Favorite Tom Waits song?

[MetroStyles]

Inspired by the Underground thread...

Mine would have to be Long Way Home or Kommienezuspadt.

 

[Baron]

This is also impossible, but I'll throw out Way Down in the Hole, influenced by four seasons of The Wire.

 

[Aaron]

Either The Ghosts of Saturday Night or Eggs and Sausage

 

[bachbeet]

I agree with Baron. Waits is such a talented songwriter/artist that it really does an injustice to name a single favorite. One of my favorite lines is:

"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."

His ballads are exceptional. For example, I really didn't know Dion's Serenade was actually Waits's San Diego Serenade. A great line from that one is: "I never saw the moonlight until it shone off of your breast." And, he's a pretty good actor, too.

 

[j]

I admit to general ignorance of his stuff, but Goin' Out West is one of my favorite songs.

 

[lakewolf]

Tom Trauberts's Blues

Wasted and wounded
It ain't what the moon did
I've got what I paid for now
See ya tomorrow
Hey Frank, can I borrow
A couple of bucks from you...
To go waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You'll go waltzing Matilda with me

 

[Saucemaster]

Originally Posted by Baron

This is also impossible, but I'll throw out Way Down in the Hole, influenced by four seasons of The Wire.

I'm not sure I'd put Way Down in The Hole as my top, but it definitely made a jump into contention after The Wire, yeah. Actually, one of the things I love about Tom Waits is that there are so many songs of his like that--at first they seemed good, solid, but not particularly amazing; then one day you hear it again in a different context and you suddenly realize how awesome it actually is.

 

[VMan]

Lonely

 

[Joel_Cairo]

good god this one is officially impossible for me. Throughout high-school, I was a serious bootleggy Tom Waits snob (aka "that guy"), but I've fallen off the wagon in the past 5 or 6 years and haven't kept up with his new releases. My favorite song would almost certainly be from that golden 1979 to 1983 switch-over period, where the Barfly and the Circus Freak personas were overlapping, but I could never pick one. I can, however, pick a favorite line: "Never trust a man in a blue trench coat; never drive a car when you're dead."

 

[lawyerdad]

Innocent When You Dream
Frank's Wild Years
Train Song
Shiver Me Timbers
Dowtown Train
Anywhere I Lay My Head
Hang Down Your Head

 

[Baron]

I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love With You

 

[romafan]

Originally Posted by Baron

I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love With You

+1 Great tune

Raindogs is probably my favorite album, just killer stuff. Jockey Full of Bourbon, Time, Gun St. Girl, Blind Love, Downtown Train - unbelievable...

 

[lawyerdad]

Freeeebiiiiiird!

 

[Saucemaster]

Originally Posted by lawyerdad

Frank's Wild Years

First Tom Waits song I ever heard, I was instantly hooked. He hooked me at "he hung his wild years on a nail that he drove through his wife's forehead", and had me forever at "Halloween orange and chim-a-ney red".

 

[Vintage Gent]

"Jockey Full of Bourbon"

Bonus points for the song's appearance in Down By Law.