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My first big gig was an opening show for Frank Zappa, and I think that was difficult.

Tom Waits

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Tom Waits
Age: 74
Born: 1949
Born: December 7
Actor
Composer
Guitarist
Jazz Guitarist
Pianist
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Writer
Pomona
California
Thomas Alan Waits
Think
Frank
Thinking
Opening
Show
Bigs
Difficult
Shows
Firsts
Zappa
First
Gigs

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I'm usually more concerned with how things sound than how they look on the page.
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Most vagabonds i knowed don't ever want to find the culprit that remains the object of their long relentless quest. The obsession's in the chasing and not the apprehending, the pursuit you see and never the arrest - Tom Waits Foreign Affairs
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Let me fall out of the window/ With confetti in my hair
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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.
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When the weather's rough and it's whiskey in the rain it's best to wrap your savior up in cellophane.
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Are you still jumping out of windows in expensive clothes?
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But then I'm one of those guys that is still a bit afraid of the telephone, its implications for conversation. I still wonder if the jukebox might be the death of live music.
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I like Thelonious Monk, he's so gnarled, he's like a piece of machinery that's pulled up the bolts on the floor and gone off on its own.
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I'm just trying to make a buck like everyone else.
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I like turning on two radios at once. I like hearing things wrong… I get a lot of ideas by mishearing 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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Most songs that aren't jump-rope songs, or lullabies, are cautionary tales or goodbye songs and road songs.
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I'm always looking for sounds that are pleasing at the time. The sound of a helicopter is really annoying until you're drowning, and it's there to rescue you. Then it sounds like music.
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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.
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Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, never drive a car when you're dead
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I’ve never met anyone who made it with a chick because they owned a Tom Waits album. I’ve got all three, and it’s never helped me.
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He said, I'm better off without her, until I showed him my tattoo.
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I always liked the idea that America is a big facade. We are all insects crawling across on the shiny hood of a Cadillac. We're all looking at the wrapping. But we won't tear the wrapping to see what lies beneath.
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