Tom Waits, even with his barnyard growl and urban hipster yawp, may just be what the Daily Telegraph calls him: “the greatest entertainer on Planet Earth.” Over a span of almost four decades, he has transformed his music and persona, not to suit the times, but his whims. Along with Bob Dylan, he stands as an elder statesman still capable of putting out music that matters.
-From the Chicago Review Press website
On August 1, 2011, Chicago Review Press is releasing Tom Waits on Tom Waits: Interviews and Encounters. This book collects over 50 of Waits’s most unique and interesting interviews together in one volume. If you’re a songwriter and a Waits fan, this is an exciting release.
American Songwriter magazine just posted an article titled The Top 10 Quotes from Tom Waits on Tom Waits. Here are my two favorites:
Songs are really simple. You hold them in your hand. I can make one right now and finish it. But because they’re so simple, it’s like bird-watching, you know. You gotta know something about birds or you won’t see anything: just you and your binoculars and a stupid look on your face.
My theory is that songs have to be anatomically correct. They need to have weather in them and the name of a town and usually something to eat — in case you get hungry.
