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Here’s a Tom Waits video featuring Margrite-esque imagery and anti-Luce-ian-Time Magazine-style-war-mayhem-chaos-bankster-commercialism. For me it’s an instant-classic Waits-bash of the Apocalyptic post-American Dream. Whatever it means for you is what is means for you. Only Tom knows for sure, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t give a shit about opinions in general. Selling albums and doing your art is all anyone usually needs or wants.
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When you’re wasted on “reality” on Friday night or Saturday night, or any other night on Earth, in a not-illegal-alcohol-induced haze of “I-don’t-give-a-shit-anymore” psycho-dialectician-delirium… Tom Waits is here to rescue us from the homo sapiens mind humping, brain damaged, sour-circe-de-soul-dumping, amnesiac perversion….. forget about it… fuck-it-in-the-mouth…. it ain’t worth it… blues-music-from-oblivion….holographic-hallucination-from-Hell.. You-liberation-music…..
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Video by Richard Borge
Lyrics and Music by Tom Waits:
Misery’s the River of the World.
Misery’s the River of the World.
The higher the monkey can climb the more he shows his tail.
Call no man happy ’til he dies.
There’s no milk at the bottom of the pail.
God builds a church.
The Devil builds a chapel like the thistles that are growing ’round the trunk of a tree.
All the good in the world you can put inside a thimble and still have room for you and me.
If there’s one thing you can say about Mankind: there’s nothing kind about Man.
You can drive out Nature with a pitch fork but it always comes roaring back again.
Misery’s the River of the World.
Misery’s the River of the World.
Misery’s the River of the World.
For want of a bird the sky was lost.
For want of a nail a shoe was lost.
For want of a life the knife was lost.
For want of a toy a child was lost.
Misery’s the River of the World.
Misery’s the River of the World.
Everybody Row! Everybody Row!
Misery’s the River of the World.
Misery’s the River of the World.
Everybody Row! Everybody Row!
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One of the reasons I love Tom Waits songs is that is his sacrilegious disagreement with reality. And, the mo-fo can really do music good!
Lyrics:
put a dead cat on the railraod tracks
when the wolf bains blooming by the tressel
and get the eyeball of a rooster
and the stones from a ditch
and wash em down with bilge water
and say you’ll never snitch
take the buttons from a yellow jacket
the feather from a buzzard
and the blood from the bounty hunters cold black heart
catch the tears of a window
in a thimble made ofglass
tell your mamaand your papa
theycan kiss your ass
poison all the water in the wishin’ well
and hang all them scarecrows from a sycamore tree
burn down all those honeymoons
put em in a pillow case
and wait next to the switch blades at the amusements park for me
strangle all the cristmas carols
scratch out all you prayers
tie em up with barbed wire
and push them down the stairs
and i’ll whittle you a pistol
for reepin’ nightmares off the blinds
those sunsabitches always seem to sneak up from behind
syphom all the gas from your daddys pickup truck
fill up jonnys t bird
i got a couple bucks
put on little perfume and ribbon in your hair
careful that you don’t wake up the hounds
tear a bolt of lightning
off the side of the sky
and throw in the cedar chest
if you want me to tell you why
bring the gear shift knob from a 49 mere
and lay down here beside me
let me hold you in the dirt
and you’ll tremble as the flames
tear the throat out of the night
sink your teeth into my shoulder
dig your nails into my back
tell that lettle girl to let go of my sleeve
you’ll be awoman when i catch you
as you faqll in love with me
then with my double barrel shotgun
and a whole box of shells
we’ll celebrate the 4 of july
we’ll do 100 mph
spendin’ someone elses dough
and we’ll drive all the way to reno
on the wrong side of the road.
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Whistling Past The Graveyard, by Tom Waits. (Covered by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins)
“Well I come in on a night train
with an arm full of box cars
on the wings of a magpie
cross a hooligan night
and I busted up a chifforobe
way out by the cocomo
cooked up a mess a mulligan
and got into a fight.
Whistlin’ past the graveyard
steppin’ on a crack
i’m a mean motherhubbard
papa one eyes jack.
You probably seen me sleepin’
out by the railroad tracks
go on and ask the prince of darkness
what about all thet smoke
come from the stack
sometimes I kill myself a jackel
suck out all the blood
steal myself a stationwagon
drivin’ through the mud
whistlin’ past the graveyard
steppin’ on a crack
I’m mean motherhubbard
papa one-eyed jack.
I know you seen my headlights
and the honkin’ of my horn
I’m callin’ out my bloodhounds
chase the devil through the corn
last night I chugged the mississippi
now that suckers dry as a bone
born in a taxi cab
I’m never comin’ home
whistlin’ past the graveyard
steppin’ on a crack
I’m mean motherhubbard
papa one eyed jack
myeyes have seen the glory
of the drainin’ og the ditch
Ionly come to baton rouge
to find myself a witch
I’m-mona snatch me up a
couple of em every time itrains
you see a locomotive
probably thinkin’ its a train
whistlin’ past the graveyard
steppin’ on a crack
I’m a mean motherhubbard
papa one eyed jack.
what you think is the sunshine
is just a twinkle in my eye
that ring around my fingers
just the 4th of july
when I get a little bit lonesome
and a tear falls from my check
theres gonna be an ocean in
the middle of the week.
whistlin’ past the graveyard
steppin’ on a crack
i’m mean motherhubbard
papa one eyed jack
I rode into town on a night train
with an arm full of box cars
on the wings of a magpie
cross a hooligan night
i’m-ona tear me off a rainbow
and wear it for a tie
I never told the truth
so I can never tell a lie
whistlin’ past the graveyard
steppin’ on a crack
I’m mean motherhubbard
papa one eyed jack.