TOM WAITS or IS A DIAMOND JUST A PIECE OF COAL WITH PATIENCE?

When the lovely SENHORATYLER (Durden?) asked to me to write about a sound that never goes out, naturally there were some names on my head. So, I decided to just talk about (in three posts) Tom Waits, Beastie Boys and Tricky. I leave, therefore, the Bowie/Reed/Dylan department to the Tyler Lady, 'cause she swims much better in those waters than I do. I'm not trying to find a closed and exhaustive explanation to my love, just to talk about some ideas that might enhance or reinforce this devotion of mine.
The first time I saw Tom Waits was, actually, in the movie Down By Law [Jim Jarmush]. I was curious about that weird character and decided to go search some of his songs in the biggest discotheque I knew at the time – my friend Jorge's house. The first song I heard was Step Righ Up, with a very cool bass groove, and an explosion of words and rimes, with that terrific voice. It was love at first sight, or, like he says in the song, jackpot jackpot jackpot!
I would define his music as the surreal utilization of ordinary and archaic stuff. I chose the word surreal because he truly seems to have a different perception of the world and reality; as he says, when he listens to things his brain scrambles them and puts them out with a whole different meaning (remember the conversation with Iggy in Coffee and Cigarettes). Tom's a great story teller, as it is very easy to see in his live performances. And then, he likes very much to use not only objects and elements that we use in our day-to-day life but also the sound of machines and more complex systems, that always reports us to very familiar sounds. He doesn't use them in an harmonic or orchestrated way (in its ortodox definition, like Stomp). He just profits from the reality that it brings to his music and voice - “I'm not a percussionist, I just hit things.”
The curiosity that he reveals about the most ridiculous and eerie things (pointed in a notebook), and the places where he claims to find real beauty – “oil stains left by cars in a parking lot” - make me look at him as a true optimist. This curiosity and the ability to find meaningful things in life makes him a very un-bored person.
I believe that the last ingredient that makes his music so powerful is the irony. Irony in the letters, irony in the way he uses instruments and objects and even in the way he talks. The best example is for you to see the press conference about his tour, here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOrG1r3S6ZA).
Some days ago, I was watching the movie Le scaphandre et le papillon, and, in one of the most intense scenes of the movie, Tom's music appeared. His songs gives us the peace that an advise or comforting that a wise father gives to us when we are a naive child: he just seem to know It all.

By PO