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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.

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
Born
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History
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Black
Fit
Music
Relation
Done
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Term
Really
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If you're a writer you know that the stories don't come to you, you have to go looking for them. The old men in the lobby: that's where the stories were.
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You know what I really love? The CD players in a car. How when you put the CD right up by the slot, it actually takes it out of your hand, like it's hungry. It pulls it in, and you feel like it wants more silver discs.
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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.
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slept all night in the cedar grove, i was born to ramble, born to rove, some men are searchin' for the holy grail, but there ain't nothin' sweeter than ridin' the rails
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I hope I'm becoming more eccentric. More room in the brain.
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George Burns was a Vaudeville performer I particularly loved.
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It's new, it's improved, it's old fashioned.
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He said, I'm better off without her, until I showed him my tattoo.
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All medical procedures require two hands, so in a sense it's like when you play an instrument. That's what they call things that they use in their work: They call them instruments. A lot of people start out majoring in medicine and drop it and change their major to music.
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Every single song has its own individual character and you can't treat each song the same way, because it wants to be treated differently and there are songs that are like scared birds that you have to sneak up on over the course of months in the woods.
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The dog won't bite if you beat Him with a bone
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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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Folks who work here are professors. Don't replace all the knowers with guessors keep'em open they're the ears of the town
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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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I walked 500 miles just to see a halo, when I opened my eyes I was blind as can be.
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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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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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There's only one reason why you write new songs: You get sick of the old songs. It's not that I didn't do anything during the time when I wrote no songs. I was creative, but in another way. I had ideas for songs and collected the ideas.
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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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Children make up the best songs, anyway. Better than grown-ups. Kids are always working on songs and throwing them away, like little origami things or paper airplanes. They don't care if they lose it they'll just make another one.
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