| Tom Waits – Black Market Baby Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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My 2 cents: "She's a black-market baby; she's a diamond that wants to stay coal" references something that could be brilliant if only it were given time and/or refinement, but is bound and determined to remain dark and dirty. Diamonds and coal are carbon. Diamond comes from coal put under extreme pressure. You imagine this woman in the song as a woman who could that be classy, intelligent, and beautiful, but insists on being a sort of a dangerous, unwholesome, low-level prostitute. She does "check in with the president" but she does it at the "Iroquois Hotel" in "Moberly, Missouri." Moberly, MO is not the kind of place classy hookers hang out. It is not the kind of place a president would be allowed to stay in. I actually WORK in Moberly, Missouri and can tell you that it is itself a "black market baby - A diamond that wants to stay coal." Any resident there can tell you that many people have tried to improve the community, the school system etc..., but the mindset of the place aims at mediocrity. If Tom Waits chose this town simply because it had the right poetic sound, he also lucked out by choosing a town that reinforced his metaphor. |
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