Great post as always. There is a little bit of mystery about the lyrics of Blind Love that has been puzzling me. Here's what I wrote on the Tom Waits Facebook forum:
I didn't like Blind Love at first. I guess I wasn't really ready for the greatness of country music at the tender age of 16...
But it's grown on me over the years, and now I think the combination of Tom's simple lyrics, Keith Richards' guitar and the bluegrass violins are just perfect.
Now you're gone
It's hotels and whiskey and sad-luck dames
And I don't care if they miss me
I never remember their names
They say if you get far enough away
You'll be on your way back home
Well, I'm at the station
And I can't get on the train
Now why would you want to change great lyrics like those? Well, for some reason Tom didn't seem to be happy with them. Halfway through the Rain Dogs tour he decided to change the lyrics of the first verse to:
I'm so hard on you
Tell myself it must've been me
never knew where we were going
yet how blind were our dreams (not sure I've heard that correctly)
I'm gonna get lost in you
leave a while and never come home
put your arms around me baby
close your eyes
Not very good compared to the original, is it? At first I thought he simply forgot the lyrics and improvised something, but no, those words stay approximately the same for the rest of the tour (or on the two, three boots I have, at least) and they are still around on the Big Time tour, only Tom changes "yet how blind were our dreams" to "hold tight to your dreams". On the Mule Variations tour everything is the same as the original again. Strange...
Enjoying The Silver Hearts album. They're from Peterborough, Ontario! I spent a year there in an apartment right out of a Tom Waits song. This was 1987 and I listened to Rain Dogs every day so there is an odd circular thing happening here for me! Great post. Thanks.
Great post as always. There is a little bit of mystery about the lyrics of Blind Love that has been puzzling me. Here's what I wrote on the Tom Waits Facebook forum:
I didn't like Blind Love at first. I guess I wasn't really ready for the greatness of country music at the tender age of 16...
But it's grown on me over the years, and now I think the combination of Tom's simple lyrics, Keith Richards' guitar and the bluegrass violins are just perfect.
Now you're gone
It's hotels and whiskey and sad-luck dames
And I don't care if they miss me
I never remember their names
They say if you get far enough away
You'll be on your way back home
Well, I'm at the station
And I can't get on the train
Now why would you want to change great lyrics like those? Well, for some reason Tom didn't seem to be happy with them. Halfway through the Rain Dogs tour he decided to change the lyrics of the first verse to:
I'm so hard on you
Tell myself it must've been me
never knew where we were going
yet how blind were our dreams (not sure I've heard that correctly)
I'm gonna get lost in you
leave a while and never come home
put your arms around me baby
close your eyes
Not very good compared to the original, is it? At first I thought he simply forgot the lyrics and improvised something, but no, those words stay approximately the same for the rest of the tour (or on the two, three boots I have, at least) and they are still around on the Big Time tour, only Tom changes "yet how blind were our dreams" to "hold tight to your dreams". On the Mule Variations tour everything is the same as the original again. Strange...
Enjoying The Silver Hearts album. They're from Peterborough, Ontario! I spent a year there in an apartment right out of a Tom Waits song. This was 1987 and I listened to Rain Dogs every day so there is an odd circular thing happening here for me! Great post. Thanks.