnot. He's still a songwriter and he writes melodies. He works with chords. He cares about that as well. And that's an easy thing to forget, especially as we're going to go into the next period. Better off without a wife From Nighthawks at the Diner. Scott doesn't like this live album act. He doesn't like that drunken man shtick. It really appeals to me. It's got a certain, like, you know, a beat rebellion kind of a thing that appeals to me. Hey, I was the guy who grew up watching, like, you know, 50s hippie beatnik movies. Rather not hippie 50s beatnik movies and stuff like that. Maybe I'm into this scene. Maybe Tom was, too. Christmas Card from a hooker in Minneapolis off of Foreign affairs, or rather Blue Valentine, Heart Attack and Vine, from the title track, Heart Attack and Vine. And I guess I have to absolutely end with my fifth song with Jersey Girl, the song that Tom Waits transparently wrote as a tribute to Bruce Springsteen. And as much as I love Bruce, Bruce would conquer the pop charts. He knew how to get himself heard on the radio, sung by hundreds of thousands of people across the world. I think Tom Waits is a better artist than Bruce Springsteen, ultimately. And I also think that Bruce Springsteen deciding to cover Tom was his own subtle acknowledgment of the fact that there was a guy who was an original at creating his scene, and there was a guy who was always casting about, looking for something else that was Was Bruce Springsteen. Tom Waits knew what he wanted to be, and then he would decide he wanted to be somebody else. And that comes next.

[D]

Don't bother me, I'm in love I'm in love.

[A]

All right, there is the political beats. Look at the music and career of Tom Waits, at least through 1982 or so, when the soundtrack is released. And we'll have much more to come in Part two, if we are lucky, our guest will return for part two.

[B]

If we all survive in the year 20, in the year 2025, if man is still alive, we will record another episode.

[A]

Damon Linker Senior Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. And that Substack newsletter notes from the middle ground. Find him on Xamonlinker and [e-mail] Damon thank you.

[C]

Thanks for having me. It was great.

[A]

Appreciate it, Jeff. I will be prepared to have have my socks blown off by what comes next.

[B]

Either your mind is about to be blown in the most bitter way, I'm afraid. Yeah.

[A]

We will reconvene and discuss. We invite you to support the [e-mail] political beats entry level, mid level and upper level access there. Also, subscribe to the feed for new episodes through Apple Podcasts or elsewhere. Find us over at National Review as well. We're over on Facebook. Join the conversation on X at PoliticalBeats. This has been a presentation of National Review. This is Political Beats.