The first one is “Step Right Up” from “Small Change”. That’s what I remember seeing him play on SNL all those years ago. And the second one is (I think) “Better off without a Wife” from “Nighthawks at the Diner”.
Song lyrics + Google = easy results. The title is Step Right Up. It was originally on the album Small Change, and also appears on the collection Used Songs (which is how I know it).
Great!
Thanks muchly, sturmhauke!
While not often a fan of collections, I have to say that Used Songs is an absolutely perfect primer for those looking to get into some early to mid Tom Waits. There is not a clunker on that thing! I could (and do) listen to it over and over and over and …
That was a cover of a song by the eccentric (to put it kindly) singer-songwriter Daniel Johnston. It was also included on an album of covers of Johnston’s songs called The Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered.
For more on Johnston, read this or see this movie.
Back to Tom Waits: He’s definitely one of my favorites. I once heard “Blue Valentines” on the radio while driving through the northern Georgia countryside at 2 a.m. and nearly saw God.
Right after the release of Wicked Grin, John performed at a friend’s club in Pittsburgh. I got to meet the Hammonds. It was cool to talk with John as one Waits fan to another. He told me that as great as TW’s music is, he is even cooler in person.
As an aside, John recounted meeting Bob Dylan early in Dylan’s career, when Hammond’s father (John Senior) “discovered” Dylan.
Wow. What a family!
From http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4080202
Hmm, you might be ripe for conversion to The Tiger Lillies. If you haven’t heard them, I recommend starting with their album The Brothel to the Cemetery.
I don’t have much to add to the praise others have heaped on Waits. All I can say is that for 20 years now it is Tom Waits’ music that I’ve returned and returned to no matter where else my muscial tastes have led me. Johnsburg, Illinois may be my favourite song.
I know this is almost a zombie, but I have seen Woyzeck (Blood Money) and The Black Rider.
Both were very enjoyable if you like that kind of thing. But you have to like that kind of thing.
I think I wrote a post about going to see The Black Rider…let’s see…hmm looks like a single post about the play that spawned a whole other thread.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=373347&highlight=the+black+rider
Huge Tom Waits fan checking in. When my wife and I were dating, she couldn’t stand his voice and I said something like “well you better get used to it, you’re going to be hearing a lot of his music.” Now she has grown to appreciate him. Yesterday I was on a flight I listened to Waits the whole flight, from early stuff to his most recent album, just a mish-mash of Tom for the entire flight.
I think Rain Dogs is my favorite album, with Bone Machine a close second, but it’s all good.
Always keep a diamond in your mind. 
I’ve been a huge Waits fan for quite a few years now. Got his first album when I was in high school (probably based on a thread here on the Dope,) and loved it. I listened once to “Singapore” to sample how I might like his later years and didn’t really like it. Then when I was in college I bought all his albums and loved the hell out of them. I saw “The Black Rider” when it came to LA and thought that was awesome (that also turned me on to Mary Margaret O’Hara, who was in the play.)
I’d saw my favorite album is Swordfishtrombones, but it’s really so hard to choose.
When I told my girlfriend about this, she recommended that they call it Boner Machine. I love that girl.
I’ve never heard a Tom Waits album where I liked all of the music but he has had some great songs. My two favorites are “Jersey Girl” and “Blind Love.”
Thanks for linking to that thread - very interesting! As far as I am aware, no Waits show has ever been in the Boston area, so I’ve never had a real chance to see one. (And like yourself, I am a director, so I think I would be into it.) But I’ve always had ludicrous dreams of getting my hands on a script and staging one these shows myself. Ahhh, foolish dreams!
You all might be interested in this fascinating piece of obscure Waitsiana FROM 1978. The director won an Oscar for the technology used in this short, but nothing else came of it and the short faded quickly into obscurity until now.
The first time I was in my gf’s house, I started looking through her CDs while she got ready to go out. I came across her Waits section. . . they were all there! That’s when I knew it was love!
Actually, I knew it a few days prior, but that cemented things.
I found out about TW in an odd way. I used to be a huge collector of sheetmusic. I still have my collection but thanks to buying and playing all that I could get my hands on, I’ve got a better ear for picking out the music. Anyways, I kept seeing the two TW books (Anthology and Beautiful Maladies) at the local music shop. Being a little obsessive, I bought them sight unseen (or sound unheard as it were). I looked through the books and played them on the guitar and always meant to hear the real music but never did. Then came the beginning of Napster and my then-partner who had a T1 connection. I had the collection of TW for about a week before I ran out and bought all of the albums myself. I started chronologically with “Closing Time” and have been a fan since.
I remember loading up the CD changer and first hearing “Jockey Full of Bourbon” while cruising the wet Minneapolis pavement. That song was repeated for the rest of the drive.
I still haven’t been able to get into some of the more “sonic” experiments that rely more on atmosphere than ground. But I have to say that his wife Kathleen Brennan is the anti-Yoko in terms of influence. His music has grown stronger with her helping at the helm.
Wow, that is…quite something.
Exactly what, I don’t know.
I received several CDs of Dr. Demento shows that my friend made, and one of them had a segment on Tom. There was a short interview, followed by three songs that I can recall right now (Pasties and a G-string, The Cemetary Polka, and The Piano Has Been Drinking).