4. Song; Tom Traubert’s Blues. (4 sheets to the wind in Copenhagen)
Who’s to Blame; Tom Waits
Worst Lyric " It’s a battered old suitcase in a hotel someplace and
a wound that will never heel”
Chart Position; : A worldwide release would have been followed by
mass suicide so was never released
mass suicide so was never released
Heartbreak Rating 9/10 – With just the right amount of whiskey you might top yourself
Tom Waits has the unique ability to sound like someone who’s eaten a bucket of gravel, washed down by four bottles of Jack Daniels and smoked 400 Superkings on the side to produce his distinctive vocals.
Try 14 days of yellow-pack Vodka and swallow a bucket of coal and you might come close to replicating the sound. Of course you’ll be doing that from a coffin but we’ve all got to go sometime. It this distinctive sound and a song boarding on all hope for humanity lost that puts Tom Waits, Tom Trauberts Blues in this chart.
It kills me having it here as I adore the tune. We all like to wallow in our own filthy self-pity every now and then and this 7 minute opus allows us that pleasure.
Just make sure there’s strong bourbon in hand (and maybe some porn directly after to perk yourself up).
Waits himself was a heavy drinker, but often used it as inspiration for his music like this classic. Either that or he was a serious pisshead.
The story behind the “Four sheets to the wind in Copenhagen” sub-title came went Waits went on the lash with a Danish model for 72 hours whilst spending some time in Denmark, however the real story is attributed to when he went down and hung around on skid row in L.A. because he wanted to get stimulated for writing this material!
Take that Phil Collins!
No writing in a cosy studio about some bird that left you and selling a million copies on the back of it - our Tom took no prisoners. Astonishingly Waits kicked it with the down and outs of L.A. with only his wits and a bottle of rye for company. He socialized, talking about second hand clothing and the quality of rat in the sewers these days before coming home, throwing up and writing this classic. The lyrics came easy – practically every one of the misfortunate’s he’d met had been put there by a woman, proving yet again that there’s nothing in this entire world that will have you rocketing to the poor house, jail, suicide or skid row, more than a woman!.
Waits combined his haunting lyrics with Waltzing Matilda – a song which resonates everywhere around the globe and of course the unofficial anthem of Australia.
Right from the opening lyric “Wasted & wounded, it ain’t what the moon did. I got what I’ve paid for now” you know this has bad news written all over it and the subsequent half a dozen verses won’t be brightening the situation anytime soon.
But what great lyrical content.
“Old Bushmills I staggered, you buried the dagger
And I’m down on my knees tonight
By the time Tom’s with “a battered old suitcase , in a hotel some place and a wound that will never heal” you’ve already played Russian Roulette and still not come across the chamber with the bullet but you know the sweet release of death might just come before Tom says
“Goodnight to the street sweepers, night watchmen,
flame-keepers an goodnight Mathilda too.
By which point you’re a broken man in a quivering wreck...or a heartless bastard!
This is a song to listen to in the bar with a bottle of scotch, packet of cigs and a gun. Then let nature take its course. On the other hand if you’ve been plagued by your woman who’s run off with the milkman (not our one, you wouldn’t put him out for the rob) and left you with memories (and 47 bills) then the right amount of whiskey might just break your heart.
Useless Trivia No; 462
Waltzing Matilda is an old Australian bush song about a swagman camping around a billabong, who captures a sheep and eats it. It turns out the sheep belonged to someone, who brings the police to arrest the swagman. The swagman fearful of being caught drowns himself in the billabong to avoid being captured.
Not give himself up, take his punishment of try pay back any fine...no...killed himself. Christ you gotta wonder what the punishment was for munching on a bit of mutton back in the day!
No comments:
Post a Comment