"Baby I'm Not a Baby Anymore (Beatrice Theme)"
'Night on Earth' soundtrack, 1992
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Full disclosure: Night on Earth is the Tom Waits album I've listened to the least. It's not even an album, really; it's a soundtrack, which is part of the problem. I've never been a soundtrack guy, and that goes double when I haven't seen the movie.
So, last night, I watched the movie.
To enlighten those of you similarly in the dark, Night on Earth is a 1991 movie written and directed by Tom's frequent collaborator Jim Jarmusch. It juxtaposes five taxi cab vignettes, each taking place in a different city (and, except for the first two, different language): Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome, Helsinki. They are sometimes funny, more often sad, and don't directly connect to each other except for the setting. Roger Ebert gave it three stars, which seems about right, writing:
Jarmusch is a poet of the night. Much of "Night on Earth" creates the same kind of lonely, elegiac, romantic mood as "Mystery Train," his film about wanderers in nighttime Memphis. Tom Waits' music helps to establish this mood of cities that have been emptied of the waking. It's as if the minds of these night people are affected by all of the dreams and nightmares that surround them.
Tom had acted in Jarmusch's two previous films, 1986's Down by Law and 1989's aforementioned Mystery Train, but for Night on Earth he stuck with soundtrack duty. As most of Night on Earth consists simply of dialogue between a taxi driver and passenger (it feels more like a stage show, or series of one-act plays, than a movie), the music is one of the few devices used to break up the conversations. Waits gives the mostly instrumental pieces titles that humorously nod to their settings in the movie: "Dragging a Dead Priest," "New York Theme (Hey, You Can Have That Heart Attack Outside Buddy)," etc. The titles make sense when you watch it.
Today's track, "Baby I'm Not a Baby Anymore (Beatrice Theme)," soundtracks the Paris story. The titular Béatrice Dalle plays a blind woman who gets in the cab driven by a man from the Ivory Coast. He has just been ridiculed by two drunk African diplomats and tries to take it out on her — unsuccessfully. She retains the upper hand of their conversation even as he asks rude questions about her blindness. It culminates in him getting in a fender bender because he wasn't watching the road while she confidently strolls away, smirking as she tip-taps her cane.
Can you hear all that in "Baby I'm Not a Baby Anymore (Beatrice Theme)"? Not really. But it's a pleasant slice of sax-driven mood music. I can't say watching the film offers some skeleton key to unlock this composition, which could soundtrack any number of film noirs. But, if you do, I'm sure you too will picture Béatrice Dalle smirking in the back of the Parisian taxi the next time you hear it.