Poetry Forum

What can i say about Thomas Alan Waits? He is one of my favorites musicians. His songs also have great lyrics, as we can see in your albuns.
Here i will post my favorite wait's lyric: Poor Edwar, from Alice (2002).

Poor Edward
Did you hear the news about Edward?
On the back of his head he had another face
Was it a woman's face or a young girl?
They said to remove it would kill him
So poor Edward was doomed

The face could laugh and cry
It was his devil twin
And at night she spoke to him
Things heard only in hell
But they were impossible to separate
Chained together for life

Finally the bell tolled his doom
He took a suite of rooms
And hung himself and her from the balcony irons
Some still believe he was freed from her
But I knew her too well
I say she drove him to suicide
And took poor Edward to hell

What a wonderful lyric, lord!

Georg Törless.

'Rain Dogs' and 'The Heart of Saturday Night' are great albums. My favourite Waits lyric is the jazz skit "Step Right Up":

Tired of being the life 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

although I must say his mystique is lessened somewhat for me by the revelation that his middle name is Alan.

Gidday

I am a huge fan. You're right k-j, "Alan" just seems too mundane. Perhaps we should have a competition to give him a proper middle name. One of my favourites in "What's he building?"

What's he building in there?
What the hell is he building in there?
He has subscriptions to those magazines...
He never waves when he goes by
He's hiding something from the rest of us...
He's all to himself...
I think I know why...
He took down the tire swing from the peppertree
He has no children of his own you see...
He has no dog and he has no friends and his lawn is dying...
And what about all those packages he sends.

What's he building in there?
With that hook light on the stairs.
What's he building in there...
I'll tell you one thing,
He's not building a playhouse for the children
What's he building in there?

Now what's that sound from under the door?
He's pounding nails into a hardwood floor...
And I swear to god I heard someone moaning low...
And I keep seeing the blue light of a T.V. show...
He has a router and a table saw...
And you won't believe what Mr. Sticha saw
There's poison underneath the sink of course...
But there's also enough formaldehyde to choke a horse...
What's he building in there.
What the hell is he building in there?

I heard he has an ex-wife in some place called Mayors Income, Tennessee
And he used to have a consulting business in Indonesia...
But what is he building in there?
What the hell is building in there?
He has no friends but he gets a lot of mail
I'll bet he spent a little time in jail...
I heard he was up on the roof last night signaling with a flashlight
And what's that tune he's always whistling...
What's he building in there?
What's he building in there?

We have a right to know...

Nice call
Dave

I love Tom! The Piano Has Been Drinking is one of the best songs ever made.

The piano has been drinking
my necktie is asleep
and the combo went back to New York
the jukebox has to take a leak
and the carpet needs a haircut
and the spotlight looks like a prison break
cause the telephone's out of cigarettes
and the balcony's on the make
and the piano has been drinking
the piano has been drinking...

and the menus are all freezing
and the lightman's blind in one eye
and he can't see out of the other
and the piano-tuner's got a hearing aid
and he showed up with his mother
and the piano has been drinking
the piano has been drinking

cause the bouncer is a Sumo wrestler
cream puff casper milk toast
and the owner is a mental midget
with the I.Q. of a fencepost
cause the piano has been drinking
the piano has been drinking...

and you can't find your waitress
with a Geiger counter
And she hates you and your friends
and you just can't get served
without her
and the box-office is drooling
and the bar stools are on fire
and the newspapers were fooling
and the ash-trays have retired
the piano has been drinking
the piano has been drinking
The piano has been drinking
not me, not me, not me, not me, not me

Jaerlost wrote:I love Tom! The Piano Has Been Drinking is one of the best songs ever made.

I like this song. Wait's voice is excessively hoarse.
But i think Waits has best lyrics.

Watch Her Disappear
From Alice


Last night I dreamed that I was dreaming of you
And from a window across the lawn I watched you undress
Wearing your sunset of purple tightly woven around your hair
That rose in strangled ebony curls
Moving in a yellow bedroom light
The air is wet with sound
The faraway yelping of a wounded dog
And the ground is drinking a slow faucet leak
Your house is so soft and fading as it soaks the black summer heat
A light goes on and the door opens
And a yellow cat runs out on the stream of hall light and into the yard

A wooden cherry scent is faintly breathing the air
I hear your champagne laugh
You wear two lavender orchids
One in your hair and one on your hip
A string of yellow carnival lights comes on with the dusk
Circling the lake with a slowly dipping halo
And I hear a banjo tango

And you dance into the shadow of a black poplar tree
And I watched you as you disappeared
I watched you as you disappeared
I watched you as you disappeared
I watched you as you disappeared

/

You're right k-j, "Alan" just seems too mundane. Perhaps we should have a competition to give him a proper middle name.

Hieronymus.

Hieronymus is perfect. Thomas Hieronymus Waits - scansion to die for.

Gidday

Could have Didi or Gogo (Nah!)

Or preserve his middle initial and call him Aubrey.

Cosmo - nah!

Hieronymus is looking good folks!

Dave (no that's me!)

wasnt Tom Waits in the news recently, took some coroporation to court for using/altering a song of his for an advert of theirs?


benjy