TOM WAITS
Alice / Blood Money
CD, Anti
Okay,
so now it is late at night and I am drunk enough to do this. Yeah, I listen
to Tom Waits when I am drunk. I also listen to Tom Waits when I am not
drunk. I also listen to other music, when I am drunk, so what’s the point?
Maybe, I was afraid to write this review, because Tom Waits has been with me
for so long (an interesting statement in itself, the artist gives from
himself and everybody believes they really get something, but is it real?
Does the listener make it real or the product or what? Am I coherent?) Not
too drunk, anyway. The night is cool, I have settled down and these two CDs
are doing alternate rounds in my player. Suddenly I remember when I was a
teenager, maybe sixteen at a party, I found myself in a corner with a bottle
of Contra in my hand mumbling to myself “just like Tom Waits, only he
drinks Whiskey, I only have Contra”. I remember this, because friend
overheard me in my stupor and used to call me on it for years to come. As
you can imagine, I was heavily in my teenage Waits, Bukowski &
Jarmusch-phase. (essentially “Down by Law”, get it.) I dreamed of myself
as a poor poet, producing little gems of art in the gutter and leading a
miserable life yet full of the beauty of an artistic vision. Or just one of
these underdogs with a lot of style and cool air. The romanticism of bad
luck. The fascinating ugliness of the lowest class, the search for truth and
wisdom where it can’t possibly be (which is the reason you’ll find it
there.) So naïve and, well, young. Thank god I’m over that. That was
never real anyway. But I had a short stint working as a postman, too. That
is a long time ago.
Nowadays,
the record by Tom Waits I listen to the most might still be “Rain Dogs”
because that one has it all. The ballads, the weirdness, the horns, Marc
Ribot and Larry Taylor, the neonlights of the urban ghetto and the artsyness
of the theatrical stage later on. (I gotta write a review on that one for
the best records-section
at one time.) The movie “Big Time” impressed me as well. I also watched
“The Black Rider” on video and I still like “Night on earth” for its
soundtrack and Wynona Rider. Other than that it is impossible for me to name
a favourite album by Tom Waits. All of them come to mind, one after the
other. Favourite songs? Forget it. Sure, Tom Traubert’s Blues, everyone
was drunk to that one, but there is so much more. Tom Waits has no beginning
and no end with me. My girlfriend, who is now my wife, said she didn’t
like Waits because of his gravelish and sore voice. (She said the same about
Springsteen.) I brought her into his music by playing the “Early Years
Vol.1 & Vol.2” to her. (I used “Nebraska”
on her with Springsteen.) Now, she doesn’t care about his voice anymore.
See, nearly everybody seems to like Tom Waits, and he never has done any
wrong. Well, maybe some of the movie-parts he took, weren’t that great,
but obviously nobody ever complained, because, well, Tom Waits is Tom Waits.
Shit,
I imagine now, Tom Waits reading this himself, what’s he going to think
about it. Well, either he knows and thinks to himself, such a clever guy, he
caught me there, or he will shake his head in disbelief on how strange the
thoughts of some people are. Yeah, the second one sounds more believable. He
won’t use that in a song, I guess. What a pity. In Vienna there was a bar
called Barfly (I don’t know if it still exists) which was basically a
drinking place for college-kids and young working-class-types. At closing
time they’d always play Tom Waits-songs on the PA. I liked that. Seems to
me that everybody likes Tom Waits nowadays. Well, maybe not enough to sell
enough records to stay on a major label, but Anti is fine with me.
