Clap Hands

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."