Clap Hands

I think this comes from a playground chant - goes something like:- 3-6-9 the goose drank wine the monkey chewed tobacco on the street car line the line broke the monkey got the choke & they all went to heaven in a little row boat clap clap!" (Correct me if I've got that wrong, it was a long time ago). Waits often uses little snippets like that in his songs.

Awesome song!!!

well my interpritation of this song is; it's a song about the common man being sent to war, the fireman the conductor and how these people, when and if they come back are never the same again, or sane!

"we can an always find a millionaire to shovel all the coal" is refering to how, in times of war, the wealthy are content to do the donky work, whilst the working class are being killed and maimed in action.

"Roar, roar, the thunder and the roar" could this be the sound of war.

"A fifty-dollar bill inside a palladin's hat" Reference to a palladin, which is a sword fighter/soldier.

"And nobody's sure where Mr. Knickerbocker's at" could this be a reference to the fact that, the ice-cream man no longer drives by, as he too has met an unlucky end?

guitar part sounds a bit like the theme tune from black books

i cant believe im only the 2nd person to comment on this song! Tom Waits is awesome, he's an unbelieveable musician! this song and Rain Dogs i would say are my 2 favorite songs by Waits so far. awesome song seriously.

Everytime I think of what this song may mean as I think of it, a following lyric makes me think it means something else.

yea, this is by far my favorite song on raind dogs. just like zorastrus, i think it means one thing and then he something way off.

this song makes me think of jail for some reason

I always thought that "Can always find a millionaire to shovel all the coal" was actually "Can always find a million in a shovel-load of coal." Such as finding a diamond.

But, I just listened very closely and it definitely sounds like the former.

I think this song may be telling story. There are three characters: a man, his adulterous wife or girlfriend, and the wealthy man the women has the affair with. The women left the singer via a train. But the train is not only the method of travel but associated with the motivation for travel. The train is characterized by insanity and delusion as the firemen and conductor are handicapped; This points to the irrationality of the women's decision to leave. The wealthy man the women is seeking is shoveling coal, not physically, but he is the driving force behind her transportation, her motivation for leaving. The roar is the sound of the train, the steam is produced by the train, which also produces a hundred bad dreams. I imagine the Moon in the window and a bird on the pole is the image the singer sees as he is looking out the window pondering how to respond. His decision is bold; He travels to Harlem with $50 seeking revenge. He doesn't find Mr. Knickerbocker, presumably the singers name for the wealthy man. He heads to Baltimore and upon finding them "They all went to heaven." He is alluding to the playground chant morbid moraq stated in his comment throughout the song because the singer feels the story to be pleasing and satisfying from the killers point of view because bad behavior was punished, even though the end was ripe with catastrophe.

Hi Everyone, I just signed up after landing here from a search on Tom Waits lyrics. My love for his work really began with "Heart Attack and Vine" and "Small Change". These, "Rain Dogs", and "Swordfish Trombone" are some of my favorites, but of course, there's lots more.

I think it is possible to get carried away with trying to interpret Waits. I have always heard him as stream of consciousness, vivid imagery from the grungy side of life seen from the gutter, the bottle, and the bus station. He definitely uses old kid rhymes as evocations of.....something. "Liar, liar, with your pants on fire....."

I certainly try to read things into his weird expressions. Some of them seem obvious, but that doesn't mean it's what he meant. That is his greatness. He is fluid and hard to pin down. He's a rambling beatnik, a carnival barker, a drunk, a bum. Amid all that down and dirty stuff he slips in touching sentiment, romance at the greasy spoon, all mixed with bittersweet longing.

"I'll accept your invitation to the blues."