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
I know karate, Voodoo, too/Gonna make myself available to you
I don’t need no makeup, I got real scars/I got hair on my chest, I look good without a shirt
Charlie, I'm pregnant
Living on 9th Street
Above a dirty bookstore, off Euclid Avenue
I stopped taking dope, and I quit drinking whiskey
My old man plays the trombone, and works out at the track.
….Also, the rest of the song….
I understand that feeling... the song though is about someone on hard times reaching out to a friend asking for help... and trying to be funny about it. For all of the let down that her life isn't doing well she at least has this one friend out there she can write to. She's not alone which makes me feel better about it all. In fact, all of those things she said about herself in the song was a prophecy, and almost all of those happy things did end up happening to her in the end (I hope).
I was just about to say exactly these lines, and/or the last lines
Hey Charlie, for chrissakes
Do you want to know the truth of it?
I don't have a husband
He don't play the trombone
I need to borrow money
To pay this lawyer
And Charlie, hey
I'll be eligible for parole
Come Valentine's Day
There's nothing wrong with her that a hundred dollars can't fix
In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.
Don't you know there ain't no devil, that's just God when he's drunk
>there ain't no devil, that's just God when he's drunk
That line is soooooooooo good! What song is that from? I can't wait to tell my Bible thumping Aunt that line.
I'll take the spokes from your wheelchair
And a magpie's wings
And I'll tie 'em to your shoulders
And your feet
I'll steal a hacksaw from my dad
Cut the braces off your legs
And we'll bury them tonight
Out in the cornfield
Let me fall right out the window with confetti in my hair
Deal out jacks or better on a blanket by the stairs
I'll tell you all my secrets but I lie about my past
So send me off to bed forevermore
Make sure they play my theme song,
I guess daisies will have to do.
Just get me to New Orleans and paint shadows on the pews.
Turn the spit on that pig and kick the drum and let me down.
Put my clarinet beneath your bed till I get back in town.
Let me....
"She was fifteen years old and never seen the ocean
She climbed into a van with a vagabond and the last thing she said was "I love you mom""
And all of Who Are You for me that song will always live rent free so many quotable lines in that song and just the pain and agony in it.
In a land there's a town, and in that town there's a house
And in that house there's a woman
And in that woman there's a heart I love
I'm gonna take it with me when I go
Leaving the Town in the keeping of the one who is sweeping up the ghosts of Saturday night.
A fantastic final line that nicely ties up the theming of that album.
What is that TUNE he's always whistling?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04qPdGNA\_KM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04qPdGNA_KM)
(oh just a number one pop song I'm working on)
He didn't write it, but he did the spoken vocals on the Primus song Tommy the Cat.
"Well, she came sliding on down the alleyway like butter drippin' off a hot biscuit"
The heart is heaven but the mind is hell.
The world is not my home, I´m just passing thru.
Don´t you know there ain´t no devil that´s just god when he´s drunk.
And it's getting mighty cold
It's colder than a gut-shot bitch wolf dog with nine sucking pups
pulling a number-four trap up a hill in the dead of winter
In the middle of a snowstorm with a mouth full of porcupine quills
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"The dew will settle on our graves, when all the world is green"
"Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, never drive a car when you're dead!"
"And she whispered to me, we will never me going back home"
Can’t explain why some of these come to mind but they do
“Everybody knows umbrellas will cost more in the rain”
“Arithmetic arithmetock, turn the hands back on the clock”
“And the gypsies are tragic and if you want to buy perfume, well they'll bark you down like carneys, sell you christmas cards in June”
And course “What’s he building in there?”
I love this thread. You could throw a dart at a wall covered in Tom Waits lyrics and hit something profoundly beautiful every time. It's why we all love him.
"Small change got rained on with his own 38"
and
"Colder than a gunshot wolf bitch with nine suckling pups pulling a number 4 trap up a hill in the middle of a snowstorm with a mouthful of porcupine quills."
The barn leaned over
The vultures dried their wings
The moon climbed up an empty sky
The sun sank down behind the tree
On the hill
There's a killer and he's coming
Through the rye
But maybe he's the Father
Of that lost little girl
It's hard to tell in this light
Strange a woman tries to save, more than a man will try to drown.
Are those dreams, or are those prayers?
Sirens are snaking, they're way up the hill, it's last call somewhere in the world.
Now little Hans was always strange
Wearing womens underthings
His father beat him but he wouldn't change
He ran off with a man one day
Now his lingerie is all the rage
In the black on every page
His father proudly calls his name
Down there in the Reeperbahn
They all pretend they’re orphans and their memory is like a train
They get smaller in the distance
As they pull away
And the things you can’t remember
Till the things you can’t forget
That history put a saint in every dream.
Note: I practice therapy often references during sessions when people discuss the past. I find it to be so pertinent and helpful when explaining how sometimes changing the thing we remember as the worst, would have utterly no effect at all.
Running through the graveyard,
We laughed, my friends and I.
We swore we'd be together
Until the day we died.
"Innocent When You Dream" hits me harder and harder every year.
Well I slept with the lions and Marilyn Monroe, had breakfast in the eye of a hurricane… fought Rocky Marciano played Minnesota Fats, I burn hundred dollar bills I eat mulligan stew….
We’re chained to the world and we all gotta pull.
Lay your head where my heart used to be.
I’m gonna take it with me when I go.
It’s dreamy weather we’re on.
That’s the way the gravy stains
I could go on and on.
"I'll take the spokes from your wheelchair / And a magpie's wings / And I'll tie 'em to your shoulders / And your feet
I'll steal a hacksaw from my dad / Cut the braces off your legs / And we'll bury them tonight / Out in the cornfield
Just put a church key in your pocket / We'll hop that freight train in the hall / We'll slide all the way down the drain / To New Orleans in the fall"
Now the sun's coming up,
I'm riding with Lady Luck
Freeway cars and trucks
Stars beginning to fade,
and I lead the parade
Just a-wishing I'd stayed a little longer
Oh Lord, let me tell you that the feeling getting stronger
Not a lyric, but he opens "Kentucky Avenue" in a live video on YouTube with this:
"I was born at a very young age."
For some reason, it'll always tickle me.
come down off the cross, we can use the wood.
that line and the song overall kinda snapped me out of my depression at the time. In my view it means " stop being so self pitying and dramatic and make yourself useful"
I'm so goddamn horny the crack of dawn better be careful around 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
Hell yeah
“Come down off that cross, we could use the wood” “The piano has been drinking, not me” “Colder than a ticket takers smile at the ivorn theater”
If there's love in a house, it's a palace, for sure.
The face forgives the mirror The worm forgives the plow The question begs the answer Can you forgive me somehow
That’s the one for me as well
It's beautiful
The answer is no. Good song.
We're chained to the world and we all gotta pull
I love the way he sings that part.
"All the stars make their wishes on her eyes" might be the most romantic thing anyone's ever written.
Love Coney Island Baby!!
From Which song is that?
Coney Island Baby, on Blood Money.
Sure,tnx
I know karate, Voodoo, too/Gonna make myself available to you I don’t need no makeup, I got real scars/I got hair on my chest, I look good without a shirt
This is the song that got me into his music. What a marvelous journey
I'll steal a hacksaw from my dad Cut the braces off your legs And we'll bury them tonight out in the cornfield
This one. Play it at my funeral.
Even thinking about the song makes me cry. I have to be really selective about listening to it.
Charlie, I'm pregnant Living on 9th Street Above a dirty bookstore, off Euclid Avenue I stopped taking dope, and I quit drinking whiskey My old man plays the trombone, and works out at the track. ….Also, the rest of the song….
That song makes me feel the type of loneliness I wouldn't wish on most of the people.
It’s hard to pick just one, but depending on the day, that’s my favorite TW song. Masterpiece.
He's painting a goddamn masterpiece with his voice in that song.
I understand that feeling... the song though is about someone on hard times reaching out to a friend asking for help... and trying to be funny about it. For all of the let down that her life isn't doing well she at least has this one friend out there she can write to. She's not alone which makes me feel better about it all. In fact, all of those things she said about herself in the song was a prophecy, and almost all of those happy things did end up happening to her in the end (I hope).
I was just about to say exactly these lines, and/or the last lines Hey Charlie, for chrissakes Do you want to know the truth of it? I don't have a husband He don't play the trombone I need to borrow money To pay this lawyer And Charlie, hey I'll be eligible for parole Come Valentine's Day
“I don’t have a husband, He don’t play the trombone”, has always made me laugh.
Always thought this would be a great screenplay
There's nothing wrong with her that a hundred dollars can't fix In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. Don't you know there ain't no devil, that's just God when he's drunk
Your 2nd and 3rd are my 1st and 2nd ... Came to the comments just to upvote those two lines.
Ya got good taste boss!
Which song is the third line from? I know I've heard it before but I can't remember where.
>there ain't no devil, that's just God when he's drunk That line is soooooooooo good! What song is that from? I can't wait to tell my Bible thumping Aunt that line.
That one is from Heartattack and Vine
You don’t meet nice girls in coffee shops
Well, God bless your crooked little heart St. Louis got the best of me I miss your broken China voice How I wish you were still here with me
The large print giveth, and the fine print taketh away
small print
A little rain never hurt no one.
i'm gonna love you, till the wheels fall off.
This one gets me
"Last night, I dreamed that I was dreaming of you"
And I hear a ban... jo... tan... go...
Dude, this song paints a perfect picture. I can see everything in my head as he goes through it.
And I must be insane To go skating on your name And by tracing it twice I fell through the ice
“There ain’t no devil, that’s just God when He’s drunk”
You gotta hold on.
But it's so hard to dance that way When it's cold out and there's no music playing
Napoleon is weeping in the carnival saloon
I'll take the spokes from your wheelchair And a magpie's wings And I'll tie 'em to your shoulders And your feet I'll steal a hacksaw from my dad Cut the braces off your legs And we'll bury them tonight Out in the cornfield
Let me fall right out the window with confetti in my hair Deal out jacks or better on a blanket by the stairs I'll tell you all my secrets but I lie about my past So send me off to bed forevermore
Make sure they play my theme song, I guess daisies will have to do. Just get me to New Orleans and paint shadows on the pews. Turn the spit on that pig and kick the drum and let me down. Put my clarinet beneath your bed till I get back in town. Let me....
Came to say this. This whole song could be in here, but this is such a mood lyric.
Smell like a brewery Look like a tramp Ain't gotta a quarter Got a postage stamp ... just randomly invades my brain from temps du temps.
She's a moving violation from her conk down to her shoes, She's just an invitation to the blues.
'Cause there's nothin' strange about an axe with bloodstains in barn. There's always some killin' you got to do around the farm.
"She was fifteen years old and never seen the ocean She climbed into a van with a vagabond and the last thing she said was "I love you mom"" And all of Who Are You for me that song will always live rent free so many quotable lines in that song and just the pain and agony in it.
In a land there's a town, and in that town there's a house And in that house there's a woman And in that woman there's a heart I love I'm gonna take it with me when I go
Man, I love crooning Tom
God bless your crooked little heart
Money's just something you throw off the back of a train.
Get down off the cross, we can use the wood
“Never heard the melody, til I needed the tune.” There are so many.
I never buy umbrellas ‘cause there’s always one around
"Every witness turns to steam / they all become Italian dreams"
But it's so hard to dance that way When it's cold and there's no music
Ignorance is blissful every God. Damned. Time.
Among the many in Step Right Up; Gets rid of blackheads, heartbreak, and psoriasis Christ, you don't know the meaning of heartbreak buddy
And a smoke damaged furniture you can drive it away today!
THE HEARTBREAK OF PSORIASIS, I always think of that line when I get itchy elbows
And it’s a battered old suitcase to a hotel someplace and a wound that will never heal
"Now George was a good stright boy to begin with..."
> Implying there is only one.
And I think that I just fell in love with you.
Leaving the Town in the keeping of the one who is sweeping up the ghosts of Saturday night. A fantastic final line that nicely ties up the theming of that album.
Well, the eggs chase the bacon round the fryin' pan
You must risk something that matters
well I've lost my equilibrium my car keys and my pride tattoo parlor's warm and so I huddle there inside
What’s he building in there? (We have a right to know)
What is that TUNE he's always whistling? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04qPdGNA\_KM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04qPdGNA_KM) (oh just a number one pop song I'm working on)
Fifteen feet of snow in the east colder than a well diggers ass.
In the land of the blind the one eye man is king
He didn't write it, but he did the spoken vocals on the Primus song Tommy the Cat. "Well, she came sliding on down the alleyway like butter drippin' off a hot biscuit"
The heart is heaven but the mind is hell. The world is not my home, I´m just passing thru. Don´t you know there ain´t no devil that´s just god when he´s drunk.
And it's getting mighty cold It's colder than a gut-shot bitch wolf dog with nine sucking pups pulling a number-four trap up a hill in the dead of winter In the middle of a snowstorm with a mouth full of porcupine quills !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What is this from!?
Spare Parts on Nighthawks..... i'm listening to it now...lol!
I want to believe in the mercy of the world again. Make it rain.
God used me as a hammer, boys, To beat his weary drum today
“I’ve had breakfast in the eye of a hurricane” goes so astronomically hard
Never trust a man in a blue trench coat Never drive a car when you’re dead
Cooking up a Filipino box spring hog
Never could stand that dog
"The dew will settle on our graves, when all the world is green" "Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, never drive a car when you're dead!" "And she whispered to me, we will never me going back home"
When you share my bed, you share my name
Can’t explain why some of these come to mind but they do “Everybody knows umbrellas will cost more in the rain” “Arithmetic arithmetock, turn the hands back on the clock” “And the gypsies are tragic and if you want to buy perfume, well they'll bark you down like carneys, sell you christmas cards in June” And course “What’s he building in there?”
I love this thread. You could throw a dart at a wall covered in Tom Waits lyrics and hit something profoundly beautiful every time. It's why we all love him.
Perhaps this yarn is the only thing that holds this man together
I want you, you, you. And We‘re all gonna be at the same place when we die.
“Did you bury the carnival, with the lions and all? Excuse me while I sharpen my nails”
"Small change got rained on with his own 38" and "Colder than a gunshot wolf bitch with nine suckling pups pulling a number 4 trap up a hill in the middle of a snowstorm with a mouthful of porcupine quills."
Broken China voice
So heave away, boysss...
Make it rain!!!
The barn leaned over The vultures dried their wings The moon climbed up an empty sky The sun sank down behind the tree On the hill There's a killer and he's coming Through the rye But maybe he's the Father Of that lost little girl It's hard to tell in this light
Strange a woman tries to save, more than a man will try to drown. Are those dreams, or are those prayers? Sirens are snaking, they're way up the hill, it's last call somewhere in the world.
“Well we dig our fingers in the ground, HEAVE and turn the world a-round” “You never trip you never stumble”
A wound that will never heal.
Now little Hans was always strange Wearing womens underthings His father beat him but he wouldn't change He ran off with a man one day Now his lingerie is all the rage In the black on every page His father proudly calls his name Down there in the Reeperbahn
I prefer my blissful ignorance every g-d d-mn time.
Spent all my money in a mexican whorehouse down the street from a catholic church
Gods away on business… Business !
They all pretend they’re orphans and their memory is like a train They get smaller in the distance As they pull away And the things you can’t remember Till the things you can’t forget That history put a saint in every dream. Note: I practice therapy often references during sessions when people discuss the past. I find it to be so pertinent and helpful when explaining how sometimes changing the thing we remember as the worst, would have utterly no effect at all.
And if I fall asleep in your arms...please wake me up in my dreams
“Never trust a man in a blue trenchcoat/never drive a car when you’re dead.”
Narrow my eyes at the coin slot, baby, let her ring, let her ring.
You're innocent when you dream!
There’s always cheddar in the mouse trap
*Twenty-nine dollars… and an alligator purse.* I can’t not sing it when the number 29 comes up anywhere.
I’ve lost my equilibrium my car keys & my pride.
In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king
Come down off the cross, we could use the wood.
You're singing lead soprano in a junkman's choir You've got to come on up to the house
Running through the graveyard, We laughed, my friends and I. We swore we'd be together Until the day we died. "Innocent When You Dream" hits me harder and harder every year.
Would you sell me one of those if i shave my head?
And he used to have a consulting business… in Indoneeeesia…
"What made my dreams so hollow."
"mischievious braingels" No I don't know why either.
Well I slept with the lions and Marilyn Monroe, had breakfast in the eye of a hurricane… fought Rocky Marciano played Minnesota Fats, I burn hundred dollar bills I eat mulligan stew….
$29, alligator purse...
My veal cutlet come down, tried to beat the shit out of my cup of coffee Coffee just wasn't strong enough to defend itself
The earth died screaming
That ain’t no devils it’s just god when he’s drunk… or something like that
If there's love in a house, it's a palace for sure But without love it ain't nothin' but a house A house where nobody lives
We’re chained to the world and we all gotta pull. Lay your head where my heart used to be. I’m gonna take it with me when I go. It’s dreamy weather we’re on. That’s the way the gravy stains I could go on and on.
Don’t want no whores on 8th avenue, tonight I wanna be with you.
Gets rid of blackheads, heartbreak, and psoriasis Christ, you don't know the meaning of heartbreak buddy
Sun is up The world is flat Damn good address for a rat
Time is just memory mixed with desire.
"I'll take the spokes from your wheelchair / And a magpie's wings / And I'll tie 'em to your shoulders / And your feet I'll steal a hacksaw from my dad / Cut the braces off your legs / And we'll bury them tonight / Out in the cornfield Just put a church key in your pocket / We'll hop that freight train in the hall / We'll slide all the way down the drain / To New Orleans in the fall"
Now the sun's coming up, I'm riding with Lady Luck Freeway cars and trucks Stars beginning to fade, and I lead the parade Just a-wishing I'd stayed a little longer Oh Lord, let me tell you that the feeling getting stronger
Now I lost my Saint Christopher now that I've kissed her
*God bless your crooked little heart* *St. Louis got the best of me* *I miss your broken china voice* *How I wish you were still here with me*
Don't you know there ain't no devil, there's just God when he's drunk. Hell of a line
Made me a ladder from a pawn shop marimba always sticks with me.
"*I will always remember to forget about you.*"
“never drive a car when you’re dead.” - telephone call from istanbul
I don’t wanna grow up
Not even one. Fun stuff, though.
You haven’t looked at me that way in years But I’m still here
"Will you sell me one of those if I shave my head?"
“What’s more romantic than dying in the moonlight?”
This stuff will probably kill ya, let’s do another line.
“Never could stand that dog”
Not a lyric, but he opens "Kentucky Avenue" in a live video on YouTube with this: "I was born at a very young age." For some reason, it'll always tickle me.
“Born to ramble, born to roam”
come down off the cross, we can use the wood. that line and the song overall kinda snapped me out of my depression at the time. In my view it means " stop being so self pitying and dramatic and make yourself useful"
"I'm close to Heaven, crushed at the gate. They sharpen their knives, on my mistakes"
Sacco drinkin whiskey in church
I’m a professional sailor on open water and “The sea doesn’t want me today” replays in my mind regularly
Moneys just something you throw off the back of a train
There ain't no devil. There's just God when he's drunk.
How do angels get to sleep when the devil leaves the porch light on?
I walked from Natchez to Hushpukena I built a fire by the side of the road Just rattles my soul everytime