| Tom Waits – Come on Up to the House Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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In the 17th Century, English Philosopher, Thomas Hobbes wrote of a world that would find itself in a conflict described as a “war of all against all.” Hobbes described the lives of those involved in the conflict as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Over three and a half centuries later another Thomas would pose a more than similar question, asking “does life seem nasty, brutish and short?” However in this situation, artist and modern day luminary, Thomas Alan Waits follows up this question with an invitation, Waits encourages us to “come on up to the house.” In 1999 Tom Waits concluded an album entitled “Mule Variations” with this request, “Come On Up To The House.” An orthodox gospel song in which Waits is perfectly cast in the part of the visionary theologian of bad news. With a growl that could only come out of the middle of the earth, we’re described an existence that is made up of swirling chaos, madness, and despair. “There’s no light in the tunnel, no irons in the fire,” and your only option is, “you gotta come on up to the house.” In this house, I imagine a safe haven for all of us that identify with the thought that, “the world is not my home, I’m just a passin’ thru.” If the artistry of Tom Waits is an insight as to what you will find inside the house, certainly it will be filled with all the “street sweepers and all the night watchmen flame keepers.” Every “Black Market Baby,” “Eyeball Kid,” and “Gin Soaked Boy” can find rest in this place. As an artist, I can’t help but be affected by the images described and the truth that can be found in this work. It is the horse’s mouth, the secret language of the innovator. Throughout the piece you are taken on a private tour of the storyteller’s scars and, like all good art, you slowly realize that these scars, in some way, mirror your own. My longing for artistry is a direct result of my feelings of displacement in this world I’m to call my home. “The seas are stormy” and I too “can’t find the port.” So I have begun my ascent to the “house.” This is a house of workmanship, imagination, originality and style without number. I find myself on a road that stretches me and causes me to expand as a creator. And when if I begin to relate too closely to the lyric, “you been whipped by the forces that are inside of you,” I look to the house of beauty and brilliance to which I aspire and I progress. The song ends with an impassioned howl and a fiery piano pounding of a high chord. It seems that Waits was bound to the will of this composition, even to the very end, an artistic inclination that everyone should share. |
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