TOM

Every now and again I shuffle back to Tom for comfort. I know I've said...well, not bad things, but certainly ignorant things about his latest album, Bad As Me. If you ask me, that was praise in disguise, really. That was my intention, anyway. But he wouldn't care what a crusty bug like me would have to say about his music anyway, so fuck it. I love the man and that's all there is to it.
 I've been listening to Bad As Me some more and it grew on me like weeds on a dead poodle. Can't get rid of this guy when he's reached the bloodstream, he's a hacker and a heckler, barging into your Sunday afternoon of a brain and Monday morning of a heart, growling drunken, heaven & hell verses that just cut through the bone. Some songs sound like seaweeds belly-dancing with the current (Talking At The Same Time), others make you feel like going shitty-shitty-bang-bang, like you're riding some sort of Disney train towards the land of Shattered Hopes and Broken Dreams (Chicago), and I can't even begin to describe how I feel about Bad As Me, the song. Well, the description is in the lyrics themselves: this song is the "blood on the floor, the thunder and the roar" of the album. Not to mention "Satisfied" in which he tips his hat to "Mr. Jagger and Mr Richards", so that put a few curls on my bald head for a while.
Now then, enough talk, let's hear the man.

Tom Waits - Bad As Me


Tom Waits - Chicago



Tom Waits - Satisfied



Tom Waits - Talking At The Same Time



And then there's this, a song I've been long since obsessing over. The song is the mother of all hangovers, I feel hatchets buried in my skull and rusty nails running through my veins and rubber smoke on my tongue when I listen to this one. Every lyric is a spit in my face, you can hear the phlegm sizzling in the back of his throat, and the bass sounds like a beggar tugging at your coat. There's dust and rust all over this one.
"Don't you know there ain't no devil, that's just God when he's drunk" - one of the greatest lyrics of all time. It must be.

Tom Waits - Heartattack And Vine