The Ocean Doesn't Want Me

Coolness. I love his sense of humor. Dark sarcasm is the best! Throughout this whole album, he talks about death in a semi-comical sarcastic, yet serious and dark tone. I think it's Tom's most focused album, and it's personally my favorite. I love how the dark brooding shadowy echoes and the troglodite, caveman-esque, junkyard crashing/banging percusion compliment each other. The lyrics are a genious. Like the world doesn't have enough room for his mortal slag heap of excriment, and his soul wanders forever. It sounds creepy or comical, but what underlies that tone is a work of art. Great Job Tom Waits!

I sort of assumed that the song was about the narrator trying to commit suicide (by drowning) - but being held back by his own ambivalence...

This song begins exactly as the letter leaved by Ettore Majorana just before his disappearance. Ettore Majorana was a brilliant italian physicist that work with Enrico Fermi and defined as a genius by Fermi himself. On 27 March 1938 Majorana disappeared in mysterious circumstances. He leaved a letter that begins with the words:

"Il mare mi ha rifiutato e ritornerò domani all'albergo Bologna,..." "The sea has rejected me today, I'll be back tomorrow at the Bologna hotel"

Several possible explanations for his disappearance have been proposed: suicide is the one supported by some of his friends and colleagues.

I can't say if Waits took inspiration from Majorana letter but I think it's a nice fact to post.

In my opinion, Bone Machine is Tom Waits best album. This song, however, doesn't quite make it in my book. While there is something endearing about the goofy "strangels"/"braingels"-wordplay, it doesn't work well within the context of a song about someone contemplating suicide.

what is it that he's saying at the very beginning?

It kinda reminds me of that bit from Seinfeld where he's talking about how the ocean is like a nightclub that's always trying to throw you out.

It isn't about suicide as far as I'm concerned, It's just about somebody wanting to be at one with the sea. Being an avid open water/sea swimmer I can totally relate to the joy of being at one with the ocean, it's a Pisces thing.

The line about the lifeguard is brilliant because they can be such spoil sports, a veritable beach-gestapo. The ocean doesn't want him for it's own reasons, maybe the tide is out.

About 2 years before Bone Machine was released, a woman stood on a stormy beach on Plum Island drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette. She told a bystander that the ocean didn’t want her today.\n\nShe went back to her car for a while, but then re-emerged and walked straight into the waves, beer and cigarette in hand. Her body was found washed up later that day.