"Big in Japan"

'Mule Variations', 1999

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The opening 15 seconds of “Big in Japan” encapsulate everything I love about Tom Waits, both musically and narratively.

I’d never paid too much attention to them before. They’re just typical Tom lo-fi beatboxing before the band kicks in. Or so I thought. It turns out there’s an extremely-Waits story about where those 15 seconds of distorted audio come from. He explained in a Mule Variations promo interview:

I was in Mexico in a hotel, and I only had this little tape recorder. I turned it on, and I started screaming and banging on this chest of drawers really hard, till it was kindling, trying to make a full sound like a band. And I saved that. That was years ago. I had it on a cassette, and used to listen to it and laugh. It sounded like some guy alone in a room, which it was, trying his hardest to sound like a big, loud band. So we stuck that in the front.

If you love Tom Waits, it’s hard not to love “Big in Japan.” It includes so much of what’s great about his post-Swordfishtrombones music: Loud growly bellowing, squalls of jagged blues-guitar, distorted beatboxing, almost violently aggressive percussion. Musically, it’s fairly reminiscent of another ‘90s classic, “Goin' Out West.” It also includes something you don’t hear on many Tom songs though: A Stax-esque horn section.

Lyrically, it’s nonsense, but of the most enjoyable sort. What Tom Waits fan wouldn’t want to hear him holler “I got the moon, I got the cheese / I got the whole damn nation on their knees”?

Naturally, a number of interviewers at the time asked Tom the obvious question: Are you big in Japan? He gave at least three different answers, two of them hilarious (he must have been tired for the middle one):

I see myself in the harbor, ripping up the electrical towers, picking up cars, going in like Godzilla and leveling Tokyo. There are people that are big in Japan, and are big nowhere else. It's like going to Mars. It's also kind of a junkyard for entertainment. You can go over there and find people you haven't heard of in 20 years, that have moved over there, and they're like gods. And then there are all those people that don't do any commercials, they have this classy image. And over there, they're hawking cigarettes, underwear, sushi, whiskey, sunglass es, used cars, beach blankets.

Well, I hope to be big in Japan after this. I don't know if I'm big in Japan. I've been over there several times, but I haven't been there in many years. This is a song about those people who can't work anywhere else but Japan, and, so it's just a goof, you know?

Haven't played there in a long time. Last time I was there, I was on a bullet train, had my little porkpie hat, my pointed shoes and my skinny tie. There was a whole car of Japanese gangsters dressed like Al Capone and Cagney, really zooted. Everyone says, "Don't go in there, don't go in there," but it was the only place with seats - everybody else was huddled together like cattle. And they are in this huge air-conditioned car, with tea and little cookies and six guys sitting around talking with cigars. I said, "Fuck, I'm gonna go in there and sit down." And I did. It was like this big, heavy stand-off, then they all started laughing, we all tipped our hats and did that little bow. It was pretty funny. Then I brought my guys in and we all sat down, my mob with the Japanese mob. They always want me to do ads for underwear and cigarettes, but I never did them. I did one and I'll never do it again. I used to see celebrities doing ads and my first reaction was, "Aw, gee he must have needed the money. That's tough." When somebody was on the slide, they would do an ad.

That bit about recording the intro in a Mexican hotel is the best thing I discovered researching today’s newsletter. But the second best thing is the following live video. It’s got Tom gesticulating wildly and leading a call-and-response with the crowd. His 14-year old son Casey pounds away on drums, and — best of all — some guy slams the hell out of a giant metal ring suspended from the ceiling. How do you audition for the job of “giant metal ring player”?

Coming up next: Tom didn’t jump the fence