Quote

Writing songs is like capturing birds without killing them. Sometimes you end up with nothing but a mouthful of feathers.

Tom Waits

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Tom Waits
Age: 75
Born: 1949
Born: December 7
Actor
Composer
Guitarist
Jazz Guitarist
Pianist
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Writer
Pomona
California
Thomas Alan Waits
Songs
Song
Ends
Mouthful
Without
Capturing
Nothing
Feathers
Sometimes
Birds
Writing
Killing
Like
Bird

More quotes by Tom Waits

Image
I don't know if any genuine meaningful change could ever result from a song. It's kind of like throwing peanuts at a gorilla.
Tom Waits
Image
It's hard to win when you always lose.
Tom Waits
Image
It wasn't good for my nerves, that kind of work - a fireman. I've got high blood pressure. I get upset easily. I don't think that was a proper career alternative for me.
Tom Waits
Image
There's a place down the street Seven Xs. What does that mean? Maybe it's... girls without skin.
Tom Waits
Image
You hope people are going to be listening to you after you're gone. And they like you better after you're gone.
Tom Waits
Image
I always had a great appreciation for jazz, but I'm a very pedestrian musician. I get by. I like to think that my main instrument is vocabulary.
Tom Waits
Image
Disneyland is Vegas for children.
Tom Waits
Image
The blues is like a planet. It's an enormous topic. You can't ignore the impact that it has had and continues to have on the whole musical culture. It's a tree that everyone is swinging from. Without it, I don't know where I would be. It's indelible and indispensable.
Tom Waits
Image
Most changes in music, most exciting things that happen in music, occur through a miscommunication between people I thought you said this. Poetry comes out of that too.
Tom Waits
Image
Well, they'll bark you down like carneys, sell you Christmas cards in June.
Tom Waits
Image
Anton brings the camera. I'll bring a tuba, wear black, not shave, and take us to a burned-down Chinese restaurant. (On being photographed by his longtime photo collaborator Anton Corbijn)
Tom Waits
Image
The piano has been drinking, not me.
Tom Waits
Image
Jesus Christ, this godamn rain, will someone put me on a train.
Tom Waits
Image
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.
Tom Waits
Image
All that you've loved is all you own
Tom Waits
Image
That for me is more important than anything when you're in the studio - to have somebody you can trust and who knows you, knows who you are and doesn't let you get away with anything.
Tom Waits
Image
You know, we just buy music now. We don't make it any more. And that goes for just about everything. I think it's so important that people develop and subscribe to and have confidence in their own ability to make music, however rough it is.
Tom Waits
Image
I'll take a rusty nail and scratch your initials on my arm.
Tom Waits
Image
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.
Tom Waits
Image
Let me fall out of the window/ With confetti in my hair
Tom Waits