I've pondered about certain instrumentals by Tom Waits ("Rainbirds" is one of the lovely instrumental pieces by anyone in any genre), but somehow didn't think about the angle of Waits as an instrumental artist--guess I hadn't realized just how many of them he's recorded. I must make a playlist, or find one that already exists.
You just close your eyes and visualise the cigarette slowly burning itself away in a black marble ashtray sat atop of the weathered piano while the glass collector silently picks up the last empty glasses and the old ‘fella’ gently mops the floor in time with the nodding melody oozing out into the early hours of downtown New York in the rain. #beautiful
I would like to hear more about your take on Tom Waits' persona. How much does it influence the way you understand his music and in what sense? What if the persona didn't exist and Tom Waits was on stage the very same Tom Waits he his at home? What about if the persona was the real Tom Waits and no other different aspect of his personality existed? This relationship between public and private life and between daily life and life on stage it's something about which I think a lot while I'm composing my songs. The story of the song, its universe, gets bigger than me, bigger than us...
Like any artist with a back catalogue expanding into a sixth decade, there are different ages of Waits as an artist; in the same way, I'm sure there are different ages of him as a man. When I look at who I am now; Husband, father, home-owner and senior manager at a big corporation - I was none of those when I was 20, and that's not even factoring how I am different as a person and my personality changes.
I don't think any in the public eye for that long can't have the split between those two parts of themselves - the artist and the person. I'm currently reading The McCartney Legacy Volume 1: 1969-73 - by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair, and it is at pains to make that split clear in the introduction.
Thank you. This comes in line with what is my own experience as an artist, as a person and as a Poet. The artist evolves as the person the Poet is. This is a poem of mine:
I've pondered about certain instrumentals by Tom Waits ("Rainbirds" is one of the lovely instrumental pieces by anyone in any genre), but somehow didn't think about the angle of Waits as an instrumental artist--guess I hadn't realized just how many of them he's recorded. I must make a playlist, or find one that already exists.
I was shocked when my count went beyond thirty and increased to 50. That's a lot for anyone and shows how embedded they are in what he does.
You just close your eyes and visualise the cigarette slowly burning itself away in a black marble ashtray sat atop of the weathered piano while the glass collector silently picks up the last empty glasses and the old ‘fella’ gently mops the floor in time with the nodding melody oozing out into the early hours of downtown New York in the rain. #beautiful
I would like to hear more about your take on Tom Waits' persona. How much does it influence the way you understand his music and in what sense? What if the persona didn't exist and Tom Waits was on stage the very same Tom Waits he his at home? What about if the persona was the real Tom Waits and no other different aspect of his personality existed? This relationship between public and private life and between daily life and life on stage it's something about which I think a lot while I'm composing my songs. The story of the song, its universe, gets bigger than me, bigger than us...
Like any artist with a back catalogue expanding into a sixth decade, there are different ages of Waits as an artist; in the same way, I'm sure there are different ages of him as a man. When I look at who I am now; Husband, father, home-owner and senior manager at a big corporation - I was none of those when I was 20, and that's not even factoring how I am different as a person and my personality changes.
I don't think any in the public eye for that long can't have the split between those two parts of themselves - the artist and the person. I'm currently reading The McCartney Legacy Volume 1: 1969-73 - by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair, and it is at pains to make that split clear in the introduction.
Thank you. This comes in line with what is my own experience as an artist, as a person and as a Poet. The artist evolves as the person the Poet is. This is a poem of mine:
Becoming
the artist
becoming
the person
the Poet is