Quote

Sometimes the magnetism of a song is impossible to ignore, and it demands that it be sung in a certain way.

Tom Waits

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Tom Waits
Age: 75
Born: 1949
Born: December 7
Actor
Composer
Guitarist
Jazz Guitarist
Pianist
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Writer
Pomona
California
Thomas Alan Waits
Ignore
Demands
Demand
Impossible
Song
Certain
Sometimes
Magnetism
Way
Sung

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Are you still jumping out of windows in expensive clothes?
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People make songs so that somebody else will hear them and want to do them. I guess it's an indication that the songs aren't so ultra-personal that they can't possibly be interpreted by anyone else.
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The Universe is making music all the time.
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In terms of black music - the only music that we can call our own, that was really born here - I don't think a lot has been done to chronicle the relations between American history and where black music fits in.
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Oh I don't mind going to weddings, just as long as it's not my own.
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Planes and Trains and Boats and Busses Characteristically Evolve a common attitude of blue Unless you have a suitcase and a ticket and a passport And the cargo that they're carrying is you.
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Well it's hotter 'n blazes and all the long faces / there'll be no oasis for a dry local grazier
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I do like books on anatomy. I have to say I'm an amateur physician, I guess.
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Most songs have meager beginnings. You wake up in the morning, you throw on your suspenders, and you subvocalize and just think. They seem to form like calcium. I can't think of a story right off the bat that was that interesting. I write things on the back of my hand, usually, and sing into a tape recorder.
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I think this whole division between the genres has more to do with marketing than anything else. It's terrible for the culture of music.
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I'm usually more concerned with how things sound than how they look on the page.
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Oh, I'm not a percussionist, I just like to hit things.
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Never have your wallet with you onstage. It's bad luck. You shouldn't play the piano with money in your pocket. Play like you need the money.
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Misery is the River of the World
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I used to imagine that making it in music - really making it in music - is if you're an old man going by a schoolyard and you hear children singing your songs, playing jump-rope, or on the swings. That's the ultimate. You're in the culture.
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The blues and gospel stuff seemed to go together.
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I'm just trying to make a buck like everyone else.
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I'm not one of those people the tabloids chase around.
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I don't have a drinking problem 'Cept when I can't get a drink.
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You can learn a lot about a woman by getting smashed with her.
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