Bands that changed my life part 8 (in no particular order): Tom Waits. Tom Waits first made me realise that lyrics can actually be poetry. I’ve always wanted to do a Poetry in Music anthology, which would include Dylan, Bowie, The White Stripes (Dead Leaves, for instance), Tull (Fire at Midnight, for instance), King Crimson and plenty more.

 

But Tom Waits just takes the biscuit. I think if Charles Bukowski (the supreme poet and inspiration for the movie ‘Barfly’) could play the piano, he would actually be Tom Waits. And if Tom Waits had been in the postal service and never learned to play an instrument, he would be Charles Bukowski.

Maybe they're incarnations of the same soul, with an overlapping timeline.

 

AS THE POEMS GO

as the poems go into the thousands you

realize that you've created very

little.

it comes down to the rain, the sunlight,

the traffic, the nights and the days of the

years, the faces.

leaving this will be easier than living

it, typing one more line now as

a man plays a piano through the radio,

the best writers have said very

little

and the worst,

far too much.

 

FRANK’S WILD YEARS

Well Frank settled down in the Valley

And he hung his wild years

On a nail that he drove through

His wife's forehead

He sold used office furniture

Out there on San Fernando Road

And assumed a $30,000 loan

At 15¼% and put a down payment

On a little two bedroom place

His wife was a spent piece of used jet trash

Made good bloody marys

Kept her mouth shut most of the time

Had a little Chihuahua named Carlos

That had some kind of skin disease

And was totally blind. They had a

Thoroughly modern kitchen

Self-cleaning oven (the whole bit)

Frank drove a little sedan

They were so happy

One night Frank was on his way home

From work, stopped at the liquor store

Picked up a couple Mickey's Big Mouths

Drank 'em in the car on his way

To the Shell station, he got a gallon of

Gas in a can, drove home, doused

Everything in the house, torched it

Parked across the street, laughing

Watching it burn, all Halloween

Orange and chimney red then

Frank put on a top forty station

Got on the Hollywood Freeway

Headed north

Never could stand that dog