Telephone Call from Istanbul

All night long on the broken (heroin) glass (syringe)\nLivin\' in a medicine chest\nMediterranean hotel (hole) back (syringe) sprawled across a roll top desk (arm)\nThe monkey (habit) rode the blade (syringe) on an overhead fan (veins)\nThey paint (sell?) the donkey blue (heroin) if you pay\nI got a telephone call (communication) from Istanbul (source)\nMy baby\'s (habit) coming home today (satisfaction)

I like the thoughts going into the previous interpretations. I see it as an ode to a love returning home. The whole drug aspect seems out of character for a Waits song. Sure he references stuff like booze a lot, but not the hard drugs in these metaphorical ways so much, as far as I know.

Mostly to me it's his typical colorful use of language to paint a feeling, much of which I don't think is even intended to mean anything in particular, or something only he would know but just fits the feel. Like for, all I know, Beulah's refers to Beulah's Kitchen in Middletown, California. Here's a line from a review: "Funky tiny little breakfast/lunch stop. It looks like a shack from outside." Sounds like a restaurant Waits would appreciate if he found it. And there is a Dry Creek right outside of town there.

Seems pretty straightforward. His girlfriend's been abroad, in Turkey. She's coming home - he knows because he had a phone call from Istanbul. And he's got to tidy up, get some clean clothes, and a bunch of flowers for her.

I could be mistaken, but the song seems to be about drugs. “Living in a medicine chest” in a hotel, life seems a mess... he mentions a “monkey rode a blade on an overhead fan” could be referencing the proverbial monkey on his back. But then he gets a call from Istanbul, of all places, that his “‘baby’s’ comin home today” could be a slick way of saying ‘I have your drugs (from near that place in the world) when you’re ready today’. The donkey painting line could reference how a dealer will do anything as long as you pay.

The chorus I’m guessing is about drug related life... buying crazy stuff, people needing to “get out of town”, don’t trust this type of dealer, and definitely don’t drive when you’re ripped. Mentioning the weekend when he’s going to be partying, dying his hair to disguise himself, going to the dealer’s house on a certain road, and wearing a hat agreed upon by both to signal everything is alright.

“Going to get a tux” is just saying ‘I’m so damn excited, I’m gonna get so wrecked’ OOOOOOR, “I’m gonna cut a whole in the day”... as in, ‘I’m going to black the F out and lose a huge part of my day’.

I could be wrong and every single line could be appearing to me as an indirect drug reference, probably because I’m a recovering addict myself... But it seems pretty darn coincidental that everything lines up so nicely in a beautiful, indirect manner that only Tom Waits could think up.

Oh and connecting to what KubalahtKoala said, if Buelah is Buelah is ‘the wellspring our Freudian subconscious and Jungian collective unconscious where "contraries are equally True" (Marriage of Heaven & Hell)’... then that is an excellent way to describe a place you will be purchasing/doing (entering) your drugs. And anyone who has any familiarity of what an addiction will do to your mind, the places it will take your mind, and the intense appreciation for every ‘next breath’ you’re able to take..

I don’t know if Tom was ever addicted to anything but cigarettes and booze, but considering his golden years encompassed most of the 70s, I wouldn’t be surprised if he caught a bit of that white line fever that Lemmy had for amphetamines, or way more likely for Tom’s more laid back case, cocaine.

Buelah is a reference to the bible & perhaps William Blake's cosmic mythology. In the bible, Buelah is the name for Palestine redeemed: "and they land shall be called Buelah, for the lord deligteth in thee, and thy land shall be married (Buelah is hebrew for married)." Isiah:lxii:4. For Blake, Buelah was inbetween Eternity (Heaven) & Ulro (eality in its most materialistic, newtonian, soulless form). Buelah is the wellspring our Freudian subconscious and Jungian collective unconscious where "contraries are equally True" (Marriage of Heaven & Hell). It is the spiritual location of Blake's "Innocence" poems. In short, it is certainly a place where you could "drive a car when your dead", cut holes in time, where fireballs (like burning bushes)talk & where you might find your long lost love returning from halfway around the world.