In the Neighborhood

I only own one album by Tom Waits.  I never thought I would like his stuff, but if you can get past his gravelly voice, you'll find that he's an immensely talented and extremely versatile songwriter. 

The song stuck in my head is from his 1983 album SWORDFISHTROMBONES.  It's called "In the Neighborhood."  My kids always laugh at the first lyric of this song.

"Well the eggs chase the bacon, in the frying pan"  in fact my 8 year old made a drawing of it for me!

It's with this strange lyric that Waits sets the scene for a strange song.  The music sounds almost like a carnival or circus and insinuates more or less the circus-like neighborhood in which the singer lives: 

Well Big Mambo's kicking
his old grey hound
and the kids can't get ice cream
'cause the market burned down


It's safe to say that Tom Waits lives in an interesting neighborhood. 


 There's a couple Filipino girls
gigglin' by the church
and the window is busted
and the landlord ain't home
and Butch joined the army
yea that's where he's been
and the jackhammer's diggin'
up the sidewalks again
In the neighborhood

I dig the song.  There's a couple of "gd's" in the song- just to forewarn those with sensitive ears.  The music video is a perfect reflection of what's happening in the song.  A sort of distorted carnival of some kind.  Enjoy. 

Shore Leave

This is kind of an odd one.  The song in my head this morning was inspired by a Vine post.  If you haven't had the chance to use the Vine app, I recommend it.  It's loads of fun. 

First, I'll show you the video.  A WARNING, this small clip could be offensive to some:




The strange music playing on this clip stuck with me.  I had to ask the Vine user "afbradstone" what song it is playing in this clip so I can share it on this blog post.  I was embarrassed to find out the song is called "Shore Leave." 

It's a song by Tom Waits from 1983.  It sounds very different than I had imagined after hearing 6 short seconds of it on Vine.  The song is about a sailor on leave in a foreign country.  What an odd way to learn a new song.  It's a funny world we live in.  Here is the song if you'd like to hear it.

This is the end of my odd little post.  Thanks to afbradstone for exposing me to not only this song, but some really funny Vine videos.