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The Romance!

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Bette on Tom

Bette Midler (1978) on meeting Tom Waits in 1975: "My idea of a good time in L.A. is to go to the Fatburger with Tom Waits. Fact, Peter Riegert and I schlepped him over there last night for fries and a malted. "The Fatburger is a local junk-food pit, and Tom Waits is - do you know Tom Waits? - oh, he's won-der-ful. I first ran into him at the Bottom Line in New York. He was singing 'The Heart of Saturday Night.' and I just fell in love with him on the spot. "We got passingly acquainted that first night, and then I ran into him out here someplace, and I suggested we get together for a visit. Tom lives ... well, sort of knee-deep in grunge, so he was reluctant for me to see his apartment. I grew up in lots of clutter myself, and delicate I ain't, so I kept after him till he finally invited me over. He acted ultra-shy at first, but he finally ushered me around, and he's got his piano in the kitchen, and he only uses the kitchen range to light his cigarettes, and then there's this refrigerator where he keeps his hammers and wrenches and nuts and bolts and stuff like that. He opened the fridge door and with an absolute poker face he said, 'I got some cool tools in here.' You ever hear a cornier line than that? I howled for an hour, and we've been buddies ever since. "Tom can always get me tickled, and he really helped jack up my spirits after the disaster of that gay-rights benefit in Hollywood." (Source: "Bette Bounces Back" Bette and Aaron: One Sings, The Other Doesn't. Grover Lewis. New West: March 13, 1978)

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FamousFriends

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The cover art features Waits sitting in a go-go dancer's dressing room, with a topless go-go dancer standing nearby who is rumored to be Cassandra Peterson who is famously known for her character Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.

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1978

Kirk West, Tom Waits, Park West, 1978

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GoodGod.

Tom Waits by Frederic Golchan

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Cheers.

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SmallChange

Tom Waits and Cassandra (Elvira) Peterson; shot by Joel Brodsky

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Tom Traubert's Blues

"Tom Traubert's Blues" was written by Tom Waits while he was living in London, England in 1976.[1] In an interview on NPR's World Cafe in December 2006, Waits stated that the title character was "a friend of a friend" who had died in prison.[2] The song's subtitle ("Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen") is a reference to the time that Waits spent in Copenhagen, Denmark while on tour in June 1976. In Copenhagen, Waits had met Danish singer and violinist Mathilde Bondo. Bondo performed violin during Waits' appearance on the DR1 TV show Sange Efter Lukketid and said that she "of course had to show him the city–we were in Tivoli and on Christianshavn. It was a lovely night [...] we waltzed a lot"[3] Bondo later said "I'm really proud to have been the muse for his song" and referred to Waits' depiction of Copenhagen as "somewhat ambiguous but it's a wonderful song."[3] In May 1979, Waits himself confirmed the song's origins during a live performance in Sydney, Australia, stating "I met this girl named Matilda. And uh, I had a little too much to drink that night. This is about throwing up in a foreign country."[4] However, producer Bones Howe has said that another experience inspired "Tom Traubert's Blues." Recalling the experience, Howe said "he [Waits] went down and hung around on skid row in L.A. because he wanted to get stimulated for writing this material. He called me up and said, 'I went down to skid row ... I bought a pint of rye. In a brown paper bag.' I said, 'Oh really?.' 'Yeah – hunkered down, drank the pint of rye, went home, threw up, and wrote 'Tom Traubert's Blues' [...] every guy down there... everyone I spoke to, a woman put him there."[5] Howe recorded and produced "Tom Traubert's Blues" during Small Change's recording sessions. The sessions were held at Wally Heider Studios in San Francisco, California from July 15 to July 29, 1976. The song was recorded direct to ½-inch two-track stereo tape.[6][7] Waits and Howe decided to record on a two-track console to ensure the song did not sound overproduced. Howe later commented that "jazz is more about getting a good take, not about having a lot of tracks to mix."[7]

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Tom Traubert's Blues, Live 1977

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I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.

Tom Waits (via lakanen)

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Tom Waits

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BedtimeStories...

"In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, “Look at me…I’m tall, and I’m straight, and I’m handsome. Look at you…you’re all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you.” And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, “Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest.” So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day.” Tom Waits

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Nighthawks at the Diner

Nighthawks at the Diner is the first live album by Tom Waits and his third overall. It was released on Asylum Records in October 1975. It was recorded live in the Los Angeles Record Plant Studios, in front of a small invited audience.

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EmotionalWeatherReport

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Watch her disappear...

Last night I dreamed that I was dreaming of you. …

Tom’s song: Watch Her Disappear Image from Bruce Davidson