# Tom Waits fans **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 13, 2016, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-waits-fans/743060 "2016-01-13T19:46:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-waits-fans/743060/21 "2016-01-14T17:53:58Z")
Songs: Telephone Call From Istanbul - mmmmmm, Marc Ribot guitar solo Innocent When You Dream Yesterday is Here Clap Hands Way Down in the Hole Album: Big Time (yep, total cop-out, don’t care. If a song appears on it, it’s better than the studio version, IMHO) My favorite quote that may or may not have been said by Tom Waits: [QUOTE=Maybe Tom Waits, maybe not] “And then there’s this guy named Bob Log, you ever heard of him? He’s this little kid — nobody ever knows how old he is — wears a motorcycle helmet and he has a microphone inside of it and he puts the glass over the front so you can’t see his face, and plays slide guitar. It’s just the loudest strangest stuff you’ve ever heard. You don’t understand one word he’s saying. I like people who glue macaroni on to a piece of cardboard and paint it gold. That’s what I aspire to basically.” [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-waits-fans/743060/22 "2016-01-14T19:19:29Z")
_Well ya play that tarantella all the dogs’ll start to roar The boys all go to hell and then the Cubans hit the floor They drive along that pipeline, they tango till they’re sore They take apart their nightmares and they leave 'em by the door_ ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-waits-fans/743060/23 "2016-01-14T19:56:59Z")
Just in terms of which songs pop into my head most often: 1. I’ll Shoot the Moon 2. Lucky Day 3. Mr. Siegel 4. Cold Water 5. Warm Beer and Cold Women Favorite Album: _Nighthawks at the Diner_ Most Important: I suppose you could say that _Sword Fish Trombones_ is a transitional album from his beatnik era to the kind of stuff he still does more than 20 years later, which I characterize as the Devil’s Jug Band. ---
**Author:** ![MickNickMaggies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/59ef9b/32.png) [@MickNickMaggies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MickNickMaggies)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-waits-fans/743060/24 "2016-01-14T20:09:12Z")
Never Let Go Cold, Cold Ground Ol 55 Picture in a Frame In the Neighborhood And I adore Alice. I just do. But trying to pick is like drowning kittens. So that’s today’s lot. Could be different tomorrow. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-waits-fans/743060/25 "2016-01-14T20:18:33Z")
While I like all of Waits, I’m not as big a fan of some of his over-produced earlier albums with strings. I prefer his later, less polished sounding music, which ironically is probably heavily produced to give it its raw sound. Another favorite: Going Out West ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-waits-fans/743060/26 "2016-01-14T20:24:00Z")
> [@Johnny\_Angel](#): > > the Devil’s Jug Band. I love this so much. ---
**Author:** ![ShadowFacts](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shadowfacts/32/2934_2.png) [@ShadowFacts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShadowFacts)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-waits-fans/743060/27 "2016-01-14T21:34:09Z")
Man, this is hard. For now, I’ll go with: 1. Tom Traubert’s Blues (I honestly don’t understand why this isn’t everyone’s favorite song from any artist ever, but I digress…) 2. Time 3. Down There by the Train 4. Fish & Bird 5. Step Right Up As you can tell. I’m a big fan of the ballads. I’m already kicking myself for leaving Burma Shave off the list, and Singapore, and Whistln’ Past the Graveyard and Mr. Siegal… ---
**Author:** ![B.Serum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/b.serum/32/14266_2.png) [@B.Serum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/B.Serum)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-waits-fans/743060/28 "2016-01-14T22:03:00Z")
Whittling it down to 5 songs is a cruel exercise in Sophie’s Choices and force me to make cuts between works of equally evocative quality and fall back to criteria no less arbitrary than how I happen to feel at this moment. I love both [Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxVo5mjK4eg) and [$29.00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkMx_OWRiHM) for their storytelling. [Shore Leave](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv8IM_-Bam0) is amazing not just for its storytelling but also because its exotic instrumentation paints the story with such exotic color. [Johnsburg, Illinois](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jvnm-iC6j8) is so tender and vulnerable and simple and honest stripped of all artifice. It’s 90 second brevity accomplishes all that a love song can do [Long Way Home](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdyscH9TsnA) is a latter-day masterpiece that evokes the push and pull between the comfort of home and a perpetual pull of wanderlust. Album-wise, I like _Swordfishtrombones_ because in addition to being smack dab in the middle of some of my favorite songwriting, it is a blend of his older traditional stuff with his more experimental stuff. Ask me again tomorrow and I’ll likely come up with an entirely different results. ---
**Author:** ![Totenfeier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@Totenfeier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Totenfeier)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-waits-fans/743060/29 "2016-01-15T12:30:30Z")
“It’s supposed to be hard. If it were easy everyone would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great.” -Tom Hanks, _A_ _League_ _of_ _Their_ _Own_. It killed me not to include Diamonds on my Windshield, Martha, Heart of Saturday Night, Small Change, Tom Traubert’s Blues, Burma Shave, Gin-Soaked Boy, Johnsburg, Illinois, Trouble’s Braids, Singapore, Clap Hands, Hang on St. Christopher, Innocent When You Dream (the song that sealed the deal for me), Come on Up to the House, Face to the Highway, Kiss Me… But hey - rules are rules. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-waits-fans/743060/30 "2016-01-15T13:18:37Z")
Johnsburg, Illinois Down There By The Train Never Let Go The Fall Of Troy Tom Traubert’s Blues Take It With Me Hang Down Your Head I could keep going! 🙂 Love me some Tom. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-waits-fans/743060/31 "2016-01-15T13:19:44Z")
Agh, I left out my absolute favourite song [Diamond In Your Mind](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSnghcGigzY) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-waits-fans/743060.md?page=1)