Youtube let me down tonight.
I thought James McMurtry doing Choctaw Bingo would have been a treat for Sean Purcell, and I would have loved to have latched onto videos of Tom Waits’ Falling Down and The Part You Throw Away for Geno Petro and Russell Shaw.
Struck out in three pitches.
Instead, we have this, Tom Waits doing Clap Hands and Time, two radically different pages from the man’s catalog.
Tom Waits is an acquired taste, and he goes well out of his way to make it hard for people to figure out why they should listen to him. This particular clip is from “Big Time,” which is second only to Bob Dylan’s “Renaldo and Clara” as the most stupidly self-indulgent rock movie ever made.
And yet… The first time I saw “Big Time” I loved it despite hating dozens and dozens of painfully stupid moments. I’ve followed Tom since I was a teenager — since he was barely old enough to drink. This is the art of brutality, and it’s not for everyone. I love Clap Hands, and I’ve forced poor Cathleen to listen to it thousands of times. But, whatever you do, be sure to hang in there for Time. Despite the PoMo performance, it’s a beautiful, heart-breaking song.
Geno Petro says:
“Goin up to Harlem with a pistol in my jeans….
Hangin’ out the window with a bottle full of rain…
We can always find a millionaire to shovel all the coal…”
Yup. that’s Big Time Tom.
April 12, 2008 — 10:25 am
Greg Swann says:
I read “a bottle full of rain” as amphetamine, like “Louise, with a handful of rain, tempting you to defy it.” Is that reasonable?
April 12, 2008 — 10:38 am
Geno Petro says:
Yes, I think so. Amphets sound right.
(Notice, you’ll usually find me hanging out in the less serious comment sections.) To be honest though, it’s been a long since I’ve thought about what words really mean in a song. Thanks for the link back. My wife just asked me, ‘what’s that you keep listening to?”
Not ‘who’ but ‘what.’ And why I ‘keep wearing that stupid hat…’ And ‘who’s Small Change?’ And why did he get ‘rained on by his own 38’…and…
April 12, 2008 — 12:34 pm
Greg Swann says:
Deconstructing “Swordfish Trombones,” a PhD thesis. 😉
I remember thousands of lines of song lyrics, and poor Cathleen has to suffer through me ruining one pop tune after another by explaining what’s really being said. I’m thinking she must really love me, to put up with that…
I play with song lyrics just like real literature — never really caring if anyone gets it or not. A couple of days ago, I said, “Attention must be paid and horses must be shod,” just a passing tweak at the inane passivity of “Death of a Salesman.” My favorite nod to Tom: “Even Gandhi wanted just a little more airtime when he was Walking Spanish on the news.”
April 12, 2008 — 1:52 pm