tomwaitsvisualdictionary

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Tom Waits - “God’s Away On Business”

Who’s the ones that we kept in charge?  Killers!  Thieves!  And lawyers!

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happy birthday Mr. Waits

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Tom Waits and Doc Pomus

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Happy Birthday, Mr. Waits

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Tom Waits

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Tremendous concert poster for Tom Waits by the one and only Bill Graham, 1987.

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The Heart of Saturday Night

50th Anniversary

Limited Edition 180-gram Raspberry Beret Vinyl

From ANTI-Records:

Fifty years ago a young and aspiring Tom Waits released ‘The Heart of Saturday Night’, his attempt to immerse himself in the romance of longing for adventure trouble, mystery of love and lust, and the after- hours clubs where jazz, blues, lounge, piano bar crooners would gather and play for and with each other in their search for the ruby eye of the heart that only shone on a Saturday night.

He imagined a concept album with a small bebop jazz ensemble, filled with the literary influences of the two Jacks - Kerouac and London - along with classic American songbook songwriters and the language and sound of the piano played in intimate clubs for and with musicians who had finished their regular Saturday night engagements. In searching for the voice for these characters, he evoked Sinatra’s ���In the Wee Small Hours’ and was inspired to mold his fingers to the keyboard by the bold, improvisational and unique Thelonius Monk.

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Tom Waits por Scott Smith, 1973

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Tom Waits. “Night Hawks”. Los Angeles. 1975

Photo: Norman Seeff

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So i've been listening to the over the garden wall soundtrack a lot (obviously....its October) and I haven't listened in a while.....anyway I discovered on track sounds EXTREMELY SUSPICIOUSLY like a particular song....specifically November from the Black Rider (a musical by Tom Waits).

This put me down a rabbit hole thinking about the similarities between the two; deals with the devil, a woodsmen with a lost daughter, being lost in the woods, etc. Obviously OTGW is its own thing but I do have to wonder how much of an inspiration was the black rider in some of the aspects of OTGW? The music, obviously....but quite possibly some of the plot elements as well.

a LOT of music sounds like the black rider

The opening of this song sounds SO MUCH like the Black Box music theme

And then of course you have.....

Which sounds SO much like november. Uncannily so, down to the orchestrations. (The journey begins track also sounds a lot like November.....it's definitely a motif they use a lot)

(and the stage version....for good measure)

Obviously, a more trained ear might find more similarities. There a song "The Briar and the Rose" in the Black Rider thats sort of reminiscent of Like Ships, but I'm only posting the VERY obvious tracks. I really want to ask Patrick McHale if the Black Rider was a big inspiration, if he's ever seen the show, etc. Because I think musically it obviously IS a big inspiration, and story wise it seems to be in some way too. Hope y'all find this interesting and a new insight into Over the Garden Wall!

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I see it too…

Looney Tunes Backgrounds

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“Definitely part of the original idea was to do something somewhere between surreal and rural,” Waits said in a statement. “We call it surrural. That’s what these songs are: surrural. There’s an element of something old about them, and yet it’s kind of disorienting….”

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New Mule Conversation out now (With interviews about the songs)

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In celebration of Mule Variations' and ANTI- Records' 25th Anniversary, a previously unheard rendition of the song “Get Behind The Mule” will be released on August 9th.

In this alternate take of the album's iconic track, Waits' gospel moans resonate with raw emotion, accompanied only by a gritty Wurlitzer. This stripped-down rendition amplifies the dark narrative of murder and perseverance, with the lyrics even slightly altered, rendering it with an even starker intensity than the original LP version.