0:00:02 > 0:00:04Iiiit's showtime!
0:00:08 > 0:00:10Tom does not want to be obvious.
0:00:10 > 0:00:12# Blow, wind blow... #
0:00:12 > 0:00:15And that's what lures us into his music.
0:00:15 > 0:00:17It's not simple. It's not complete.
0:00:17 > 0:00:19There's room for us to get lost in it.
0:00:22 > 0:00:25# Wasted and wounded
0:00:25 > 0:00:28# No, it ain't what the moon did... #
0:00:28 > 0:00:30- When he sings... - SHE GROWLS
0:00:30 > 0:00:35..he goes into that completely monstrous, demon voice.
0:00:35 > 0:00:37Like he's possessed.
0:00:37 > 0:00:40# Well, when I'm lying in my bed at night... #
0:00:40 > 0:00:42THROATY GROWL
0:00:42 > 0:00:45Nobody writes in so many characters so effectively
0:00:45 > 0:00:47and gets away with it.
0:00:48 > 0:00:50Can I get a hallelujah?
0:00:50 > 0:00:53# I'm going straight up to the top... #
0:00:53 > 0:00:56And somehow, he put all that under the banner Tom Waits.
0:00:56 > 0:01:00# Will I see you tonight
0:01:00 > 0:01:04# On a downtown train?
0:01:05 > 0:01:07# Where every night
0:01:07 > 0:01:12# Where every night, it's just the same... #
0:01:12 > 0:01:14How does a guy with a voice like that
0:01:14 > 0:01:16decide to be a singer and succeed?
0:01:16 > 0:01:20Well, it was a choice between entertainment and
0:01:20 > 0:01:22a career in air-conditioning and refrigeration.
0:01:22 > 0:01:24LAUGHTER
0:01:24 > 0:01:28I was just so impressed with his stage persona.
0:01:29 > 0:01:31Because that's what it was, really.
0:01:31 > 0:01:34How much of that is real? I don't know.
0:01:35 > 0:01:40They say that I have no hits, that I'm difficult to work with.
0:01:40 > 0:01:42And they say that like it's a bad thing.
0:01:42 > 0:01:44LAUGHTER
0:01:44 > 0:01:48# 16 shells from a thirty-aught-six... #
0:01:48 > 0:01:52It's experimental music, in the context of pop music.
0:01:52 > 0:01:56# And a black crow snuck through a hole in the sky...#
0:01:56 > 0:02:01I think I'm drawn as much to melody as I am to dissonance, you know?
0:02:01 > 0:02:04I'm always trying to cross the wires a little bit.
0:02:04 > 0:02:07SONG: Heartattack And Vine
0:02:07 > 0:02:14This programme contains some strong language
0:02:33 > 0:02:36Do you have any philosophies about writing?
0:02:36 > 0:02:38Yeah, never sleep with a girl named Ruby
0:02:38 > 0:02:40and never play pool with a guy named Fats.
0:02:47 > 0:02:49I was born at a very young age,
0:02:49 > 0:02:52and I was born in the back seat of a yellow cab
0:02:52 > 0:02:55in Murphy Hospital parking lot.
0:02:55 > 0:02:58And it was kind of a Thunderbird moon
0:02:58 > 0:03:01that crawled across a muscatel sky there.
0:03:02 > 0:03:06So I decided what I was going to do very young.
0:03:16 > 0:03:19My father's a teacher.
0:03:19 > 0:03:21And my mother's also a teacher.
0:03:21 > 0:03:24They split up when I was about ten years old,
0:03:24 > 0:03:27and I kind became the man of the family, you know?
0:03:28 > 0:03:31When I was 14, I started working.
0:03:31 > 0:03:35When I left home, I got in a little trouble.
0:03:35 > 0:03:38Staying out after dark a lot.
0:03:38 > 0:03:40- What doing?- Huh?- What doing?
0:03:42 > 0:03:43Oh, you know.
0:03:47 > 0:03:49# I'm going to Californ'
0:03:52 > 0:03:55# I'm gon' live on Beverly Hill... #
0:04:04 > 0:04:07He's an extraordinary painter of pictures,
0:04:07 > 0:04:09as well as a teller of stories.
0:04:09 > 0:04:11He's very focused on Los Angeles.
0:04:11 > 0:04:15That's the kind of city that he's trying to make sense of.
0:04:19 > 0:04:22# Well, you gassed her up
0:04:22 > 0:04:25# Behind the wheel
0:04:25 > 0:04:27# With your arm around your sweet one
0:04:27 > 0:04:29# In your Oldsmobile
0:04:29 > 0:04:32# Barrelling down the boulevard
0:04:32 > 0:04:36# You're looking for the heart of Saturday night... #
0:04:38 > 0:04:40On the one hand, you could listen to it,
0:04:40 > 0:04:43it sounds like a guy talking about,
0:04:43 > 0:04:44"Hey, it's Saturday night,
0:04:44 > 0:04:46"let's go out and find some fun,"
0:04:46 > 0:04:47you know, kind of thing.
0:04:49 > 0:04:54But then, as Tom Waits always manages so brilliantly to do,
0:04:54 > 0:04:57he's uncovering other layers there.
0:05:00 > 0:05:03There is a romance to it
0:05:03 > 0:05:06and you don't know with Tom exactly whether
0:05:06 > 0:05:09it's the night he has a romance with,
0:05:09 > 0:05:11or whether it's a pretty girl.
0:05:11 > 0:05:13You just don't know with Tom.
0:05:13 > 0:05:17# You're looking for the heart of Saturday night
0:05:20 > 0:05:25# Tell me, is it the crackle of pool balls, neon buzzing...? #
0:05:25 > 0:05:28Loneliness is so much at the heart of so much of his music,
0:05:28 > 0:05:31it's just a longing for something.
0:05:31 > 0:05:36And being alone and how do you live with that? How do you deal with it?
0:05:36 > 0:05:39# Magic of the melancholy tear in your eye... #
0:05:41 > 0:05:46I think Waits is a poet of doomed LA no-hopers.
0:05:46 > 0:05:50People who are almost like characters from a noir novel,
0:05:50 > 0:05:54they're getting their last chance at love.
0:05:54 > 0:05:57# Stumbling onto the heart of Saturday night. #
0:06:00 > 0:06:04I mean, everybody needs a different climate in order to create.
0:06:04 > 0:06:08Mine usually comes if I'm talking to somebody in a bar or something.
0:06:08 > 0:06:13I get a couple of lagers and try to stretch out a conversation,
0:06:13 > 0:06:17I try to open things up, and then I try to remember it all later,
0:06:17 > 0:06:19and then write it down, you know?
0:06:25 > 0:06:29We got in a taxi, and he started talking to a taxi driver right away,
0:06:29 > 0:06:32like he was his next-door neighbour or something.
0:06:32 > 0:06:35By the time we got out of the taxi, he knew all about the guy.
0:06:35 > 0:06:37Whatever was in the street,
0:06:37 > 0:06:40Tom scooped it up and made something out of it.
0:06:43 > 0:06:48We all fancied ourselves as these characters that Tom was conjuring.
0:06:49 > 0:06:50Well, who isn't looking for
0:06:50 > 0:06:54cinematic romance in their everyday lives?
0:06:55 > 0:06:59There's a real romance to hanging around these places.
0:07:02 > 0:07:04It's where you go to meet girls,
0:07:04 > 0:07:08but it's also where you go to invent yourself in strangers' eyes.
0:07:14 > 0:07:18And his right hand would say, come on, boy, go down, across the ground.
0:07:18 > 0:07:20Go moan for man. Go moan.
0:07:20 > 0:07:22Go groan.
0:07:22 > 0:07:23Go groan alone.
0:07:23 > 0:07:25Go roll your bones alone.
0:07:25 > 0:07:28Go down and be little beneath my sight.
0:07:29 > 0:07:32Go down and be the minutest seed in the pod.
0:07:32 > 0:07:35Go down, go down, die hence.
0:07:35 > 0:07:37Have this world report you well and truly.
0:07:37 > 0:07:39Yeah.
0:07:39 > 0:07:45We're about to talk about Jack Kerouac here.
0:07:47 > 0:07:53I started reading Jack Kerouac when I was still in high school.
0:07:53 > 0:07:54And...
0:07:56 > 0:07:59So, I guess that's over ten years ago.
0:08:00 > 0:08:05I think he understood the same things that Kerouac
0:08:05 > 0:08:10and writers of his generation were talking about.
0:08:10 > 0:08:14I see Tom Waits as being able to visit that.
0:08:15 > 0:08:18So I guess I will always...
0:08:21 > 0:08:27..owe a debt to Jack Kerouac for finally opening my eyes.
0:08:30 > 0:08:34And making me feel like it's all right to sleep till
0:08:34 > 0:08:37four in the afternoon and go out all night and...
0:08:41 > 0:08:43..and take a good, hard look
0:08:43 > 0:08:47at the underbelly of the bowels of a major urban centre.
0:08:47 > 0:08:49LIVELY JAZZ SAX
0:08:51 > 0:08:53Tom loves tenor saxophones.
0:08:53 > 0:08:58That was the sound of loneliness, and that was the sound of love.
0:08:58 > 0:09:01I think that's one of the things that drew us together,
0:09:01 > 0:09:03that I'd made a lot of jazz records,
0:09:03 > 0:09:07and improvisation was very much at the meat of those things.
0:09:07 > 0:09:10We talked a lot about that kind of music,
0:09:10 > 0:09:13where it just comes right out from your gut.
0:09:13 > 0:09:16# Bwaaaah
0:09:16 > 0:09:18# Baduh
0:09:19 > 0:09:20# It's all about the kind of cat
0:09:20 > 0:09:23# Who would sell you a rat's asshole for a wedding ring
0:09:25 > 0:09:29# All you got to do is bend right over and step right up
0:09:29 > 0:09:31# Step right up, step right up...
0:09:31 > 0:09:33Step Right Up is kind of a Kerouac-esque
0:09:33 > 0:09:35stream of consciousness,
0:09:35 > 0:09:37in the way that Kerouac wrote on typewriter,
0:09:37 > 0:09:39he had a huge reel of paper, so he could just continue
0:09:39 > 0:09:41throughout the night,
0:09:41 > 0:09:45and whatever came out of his head made it onto the paper.
0:09:45 > 0:09:47# How about perfume? We got perfume
0:09:47 > 0:09:50# How about an engagement ring?
0:09:50 > 0:09:52# Something for the little lady, something for the little lady
0:09:52 > 0:09:54# Something for the little lady... #
0:09:54 > 0:09:56You can tell he's written it quite spontaneously.
0:09:56 > 0:10:00Having fun with the idea of a carpetbagger.
0:10:00 > 0:10:04A door-to-door salesman, or somebody at a carnival.
0:10:04 > 0:10:07# Go, and now the penny go, and now the penny go, and now the penny go
0:10:07 > 0:10:09# And now the penny go and not a penny less
0:10:09 > 0:10:12# 50% off original retail price... #
0:10:12 > 0:10:14All these brilliant phrases from,
0:10:14 > 0:10:17not even modern advertising parlance,
0:10:17 > 0:10:20it's '40s and '50s advertising parlance.
0:10:20 > 0:10:22# Bawah! #
0:10:22 > 0:10:25APPLAUSE
0:10:25 > 0:10:29I never enjoyed reading in school until I got out of school,
0:10:29 > 0:10:31and then I really, you know,
0:10:31 > 0:10:35started hanging out in used bookstores and stuff, you know?
0:10:35 > 0:10:37What kind of things do you read?
0:10:37 > 0:10:39You know, I like...
0:10:39 > 0:10:41I like detective novels and stuff.
0:10:50 > 0:10:53Oh, my, my, my...
0:10:53 > 0:10:56The prostitutes and the pimps and the different, odd characters
0:10:56 > 0:10:59who inhabit all these songs and the world that
0:10:59 > 0:11:02Tom Waits has created, there's a sort of tenderness,
0:11:02 > 0:11:06but there's a slight edginess and a danger as well, at the same time.
0:11:06 > 0:11:08# Costello was the champion
0:11:08 > 0:11:10# At the St Moritz Hotel
0:11:10 > 0:11:12# The best this side of Fairfax
0:11:12 > 0:11:14# Reliable sources tell
0:11:14 > 0:11:16# Now, his reputation is at large
0:11:16 > 0:11:19# He's down at Ben Frank's every day
0:11:19 > 0:11:22# Drinking coffee, waiting for the one that got away... #
0:11:22 > 0:11:25He's got such a flair for the theatrical.
0:11:25 > 0:11:29With his love of cinema and his love of noir.
0:11:29 > 0:11:31He has fun with the whole thing.
0:11:31 > 0:11:33Achoo.
0:11:34 > 0:11:35SNIFFS
0:11:35 > 0:11:38Ah, what the hell? You win some, you lose some.
0:11:39 > 0:11:43You're searching for something, and you're fearless and
0:11:43 > 0:11:46willing to experiment, sometimes you find yourself going back in time
0:11:46 > 0:11:50just to locate something that you can't find in the future.
0:11:50 > 0:11:53You know, you're trying to discover that which
0:11:53 > 0:11:55has been overlooked by moving forward.
0:11:57 > 0:12:01# I once wrote about a small little town in northern California
0:12:06 > 0:12:08# All about hot summer nights
0:12:11 > 0:12:16# And as the trucks roll by with about a forest of trees... #
0:12:16 > 0:12:20MAKES THE SOUND OF A CAR DRIVING PAST
0:12:24 > 0:12:26I mean, a song like Burma Shave,
0:12:26 > 0:12:28really has got a sense of the Badlands about it.
0:12:28 > 0:12:30It's a doomed relationship.
0:12:30 > 0:12:32It's a couple on the lam.
0:12:32 > 0:12:34It's a beautiful narrative.
0:12:34 > 0:12:37# And they say dreams are growing wild
0:12:37 > 0:12:40# Every night
0:12:40 > 0:12:44# Just this side of a little town I know
0:12:44 > 0:12:45# Called Burma Shave... #
0:12:45 > 0:12:48Burma Shave, of course, is also an advert. It's the American dream.
0:12:48 > 0:12:51There's something out there that you need, you require,
0:12:51 > 0:12:53that will change your life for the better.
0:12:53 > 0:12:54You need Burma Shave.
0:12:54 > 0:12:56Why Burma Shave?
0:12:56 > 0:12:59He's very into using advertising as metaphors
0:12:59 > 0:13:01for the dreams that these people have.
0:13:01 > 0:13:03And a cheap, accessible way, they think,
0:13:03 > 0:13:05of getting hold of their dreams.
0:13:10 > 0:13:12# She sends me
0:13:13 > 0:13:19# Blue Valentines
0:13:19 > 0:13:23# All the way from Philadelphia... #
0:13:24 > 0:13:26He was just a man out of time, clearly.
0:13:26 > 0:13:29And he knew it, I think, obviously!
0:13:29 > 0:13:33And he played with it.
0:13:33 > 0:13:38The craft and young genius of someone who was coming up with
0:13:38 > 0:13:41lyrics that were on a par with someone like Johnny Mercer
0:13:41 > 0:13:49or Hoagy Carmichael or any of the songwriters that had been
0:13:49 > 0:13:52the backbone of the classic American Songbook.
0:13:56 > 0:14:00# That's why I'm always on the run
0:14:00 > 0:14:02# It's why I changed my name... #
0:14:04 > 0:14:07The great American Songbook is something that either
0:14:07 > 0:14:10gets to you or it doesn't. And it got to Tom.
0:14:11 > 0:14:14Because there was a lot of intelligence
0:14:14 > 0:14:16in the lyrics of those songs.
0:14:17 > 0:14:20I would go to my friends' houses, and go into the den
0:14:20 > 0:14:24with their dads and find out what they were listening to.
0:14:24 > 0:14:26I couldn't wait to be an old man.
0:14:26 > 0:14:30I was about 13, I didn't really identify with the music of my
0:14:30 > 0:14:32own generation, but I seemed to like the old stuff.
0:14:32 > 0:14:36Cole Porter, Gershwin, Frank Sinatra.
0:14:36 > 0:14:41- SINATRA:- # What is this thing
0:14:41 > 0:14:47# Called love? #
0:14:47 > 0:14:52Tom had that wonderful talent to absorb all these things that he saw.
0:14:52 > 0:14:54It's like storing up paints
0:14:54 > 0:14:57and being able to dig out the colours you want
0:14:57 > 0:14:59when you get ready to paint a picture.
0:14:59 > 0:15:01This is what he does, he paints pictures.
0:15:01 > 0:15:05I grew up on a street called Kentucky Avenue.
0:15:17 > 0:15:21I was born at a very young age.
0:15:22 > 0:15:23And...
0:15:26 > 0:15:30When I was about five years old,
0:15:30 > 0:15:34I used to walk down Kentucky Avenue collecting cigarette butts.
0:15:39 > 0:15:40And I finally got me a paper route.
0:15:44 > 0:15:47I used to get up at one o'clock in the morning
0:15:47 > 0:15:51so I could deliver my papers and still have time to break the law.
0:15:54 > 0:15:57When I first heard that song, it broke my heart.
0:15:57 > 0:16:00When he talks about taking the spokes from the wheelchair,
0:16:00 > 0:16:03of the kid he's with, and putting them on his shoulders
0:16:03 > 0:16:05as if they're wings.
0:16:05 > 0:16:10# I'll take the spokes from your wheelchair
0:16:10 > 0:16:14# And a magpie's wings
0:16:14 > 0:16:21# And I'll tie them to your shoulders and your feet
0:16:21 > 0:16:26# And I'll steal a hacksaw from my dad
0:16:26 > 0:16:29# And cut the braces off your legs
0:16:30 > 0:16:34# And we'll bury them tonight
0:16:34 > 0:16:38# Out in the cornfield... #
0:16:38 > 0:16:43What other songwriter would include the image of cutting off the
0:16:43 > 0:16:47braces on a polio victim?
0:16:47 > 0:16:51# Slide all the way down the drain
0:16:54 > 0:17:00# To New Orleans in the fall. #
0:17:00 > 0:17:04The sad, sweeping, melancholy songs are probably the real Tom Waits.
0:17:04 > 0:17:08We get an insight into his actual, real personality.
0:17:22 > 0:17:27At a time that Tom was busy writing songs about LA,
0:17:27 > 0:17:33if you wanted to find it, you could find some really sleazy parts of LA.
0:17:33 > 0:17:35And the people that went with it.
0:17:39 > 0:17:42And Tom often went looking for it.
0:17:42 > 0:17:46Many times, he went looking for it with a bottle of booze in his hand.
0:17:48 > 0:17:52The biggest enemy of this kind of world is the sunrise.
0:17:52 > 0:17:56It's like the world outside of morals and normality.
0:17:57 > 0:18:00So the women he portrays are from that world.
0:18:03 > 0:18:07The album cover of Small Change depicts this,
0:18:07 > 0:18:12what looks to me like the back stage of a strip joint.
0:18:14 > 0:18:16These are people who are working,
0:18:16 > 0:18:19trying their best to get through life, doing what they have to do.
0:18:19 > 0:18:21He's not judging.
0:18:45 > 0:18:48- REPORTER:- Waits and all his worldly goods have been crammed into
0:18:48 > 0:18:52two rooms in a fairly seedy motel in Hollywood's red light district.
0:18:52 > 0:18:54It's ankle-deep in clutter.
0:18:54 > 0:18:56Waits says, if they clean up around him,
0:18:56 > 0:18:58they might just clean out his head as well.
0:18:58 > 0:19:04Your songs are about waitresses and bartenders and bums.
0:19:05 > 0:19:08Why do you celebrate these people in song?
0:19:08 > 0:19:11For the same reason that a lawyer hangs out in a pool room,
0:19:11 > 0:19:15or you find a lot of photographers at a wedding, you know?
0:19:16 > 0:19:21Because I find a lot of ideas here,
0:19:21 > 0:19:24and there's a lot of life going on around here.
0:19:24 > 0:19:28And so I'm bit of a private investigator.
0:19:39 > 0:19:42Yeah, my dad spent a lot of time in the bars.
0:19:42 > 0:19:46My dad drank in the afternoon in really dark bars.
0:19:46 > 0:19:49So I was drawn to dark places.
0:19:58 > 0:20:01The barfly was something that very much seeped
0:20:01 > 0:20:03into Tom Waits' character.
0:20:03 > 0:20:05So he became the crumpled suit, you know,
0:20:05 > 0:20:09going to bed in the suit, shaving two days before the performance,
0:20:09 > 0:20:11so you've got a five o'clock shadow.
0:20:11 > 0:20:14He created a character that people could recognise.
0:20:14 > 0:20:16But he made it his own.
0:20:18 > 0:20:20Before, I was being a character in my own stories.
0:20:20 > 0:20:25I remain in all of the stories.
0:20:25 > 0:20:29But, at the same time, I think the creative process is a combination
0:20:29 > 0:20:35of imagination and experience and memories and, you know...
0:20:35 > 0:20:41So, by the time the story's finished or the song's finished,
0:20:41 > 0:20:46it may or may not resemble where the story came from.
0:20:50 > 0:20:53He said, "I went down to Skid Row,
0:20:53 > 0:20:59"I drank a bottle of whisky, threw up and wrote Tom Traubert's Blues."
0:20:59 > 0:21:01That's the way Tom operated.
0:21:01 > 0:21:04# Wasted and wounded
0:21:04 > 0:21:09# No, it ain't what the moon did
0:21:09 > 0:21:13# Because I got what I paid for, no... #
0:21:13 > 0:21:17Wasted and wounded, it ain't what the moon did, I got what I paid for.
0:21:17 > 0:21:20It's just an incredible way to start a record.
0:21:20 > 0:21:23# Hey, Frank, can I borrow...? #
0:21:23 > 0:21:27Because he sounds completely broken in that song, to me.
0:21:27 > 0:21:31But it's so uplifting at the same time.
0:21:31 > 0:21:33# To go
0:21:33 > 0:21:38# Waltzing Matilda
0:21:38 > 0:21:42# Waltzing Matilda
0:21:42 > 0:21:50# You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me... #
0:21:50 > 0:21:53Every song is like a little creation of the moment.
0:21:53 > 0:21:55Somewhere, at four o'clock in the morning,
0:21:55 > 0:22:00in between four bottles of whisky and three packs of Gauloises.
0:22:01 > 0:22:07# I'm tired of all these soldiers here... #
0:22:07 > 0:22:09It's trying to find some truth.
0:22:09 > 0:22:12And the only way he can find it is to go deep
0:22:12 > 0:22:15and kind of abase yourself.
0:22:15 > 0:22:17And then you find out what's there.
0:22:21 > 0:22:23To me, he's a mixture
0:22:23 > 0:22:26of Satchmo Armstrong and Humphrey Bogart.
0:22:26 > 0:22:30So would you welcome the curious and the very talented, Tom Waits.
0:22:30 > 0:22:32APPLAUSE
0:22:47 > 0:22:48How are you, Tom?
0:22:48 > 0:22:51Oh, I'm better than nothing.
0:22:51 > 0:22:53You got an ashtray there?
0:22:53 > 0:22:55When he was first going on some of the talk shows,
0:22:55 > 0:22:59that's when you could smoke on TV shows, and he was smoking.
0:22:59 > 0:23:03At 29, you write about all these things that happened to you,
0:23:03 > 0:23:05this sort of a lowlife thing that happens, you know?
0:23:05 > 0:23:08- There's so much...- You read that right off the page there.
0:23:08 > 0:23:09- No, I didn't!- Yeah, you did!
0:23:09 > 0:23:12- It says lowlife, right there.- Where?
0:23:12 > 0:23:16I was just so impressed with his stage persona.
0:23:16 > 0:23:18Because that's what it was, really.
0:23:18 > 0:23:24I mean, how much of that is real, I don't know.
0:23:24 > 0:23:26Do you worry about achievement?
0:23:26 > 0:23:30No, I worry about a lot of things, but I don't worry about achievement.
0:23:30 > 0:23:34I worry, primarily, about whether there are nightclubs in heaven.
0:23:34 > 0:23:37LAUGHTER
0:23:37 > 0:23:41In some ways, he was not that person at all.
0:23:41 > 0:23:45Tom came to dinner at my house lots of times.
0:23:45 > 0:23:47And he was just, you know,
0:23:47 > 0:23:51an ordinary guy with a great sense of humour and a gruff voice.
0:23:51 > 0:23:55- Put a little hair on your chest. - He's coming along then, huh?
0:23:55 > 0:23:57Oh, you count on it, man.
0:23:57 > 0:24:00Well, if he's bringing friends then, you fucking queers...
0:24:00 > 0:24:02Watch your language over there, watch it.
0:24:02 > 0:24:05Break it down, break it down, cool it off.
0:24:12 > 0:24:13I'm writing now.
0:24:13 > 0:24:18I'm writing an album, Tales Of Woe From Heartattack And Vine.
0:24:18 > 0:24:21It's going to sound a little more like James Brown and the
0:24:21 > 0:24:24Famous Flames, that kind of...
0:24:24 > 0:24:25feel to it.
0:24:26 > 0:24:29I got to shake this whole wino image, you know?
0:24:29 > 0:24:34This is a little song dealing with urban problems.
0:24:34 > 0:24:37Heartattack And Vine, this mythical street corner,
0:24:37 > 0:24:40where there's a bar or a diner.
0:24:40 > 0:24:44It's the very inkiest his writing gets.
0:24:44 > 0:24:46And the most frightening. But it's...
0:24:47 > 0:24:49..ridiculously cool.
0:24:54 > 0:24:58# Liar, liar, with your pants on fire
0:24:59 > 0:25:02# White spades hanging on a telephone wire
0:25:04 > 0:25:09# Well, gamblers re-evaluate along a dotted line
0:25:09 > 0:25:14# You'll never recognise yourself on Heartattack And Vine... #
0:25:14 > 0:25:16He uses his voice as a gorgeous instrument
0:25:16 > 0:25:19for getting across the meaning of these lines.
0:25:19 > 0:25:22And, you know, the gravel in his voice is the gravel these
0:25:22 > 0:25:24people are having to walk along.
0:25:25 > 0:25:28- When he sings... - SHE GROWLS
0:25:28 > 0:25:33..he goes into that completely monstrous, demon voice.
0:25:33 > 0:25:36Like he's possessed.
0:25:37 > 0:25:39I'm the gravelly voiced singer.
0:25:39 > 0:25:42Invariably, that's how I'm referred to.
0:25:42 > 0:25:47Gargling with various cleaning products, that type of thing.
0:25:47 > 0:25:49They're trying to be funny.
0:25:49 > 0:25:50I'm OK with that.
0:25:52 > 0:25:53My wife said,
0:25:53 > 0:25:57"I've never really listened to him, because he scares me." You know?
0:25:57 > 0:26:01And I said, "What if I quote the lyrics while the song's on?"
0:26:01 > 0:26:04And now she's a huge fan, because she loves great words.
0:26:04 > 0:26:09# Boney's high on China white Shorty found a punk
0:26:09 > 0:26:11# Don't you know there ain't no devil?
0:26:11 > 0:26:14# There's just God when he's drunk... #
0:26:14 > 0:26:17You know that ain't no devil, it's just God when he's drunk.
0:26:17 > 0:26:19It's fantastic.
0:26:19 > 0:26:21It's the duality of man,
0:26:21 > 0:26:23it's the duplicity of the character in the song.
0:26:23 > 0:26:27And it's also, we're all capable of being great,
0:26:27 > 0:26:29we're all capable of being truly awful.
0:26:55 > 0:26:57So let me, let me start moving...
0:26:57 > 0:27:00Yeah, you count out a drunken three...
0:27:00 > 0:27:01Yeah.
0:27:03 > 0:27:05It was kind of a step backwards for me, a little bit, because I
0:27:05 > 0:27:13had already tried to break out of my mortuary piano and cocktail hairdos.
0:27:13 > 0:27:16That whole session with liquor
0:27:16 > 0:27:21and my own perverted enjoyment of all that.
0:27:32 > 0:27:36He said, "I was sitting there playing the piano last night,
0:27:36 > 0:27:39"and there was a knock on the door, and the prettiest girl came in."
0:27:39 > 0:27:41And she said, "What are you doing here?"
0:27:41 > 0:27:47And he said, "I'm writing songs for One From The Heart, for Francis."
0:27:47 > 0:27:50And that was the beginning of that romance.
0:27:54 > 0:27:56And how did you meet this guy?
0:27:56 > 0:27:58- Accidentally.- Where?
0:27:59 > 0:28:03Actually, I was a nun, and he fell asleep in the church,
0:28:03 > 0:28:05and I woke him up.
0:28:05 > 0:28:06LAUGHTER
0:28:16 > 0:28:18Now, that's not true.
0:28:18 > 0:28:20It depends... No.
0:28:20 > 0:28:24We were both, I was working for Coppola Studios, Zoetrope Studios.
0:28:24 > 0:28:28And you saw him perform musically several times, presumably?
0:28:28 > 0:28:30- Never, never.- Never?
0:28:30 > 0:28:32Had no idea who or what he was.
0:28:32 > 0:28:34And, in fact, he frightened me.
0:28:36 > 0:28:40Tom was leading a very on-the-edge life.
0:28:40 > 0:28:43And Kathleen saved his life.
0:28:43 > 0:28:46Because she got him to stop drinking.
0:28:47 > 0:28:50I'm the other half of what I consider to be
0:28:50 > 0:28:53a really great songwriting team.
0:28:53 > 0:28:56She has dreams like Hieronymous Bosch
0:28:56 > 0:28:57She writes more from her dreams,
0:28:57 > 0:28:59I write more from the world or from the newspaper.
0:28:59 > 0:29:01And somehow it all works together.
0:29:17 > 0:29:21# I plugged 16 shells from a thirty-aught-six... #
0:29:21 > 0:29:24A swordfishtrombone, what the hell is that?
0:29:24 > 0:29:26Is it a trombone with a swordfish attached?
0:29:26 > 0:29:28I've got absolutely no idea, but it gives you an image.
0:29:28 > 0:29:32It's going to be sharp, edgy, brassy and strange.
0:29:32 > 0:29:35And it's going to really screw up your head for a while.
0:29:38 > 0:29:43# And I made me a ladder from a pawnshop marimba... #
0:29:43 > 0:29:46When you don't realise where it comes in the lineage,
0:29:46 > 0:29:49Swordfishtrombones is even more spectacular.
0:29:49 > 0:29:52If you just heard it and didn't know anything else about what had
0:29:52 > 0:29:54happened before with Tom Waits' music,
0:29:54 > 0:29:55you'd know it was a great record.
0:29:55 > 0:29:58But that it came out of nowhere, in the way that it does.
0:29:58 > 0:30:00It's so inventive.
0:30:00 > 0:30:03# I'm gonna whittle you into kindling
0:30:03 > 0:30:08# 16 shells from a thirty-aught-six... #
0:30:08 > 0:30:11It's complete artistic reinvention.
0:30:12 > 0:30:15He sort of went from black-and-white film noir
0:30:15 > 0:30:18to some completely garish Technicolor.
0:30:18 > 0:30:22# 16 shells from a thirty-aught-six... #
0:30:29 > 0:30:33You know, he's having a lot of fun with this ragtag band,
0:30:33 > 0:30:36that sound like they're only just holding it together.
0:30:36 > 0:30:38And these almost stream of consciousness lyrics,
0:30:38 > 0:30:40and the howling, the howling blues voice.
0:30:40 > 0:30:44# Just gon'
0:30:44 > 0:30:48# Gon' drink... #
0:30:48 > 0:30:51The influence of Kathleen, his wife, she was a story analyst
0:30:51 > 0:30:55and a screenwriter. It brings a real cinematic quality to his music.
0:30:55 > 0:30:59There's something very theatrical about his instrumentation.
0:31:03 > 0:31:05It changed the way I hear music.
0:31:05 > 0:31:10Made me more rhythmic, more fearless, more percussive.
0:31:10 > 0:31:12The idea of, make your own instruments,
0:31:12 > 0:31:15you don't have to play that if you don't like it, make one yourself.
0:31:15 > 0:31:17Make one that sounds better.
0:31:17 > 0:31:21# In the neighbourhood
0:31:21 > 0:31:24# In the neighbourhood
0:31:24 > 0:31:31# In the neighbourhood... #
0:31:31 > 0:31:36He moved on from talking about everyday life and blue-collar
0:31:36 > 0:31:39nightlife to absolute madness and dementia, in a way.
0:31:41 > 0:31:46He sees the beauty in the freakish, and the outcasts and the outsiders.
0:31:46 > 0:31:49# Butch joined the Army, yeah
0:31:49 > 0:31:51# That's where he's been... #
0:31:51 > 0:31:55Suddenly, on Swordfishtrombones, within individual songs,
0:31:55 > 0:31:59he's jumping from a kind of an escaped criminal.
0:32:02 > 0:32:05But then suddenly, he's a leprechaun.
0:32:05 > 0:32:06OK, Tom.
0:32:12 > 0:32:15Some of the stuff's a little more exotic.
0:32:15 > 0:32:18I used a banjo, accordion, bass marimba.
0:32:19 > 0:32:23African squeeze drum, calliope, harmonium.
0:32:27 > 0:32:30One of the problems that a lot of musicians have is that their
0:32:30 > 0:32:34hands can get very used to playing certain instruments.
0:32:34 > 0:32:37So you're no longer, kind of, necessarily feeling,
0:32:37 > 0:32:39you're actually observing your hands doing this.
0:32:39 > 0:32:42Tom Waits became very aware of this, and with Swordfishtrombones,
0:32:42 > 0:32:45he actually said, I want to move away from that,
0:32:45 > 0:32:47and he started playing unusual instruments.
0:32:47 > 0:32:52He started to try to rediscover his spirit.
0:32:56 > 0:32:59Harry Partch was a composer.
0:33:01 > 0:33:03He used to make his own instruments.
0:33:03 > 0:33:06These instruments were amazing-looking.
0:33:06 > 0:33:09They looked like outer-space sculptures.
0:33:09 > 0:33:13And you can see how something like that would appeal to Tom Waits.
0:33:19 > 0:33:23In Shore Leave, you can hear a chair being dragged across the floor
0:33:23 > 0:33:25as an instrument, you know?
0:33:25 > 0:33:29And that's pretty amazing, that he did that.
0:33:29 > 0:33:32He probably heard it and went, "Hey, let's put that in a song."
0:33:32 > 0:33:35Eight o'clock, show's about to start, come on in.
0:33:37 > 0:33:40Shore Leave is a song, another one of those tied neatly with a bow.
0:33:40 > 0:33:43You have a character, you have a situation, he tells you
0:33:43 > 0:33:47exactly what you need to hear, right down to the tiniest detail.
0:33:47 > 0:33:51I think I could probably recite the whole song from the top.
0:33:51 > 0:33:53Do you want me to have a go?
0:33:55 > 0:33:58With bloodshot eyes and a purple heart
0:33:58 > 0:34:00I rolled down the National Stroll...
0:34:00 > 0:34:02I've jumped a load, haven't I?
0:34:02 > 0:34:05With bloodshot eyes and a purple heart...
0:34:05 > 0:34:10# With bloodshot eyes and a purple heart
0:34:10 > 0:34:14# I just rolled down the National Stroll... #
0:34:14 > 0:34:18I worked at a restaurant in a sailor town for
0:34:18 > 0:34:19a long time in National City.
0:34:21 > 0:34:26It was next to a tattoo parlour and a country-western dance hall.
0:34:27 > 0:34:31# And I sat down and wrote a letter to my wife
0:34:32 > 0:34:35# I said, Baby
0:34:35 > 0:34:40# I'm so far away from home... #
0:34:40 > 0:34:42And then it gets towards the end, and he says,
0:34:42 > 0:34:46"I wondered how the moon that shines down over this Chinatown fair
0:34:46 > 0:34:49"Could look down on Illinois and find you there."
0:34:50 > 0:34:54# And I wondered how that same moon outside
0:34:54 > 0:34:56# Over this Chinatown fair
0:34:56 > 0:34:58# Could look down on Illinois
0:34:58 > 0:35:00# And find you there... #
0:35:02 > 0:35:06An aching bit of classic, Waitsian romance at the end of this,
0:35:06 > 0:35:11sort of, portrait of a sailor on his shore leave.
0:35:23 > 0:35:26# Outside, another yellow moon
0:35:28 > 0:35:32# Has punched a hole in the night-time, yes
0:35:32 > 0:35:37# I climb through the window and down to the street
0:35:37 > 0:35:40# I'm shining like a new dime... #
0:35:40 > 0:35:44I feel that Rain Dogs was probably very much influenced by Tom,
0:35:44 > 0:35:48Kathleen and their kids living in New York City.
0:35:48 > 0:35:52New York is so concentrated, it's like in your face, nyah, nyah, nyah.
0:35:52 > 0:35:56# Will I see you tonight
0:35:56 > 0:35:59# On a downtown train...? #
0:35:59 > 0:36:02That had to be a huge influence on him, just being there.
0:36:02 > 0:36:04# All of my dreams just fall like rain
0:36:07 > 0:36:09# All on a downtown train. #
0:36:11 > 0:36:16In direct experience of anyone walking down the street in New York,
0:36:16 > 0:36:18you hear a lot of influences
0:36:18 > 0:36:23of different cultures, simultaneously.
0:36:23 > 0:36:26America's like the melting pot, but in Waits' work,
0:36:26 > 0:36:28it works more like a juxtaposition.
0:36:30 > 0:36:34I went to a rehearsal building on Times Square in New York,
0:36:34 > 0:36:39and you could hear every kind of music coming to you through
0:36:39 > 0:36:42the walls, through the windows, underneath the door.
0:36:42 > 0:36:47There were African bands, and you had comedians, and I think
0:36:47 > 0:36:52I just liked the whole melange of it, you know?
0:36:52 > 0:36:54The way it all kind of mixes together.
0:36:54 > 0:36:56I like hearing things incorrectly.
0:36:56 > 0:37:01I think that's how I get a lot of ideas, by mishearing something.
0:37:01 > 0:37:03I was just messing around, we were just jamming,
0:37:03 > 0:37:05and I just stuck the alto and tenor in my mouth,
0:37:05 > 0:37:08just playing, he walked in the room and he goes...
0:37:08 > 0:37:11"What are you doing? What is that? What are you doing?"
0:37:11 > 0:37:15Like, I don't know, I was messing around. "Let's use that."
0:37:17 > 0:37:21Well, I ain't going back to Detroit, that's for damn sure.
0:37:26 > 0:37:30You are not the only innocent asshole in here.
0:37:34 > 0:37:36I was set up too.
0:37:36 > 0:37:39All of his cinematic work, Down By Law, Rumble Fish,
0:37:39 > 0:37:43all of these films, he's always come across as an outsider.
0:37:45 > 0:37:47# Shadow music... #
0:37:47 > 0:37:50Zack, my man.
0:37:51 > 0:37:55What the fuck you doing out here in the garbage?
0:37:55 > 0:37:56Just leave me alone, Preston.
0:38:00 > 0:38:02I'm in a bad mood.
0:38:02 > 0:38:04He's a brilliant actor, he's a brilliant performer.
0:38:04 > 0:38:07I think there are some people who think Tom was a fake because
0:38:07 > 0:38:10he's a great actor. But a great actor is not necessarily a fake.
0:38:11 > 0:38:13Yeah, sure.
0:38:13 > 0:38:16It helped me get outside myself a little bit,
0:38:16 > 0:38:19and it helped me shape shift a little bit,
0:38:19 > 0:38:23or take on the persona of someone other than myself.
0:38:23 > 0:38:28Even though you say I, you're not necessarily the I in your song.
0:38:28 > 0:38:31You sing a song, you are kind of like acting, you know?
0:38:31 > 0:38:33HOWLING
0:38:42 > 0:38:46# Inside a broken clock
0:38:46 > 0:38:47# Splashed the wine
0:38:47 > 0:38:50# With all the rain dogs
0:38:50 > 0:38:54# Taxi, taxi, taxi
0:38:54 > 0:38:56# We'd rather walk
0:38:56 > 0:39:00# Huddle a doorway with the rain dogs
0:39:00 > 0:39:05# For I am a rain dog too... #
0:39:05 > 0:39:07When I started playing with Tom,
0:39:07 > 0:39:10not only was he doing the more avant-garde stuff,
0:39:10 > 0:39:15but he was also getting into European stuff, like Germany.
0:39:15 > 0:39:19SINGS A NONSENSE OOMPAH MARCH
0:39:19 > 0:39:22You know, those kind of tunes which nobody else was doing.
0:39:22 > 0:39:25# And she whispered to me... #
0:39:25 > 0:39:28Kurt Weill, Threepenny Opera and those things were
0:39:28 > 0:39:30a huge influence at that time for him.
0:39:33 > 0:39:38# Oh, show us the way to the next whisky bar
0:39:38 > 0:39:40# Oh, don't ask why
0:39:40 > 0:39:42# Oh, don't ask why... #
0:39:42 > 0:39:46Somebody told me, hey, you sound like this guy Kurt Weill.
0:39:46 > 0:39:48So I was thinking I was kind of moving in that direction
0:39:48 > 0:39:51without knowing how or why.
0:39:51 > 0:39:54He took melodies that were very alluring,
0:39:54 > 0:39:58and he said things very disturbing inside of them.
0:39:58 > 0:40:01And I think I'm drawn to that.
0:40:01 > 0:40:06# For I am a rain dog too... #
0:40:06 > 0:40:08He was always a showman, but now he was sort of saying,
0:40:08 > 0:40:11it's vaudeville, and I'm going to dress up almost like
0:40:11 > 0:40:15a vaudeville performer, and I'm going to be entertaining you with
0:40:15 > 0:40:20bleak songs that, in some cases, are done in quite a jaunty style.
0:40:20 > 0:40:26# We'll never be going back home. #
0:40:26 > 0:40:33He loves to crawl into a kind of wicked, clown-esque personalities,
0:40:33 > 0:40:38and express through that something very urgent and strong,
0:40:38 > 0:40:42that almost, I find, he would be too shy to do as himself.
0:40:42 > 0:40:45So I think the role-playing, for him,
0:40:45 > 0:40:49is definitely a way of being able to express himself more extremely
0:40:49 > 0:40:51than he would dare as Tom Waits.
0:40:56 > 0:40:58Welcome to Miss Keiko's Chi Chi Club.
0:40:58 > 0:41:01Iiiit's showtime!
0:41:01 > 0:41:04# Blow, wind blow
0:41:04 > 0:41:08# Wherever you may go
0:41:08 > 0:41:12# For I don't know the code
0:41:12 > 0:41:14# Take me away... #
0:41:14 > 0:41:18If I started dressing up and singing in different voices and
0:41:18 > 0:41:21pretending I was from different centuries,
0:41:21 > 0:41:23I'd get kicked out me band for a start.
0:41:23 > 0:41:26But, Tom Waits, that's all he's ever done.
0:41:26 > 0:41:29# Blow me away... #
0:41:29 > 0:41:34This mid-period Tom Waits is much more stylised.
0:41:34 > 0:41:36There's much more artifice.
0:41:38 > 0:41:43He's clearly saying all this contrivance is to an end.
0:41:43 > 0:41:45This is a whole aesthetic,
0:41:45 > 0:41:50and that this is essential to the way I make music.
0:41:51 > 0:41:55# Put my Raleighs on the dashboard... #
0:41:55 > 0:41:59One of the things that connects me and Tom so closely
0:41:59 > 0:42:02is the circus, the freak shows, were my childhood.
0:42:02 > 0:42:07# Take me into the light... #
0:42:07 > 0:42:11The carnival was always, you could just descend into hell.
0:42:11 > 0:42:12And come out.
0:42:12 > 0:42:19# Blow me away. #
0:42:33 > 0:42:36Frank settled down, out in the Valley.
0:42:36 > 0:42:38And he hung his wild years on a nail
0:42:38 > 0:42:41that he drove through his wife's forehead.
0:42:41 > 0:42:44He sold used office furniture out there on San Fernando Road,
0:42:44 > 0:42:47and assumed a 30,000 loan at 15.25%,
0:42:47 > 0:42:51put a down payment on a little two-bedroom place.
0:42:51 > 0:42:57He just found a way of introducing his whole concept of storytelling.
0:42:57 > 0:43:00..most of the time, had a little Chihuahua named Carlos...
0:43:00 > 0:43:03People say it's connected to his relationship with his dad,
0:43:03 > 0:43:05with his dad, Frank.
0:43:05 > 0:43:07One night, Frank was on his way home from work.
0:43:07 > 0:43:09He stopped at the liquor store.
0:43:09 > 0:43:13Picked up a couple of Mickey's Big Mouths.
0:43:13 > 0:43:16Drank 'em in the car on the way to the Shell station.
0:43:16 > 0:43:19Got a gallon of gas in a can.
0:43:19 > 0:43:22Drove home, doused everything in the house, torched it.
0:43:24 > 0:43:27Parked across the street, laughing, watching it burning.
0:43:27 > 0:43:31All Halloween orange and chimney red.
0:43:31 > 0:43:34And Frank put on a top-40 station.
0:43:34 > 0:43:39Got on the Hollywood Freeway, headed north.
0:43:39 > 0:43:40Never could stand that dog.
0:43:43 > 0:43:47The American dream is to have lots of money and to be a success.
0:43:47 > 0:43:49And you don't get many songs about people who've got lots of money
0:43:49 > 0:43:52and are a success in Tom Waits' songs.
0:43:52 > 0:43:54They're desperados.
0:43:56 > 0:44:00Charles Bukowski had a story that essentially was saying that
0:44:00 > 0:44:04it's the little things that drive men mad.
0:44:04 > 0:44:07It's the broken shoelace when there's no time left
0:44:07 > 0:44:10that sends men completely out of their minds.
0:44:12 > 0:44:14And so this is kind of in that spirit.
0:44:16 > 0:44:19And I think there's a little bit of Frank in everybody.
0:44:27 > 0:44:32# Rusted brandy in a diamond glass
0:44:32 > 0:44:36# Everything is made from dreams
0:44:36 > 0:44:40# Time is made from honey, slow and sweet
0:44:40 > 0:44:44# Only the fools know what it means... #
0:44:44 > 0:44:48There's a spirit, whether it's a spirit of desperation
0:44:48 > 0:44:53or a spirit of determined self-delusion.
0:44:55 > 0:44:58There's still, to all these characters,
0:44:58 > 0:45:04a sort of fractured, broken nobility to their indignity,
0:45:04 > 0:45:07to their unseemly demises.
0:45:07 > 0:45:11# Temptation... #
0:45:15 > 0:45:16All right.
0:45:16 > 0:45:17You're beautiful.
0:45:19 > 0:45:23No, no, I know, I know - you hear that all the time, you know..
0:45:23 > 0:45:28# You are beautiful
0:45:28 > 0:45:31# To me... #
0:45:31 > 0:45:33Frank's Wild Years is my favourite.
0:45:33 > 0:45:36I love his Frank Sinatra character.
0:45:36 > 0:45:38You know, "Roll over, big town."
0:45:39 > 0:45:41So there's only one place to go.
0:45:41 > 0:45:45# I'm going straight up to the top
0:45:45 > 0:45:47# Oh, yeah... #
0:45:47 > 0:45:50He plays with the arrangement of those things,
0:45:50 > 0:45:52not unlike Charles Mingus.
0:45:52 > 0:45:57Where he brings in these slightly jarring tonalities,
0:45:57 > 0:46:01that take what sounds like a swinging,
0:46:01 > 0:46:04early '60s kind of lounge number,
0:46:04 > 0:46:08and turns it into a disorientating,
0:46:08 > 0:46:10swirl of sounds that...
0:46:12 > 0:46:18..evokes a descent into some sort of moral dissolution.
0:46:18 > 0:46:25# Someone made me that way
0:46:25 > 0:46:27# Top! #
0:46:27 > 0:46:30He was just trying to go for, not making it straight,
0:46:30 > 0:46:32but just slightly warped. I mean, that's the thing
0:46:32 > 0:46:38I was able to add, because I'm kind of warped myself.
0:46:38 > 0:46:41But that was an unspoken word, you did have to say it.
0:46:41 > 0:46:43# Where the air is... #
0:46:43 > 0:46:47It's images of desolation and hopelessness.
0:46:47 > 0:46:50# Fresh
0:46:50 > 0:46:54# Fresh and clean. #
0:46:54 > 0:46:57And by the end of it, he's broken and on his knees,
0:46:57 > 0:46:59and it's all gone terribly wrong.
0:47:02 > 0:47:06# When you walk with Jesus
0:47:06 > 0:47:09# He's gonna save your soul
0:47:10 > 0:47:12# You got to keep the devil
0:47:14 > 0:47:18# You got to keep him down in the hole... #
0:47:18 > 0:47:20They're just such great stories.
0:47:20 > 0:47:26The subculture or underbelly of life that Tom Waits goes into,
0:47:26 > 0:47:31this screaming, dramatic, hellfire and brimstone preacher.
0:47:31 > 0:47:34# Praise the Lord
0:47:34 > 0:47:35# I don't know what it is, two dollar...? #
0:47:35 > 0:47:38His carnival sideshow man,
0:47:38 > 0:47:41is not that different to his whisky preacher.
0:47:41 > 0:47:43# See if you can come up with a figure
0:47:43 > 0:47:45# That matches your faith... #
0:47:45 > 0:47:48Frank's Wild Years, that record was actually...
0:47:48 > 0:47:50It was like the huckster preacher.
0:47:50 > 0:47:52It was a lot about hucksters, you know? Fakes, you know?
0:47:52 > 0:47:54That's where he was coming from.
0:47:54 > 0:47:55# And blast him out
0:47:55 > 0:47:58# People, can I get an amen?
0:47:58 > 0:47:59# All the Angels... #
0:47:59 > 0:48:02Whether Tom Waits is trying to convince us that
0:48:02 > 0:48:06he believes that he's going to hell if he doesn't be careful,
0:48:06 > 0:48:08or whether there's a part of him that actually fears it,
0:48:08 > 0:48:14in that performance, there's a fragility and a scaredness to it.
0:48:14 > 0:48:16# Can I get a hallelujah? #
0:48:16 > 0:48:18- CROWD:- Hallelujah!
0:48:18 > 0:48:21There are a lot of preachers in my family.
0:48:21 > 0:48:23Preachers and teachers.
0:48:23 > 0:48:26My family was a little disappointed when they found out I was
0:48:26 > 0:48:28going to be neither. They were a little like,
0:48:28 > 0:48:31"Oh, man, we aren't things be able to help you then."
0:48:39 > 0:48:44# I'm moving out west where the wind blows tall... #
0:48:44 > 0:48:46By the time Waits gets to Bone Machine - just think of that
0:48:46 > 0:48:49as a title, Bone Machine - I mean, what is it?
0:48:49 > 0:48:52It's human beings. Or animals.
0:48:52 > 0:48:55It's life, but stripped to its absolute bare minimum.
0:48:55 > 0:48:58It kind of takes away everything we think of as being human.
0:48:58 > 0:48:59There's no soul.
0:48:59 > 0:49:02There's no fun, there's no anything, it's just a machine.
0:49:02 > 0:49:03# I'm going to do what I want
0:49:03 > 0:49:06# And I'm gonna get paid
0:49:06 > 0:49:09# Little brown sausages, lying in the sand... #
0:49:09 > 0:49:12We were hanging around the same kitchen table where we'd been
0:49:12 > 0:49:15listening to Closing Time and Blue Valentine and all the romantic,
0:49:15 > 0:49:17balladeering stuff.
0:49:17 > 0:49:20We were listening to all that when Bone Machine came out,
0:49:20 > 0:49:23and it scared us all to death.
0:49:23 > 0:49:25I think we perhaps listened it all the way through once,
0:49:25 > 0:49:28and then were like, "Shall we put the romantic ones back on?"
0:49:28 > 0:49:29# With my Olds '88
0:49:29 > 0:49:31# And the devil on a leash... #
0:49:31 > 0:49:34When Mom heard the title Bone Machine, she said to me,
0:49:34 > 0:49:38"Tom, why do you always have to degrade?"
0:49:38 > 0:49:42I think after hearing that title, she was worried about my soul.
0:49:42 > 0:49:44She said, "Don't forget, Tom,
0:49:44 > 0:49:49"that the devil hates nothing more than a sane Christian."
0:49:49 > 0:49:52That would also make a good song title.
0:49:52 > 0:49:55# I don't lose my composure in a high-speed chase... #
0:49:55 > 0:49:57Tom is obsessed with death.
0:49:57 > 0:50:00There's always decay, the end of things,
0:50:00 > 0:50:02and it's all pulling him down into the Earth.
0:50:05 > 0:50:07It feels like it's been recorded outside,
0:50:07 > 0:50:09using the skulls of dead animals.
0:50:09 > 0:50:11In the middle of the woods somewhere.
0:50:11 > 0:50:13And he's gone completely insane.
0:50:13 > 0:50:15# I don't need no make-up... #
0:50:15 > 0:50:19We all just hit a bunch of sticks in a parking lot.
0:50:19 > 0:50:22And I was like, "man, this is just the greatest experience ever",
0:50:22 > 0:50:24you know?
0:50:27 > 0:50:30Would you care for an hors d'oeuvre, Dr Seward?
0:50:30 > 0:50:32Or a canape?
0:50:32 > 0:50:34No thank you, Mr Renfield.
0:50:34 > 0:50:37It's interesting that Bone Machine came out in the same year
0:50:37 > 0:50:39that he played Renfield in Dracula.
0:50:39 > 0:50:41I just didn't get it initially,
0:50:41 > 0:50:44but when I thought about the character he was playing,
0:50:44 > 0:50:48stuck in a jail, feeling controlled, again, like a freak.
0:50:48 > 0:50:51The master will come.
0:50:51 > 0:50:55And he's promised to make me immortal.
0:50:55 > 0:50:56How?!
0:50:57 > 0:51:01There's something very stylised and very circus-like and kind of
0:51:01 > 0:51:04cabaret-like about the way he plays Renfield.
0:51:04 > 0:51:07It felt totally congruent with everything else he was doing.
0:51:07 > 0:51:09Here's looking at you, babe.
0:51:13 > 0:51:18# I don't go to church on Sunday
0:51:18 > 0:51:21# I don't get down on my knees to pray... #
0:51:21 > 0:51:26Tom started playing more country-blues, I call it.
0:51:26 > 0:51:29It's a very spooky...
0:51:29 > 0:51:32Another Tom Waits thing where you just feel like you're there.
0:51:32 > 0:51:36Like, man, I can feel I'm a guy in the Mississippi somewhere,
0:51:36 > 0:51:38as opposed to some really blues posers,
0:51:38 > 0:51:40that you don't feel it at all.
0:51:40 > 0:51:44# I fall down on my knees every Sunday
0:51:44 > 0:51:48# At Zerelda Lee's candy store
0:51:48 > 0:51:53# And it's got to be a chocolate Jesus
0:51:54 > 0:51:58# Make me feel so good inside
0:51:58 > 0:52:00# It's got to be... #
0:52:00 > 0:52:02I think he gets to the heart and the essence of blues
0:52:02 > 0:52:04with Mule Variations.
0:52:04 > 0:52:09It's got something that really feels like it's reaching back into time,
0:52:09 > 0:52:13and finding something that's so different.
0:52:13 > 0:52:16And yet, is totally him.
0:52:16 > 0:52:19It's his identity within all that.
0:52:19 > 0:52:24# I say only, only a chocolate Jesus
0:52:24 > 0:52:28# Could ever satisfy my soul
0:52:28 > 0:52:29# Wah! #
0:52:29 > 0:52:33There's definitely a Southern Gothic connection with Tom's music.
0:52:35 > 0:52:38Whether you grow up in San Diego, California
0:52:38 > 0:52:40or Jackson, Mississippi
0:52:40 > 0:52:45or whether you grow up in a ghetto or a middle-class suburb,
0:52:45 > 0:52:47it's all about your perception.
0:52:47 > 0:52:50How you view the world.
0:52:50 > 0:52:52I mean, that's what makes a good artist.
0:52:58 > 0:53:00Let's dance.
0:53:11 > 0:53:14When it came to doing The Imaginarium Of Dr Parnassus,
0:53:14 > 0:53:16and we had the devil himself,
0:53:16 > 0:53:19and I couldn't think of anyone better than Tom.
0:53:19 > 0:53:21Especially because of his voice.
0:53:21 > 0:53:24- GRAVELLY:- I mean, I just love that voice,
0:53:24 > 0:53:27to be able to talk like Tom is really a joy.
0:53:27 > 0:53:32Can I offer you a stick of gum, or a breath mint?
0:53:32 > 0:53:34It's the theatre of the thing, for him.
0:53:34 > 0:53:37He's a grand illusionist, and always has been.
0:53:37 > 0:53:38Damn!
0:53:40 > 0:53:42I've won.
0:53:42 > 0:53:44# I had a good home and I left
0:53:44 > 0:53:46# Right, left
0:53:46 > 0:53:51# That big fucking bomb made me deaf, deaf
0:53:51 > 0:53:54# A Humvee mechanic put his Kevlar on wrong
0:53:54 > 0:53:57# I guarantee you'll meet up with a suicide bomb
0:53:57 > 0:54:00# Listen to the general, every goddamn word
0:54:00 > 0:54:03# How many ways can you polish up a turd...? #
0:54:03 > 0:54:04These are my feelings.
0:54:04 > 0:54:06You know, I'm just trying to imagine
0:54:06 > 0:54:08that it's a soldier writing home from any war.
0:54:08 > 0:54:11I mean, as soon as you're at war, you've lost.
0:54:11 > 0:54:14We're killing off our children, we're sending our children to war.
0:54:14 > 0:54:17They're sending their children to war.
0:54:17 > 0:54:21# How was it that the only ones responsible for making this mess
0:54:23 > 0:54:26# Got their sorry asses stapled to a goddamn desk?
0:54:26 > 0:54:28# And hell broke luce... #
0:54:28 > 0:54:32He's genuinely concerned about where the world is going.
0:54:32 > 0:54:35I mean, he's a man who loves everything,
0:54:35 > 0:54:39and he knows there's damnation and doom waiting.
0:54:39 > 0:54:40APPLAUSE
0:54:40 > 0:54:42It's a great honour to induct Tom Waits
0:54:42 > 0:54:44into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
0:54:51 > 0:54:56You know, songs are really just very interesting things
0:54:56 > 0:54:57to be doing with the air.
0:54:58 > 0:55:01And they say that I have no hits,
0:55:01 > 0:55:04and that I'm difficult to work with.
0:55:04 > 0:55:07And they say that like it's a bad thing.
0:55:07 > 0:55:09LAUGHTER
0:55:19 > 0:55:22# Well, when I'm lying in my bed at night
0:55:22 > 0:55:24# I don't wanna grow up... #
0:55:24 > 0:55:28It's a really odd career path, the way he's done it.
0:55:28 > 0:55:32He wrote the simplest ballads in the most recognisable form,
0:55:32 > 0:55:34right at the beginning.
0:55:34 > 0:55:35And he excelled at it.
0:55:36 > 0:55:38And then he starts exploring.
0:55:38 > 0:55:40And then he starts looking for a different voice.
0:55:40 > 0:55:44# And when I see the price that you pay
0:55:44 > 0:55:46# I don't wanna grow up... #
0:55:46 > 0:55:47It's a dark vision,
0:55:47 > 0:55:53but it's an ennobling spirit that permeates all these characters.
0:55:53 > 0:55:59He gives them all a chance to say, "Well, I did it my way", you know?
0:56:01 > 0:56:03# I don't want to have to learn to count...#
0:56:03 > 0:56:05It doesn't matter whether he's singing about
0:56:05 > 0:56:07the darkest stuff happening in the world.
0:56:07 > 0:56:10But the actual sense of showmanship and the sense of
0:56:10 > 0:56:15theatre and musicianship means that you can't help smiling or grinning.
0:56:15 > 0:56:18You've got to give in and say, I'm happy to live in Tom Waits' world.
0:56:18 > 0:56:20# I been thinking all night
0:56:20 > 0:56:22# And I don't wanna grow up... #
0:56:22 > 0:56:25It's rather mystifying, when you think about songs,
0:56:25 > 0:56:28where they come from. You don't really go to songwriting school.
0:56:28 > 0:56:31You learn by listening to tunes.
0:56:31 > 0:56:35And then you try to understand them and take them apart and see
0:56:35 > 0:56:38what they're made of, and you wonder if you can make one too.
0:56:38 > 0:56:42# Comb their hair and shine their shoes
0:56:42 > 0:56:45# I don't wanna grow up... #
0:56:45 > 0:56:47I can't get into his brain, but I'm just glad I was a part of it.
0:56:47 > 0:56:49Just be in a room with all that stuff.
0:56:49 > 0:56:54# I don't wanna grow up... #
0:56:54 > 0:56:58Looks like the press conference is about to begin.
0:56:58 > 0:57:03He's a complete outsider, and he was faithful to himself.
0:57:03 > 0:57:05Calm down, calm down, hold your horses.
0:57:05 > 0:57:07The more he delves into himself as an artist,
0:57:07 > 0:57:10the less he cares what other people think.
0:57:10 > 0:57:13And when we're all lost, what do we do?
0:57:13 > 0:57:16We look up to the night sky.
0:57:16 > 0:57:19If you're going to go after who is Tom Waits within all these
0:57:19 > 0:57:22characters that he conjures for us, he's all of them.
0:57:22 > 0:57:23Are there any more questions?
0:57:23 > 0:57:27I want to know what he's going to do next, is all I want to know.
0:57:27 > 0:57:29"What's he doing in there?"
0:57:31 > 0:57:35"Come on, Tom, come out. Don't go into that barn, Tom!"
0:57:35 > 0:57:38# I don't wanna grow up. #
0:57:38 > 0:57:41CLAMOUR OF A FULL ROOM
0:57:41 > 0:57:44CLAMOUR STOPS
0:57:44 > 0:57:46Thank you.
0:57:46 > 0:57:47Say hi to your mother.
0:57:49 > 0:57:52# You got to lie to me, baby
0:57:52 > 0:57:54# You got to lie to me, baby
0:57:54 > 0:57:57# Lie to me, baby
0:57:57 > 0:58:00# Lie to me, baby, move on
0:58:00 > 0:58:03# You've got to lie to me, baby
0:58:03 > 0:58:05# You have to lie to me, baby
0:58:05 > 0:58:08# You've got to lie to me, baby
0:58:08 > 0:58:11# Lie to me, baby, move on
0:58:11 > 0:58:14# You have to lie to me, baby
0:58:14 > 0:58:16# Lie to me, then move on
0:58:16 > 0:58:18# Lie to me, baby, move on. #