Pandora Picks: Tom Waits

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while. I'm making it up to you now by sharing some songs by Tom Waits, who has become one of my very favorite musicians because of Pandora.

Many of you probably know that I have non-conventional musical tastes. Substantive and interesting lyrics are important to me. The lack thereof in recent music (that I have heard) is what causes the vast majority of music I enjoy to be older than I am. Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan are two examples of great songwriters whose lyric mastery overcomes, and is in fact enhanced by, the fact that they don't have conventionally "good" singing voices. They are unique in that characteristic. Tom Waits is yet another example of a truly sublime songwriter whose unusual voice (in this case, very deep and harsh--growling, at times) fits the persona of his songs so well that it makes them all the more real and all the more intriguing. He sings from the perspective of characters who hail from and/or are headed to some pretty low places. The songs they sing through Waits give color to a very shady part of society. They are sinister, good-natured, or simply drunk, but they are nearly always, in my opinion, worth listening to. Here are three Tom Waits Songs I think you might enjoy.

"Georgia Lee"


"Pasties and a G-String"


"Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen)"


These are but three songs I enjoy. "Georgia Lee" and "Tom Traubert's Blues" are quite emotional songs, while "Pasties and a G-String," as the song title suggests, is pretty light-hearted and silly but nonetheless entertaining.

Cheers.