Black Market Baby Lyrics
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.
Sounds like he recorded it in a haunted house.
I haven't really thought about any deeper meaning of the lyrics, but this song always sends chills down my spine.
Another creepy song.
^^^That's funny. I'd never thought about that. I DID, however, think of the supposed Marilyn Monroe/JFK link and its alleged possible involvement in her Death.
It's probably my filthy mind, but I still think that when Waits sings "She checked in with the President/& she ran up quite a bill" he's making an unspeakably lewd reference to Mr Clinton.