Listening Post

Tom Waits has been teasing everyone over the past couple of weeks, saying that he had a big announcement coming today. Well it turns out that, for the most part, it's the reveal for this -- his new video.

This is Hell Broke Luce.

Quote of the Day

"The song needed a chorus and they didn't have one. So Kathleen and I said, 'Come on, we're talking about New Year's, let's just do it!' And if you've ever been at one of those gatherings where things went badly, where we all sing even though the fireworks scared the dog and he's been gone for two hours, and someone lit the sofa on fire, and Marge got food poisoning, and Bill O'Neal called the cops... I want you to play (it) like you’re miles from home, and your legs are dangling from a boxcar ... play like you have no pants on."

-- Tom Waits on the song New Year's Eve from his new album, Bad as Me

God I want to go to one of Tom's New Year's parties.

Bad as Him

New Tom Waits hits in late October. Here's a quick preview, a "private listening party" with the man himself -- a guy I could listen to as he reads the tax code, that's how absolutely balls-out cool he is.

Listening Post

Tom Waits's 1973 debut album Closing Time is a masterpiece of profoundly beautiful melancholy.

Offered without any more comment than that, because it simply isn't required, here now are two from that record.

I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love with You, and the heartbreaking Lonely.