"Diamonds and Gold"

'Rain Dogs,' 1985

Every Tom Waits Song is an email newsletter covering just that, in alphabetical order. Find more info here and sign up to get it sent straight to your inbox:

“Today kicks off a trio of songs that start with ‘Diamond.’ Quick — can you name ‘em all without cheating?”

I wrote that back in September. The entry it started, “Diamond in Your Mind,” ran in November. And then—nothing. Every Tom Waits Song went silent. Maybe for good, I thought.

From the start I’ve been trying to keep this in “fun side project” territory, and it started feeling more like an obligation to crank these out. So I bailed. That’s one advantage of keeping this newsletter free: I don’t owe anyone anything and can cut out with no guilt.

But, inevitably I suppose, I recently started feeling the Tom Waits itch again. I can listen to him with or without a newsletter of course, but in writing these I tend to learn more about songs I love and discover some gems I’d overlooked. Plus occasionally I get to trash-talk The Heart of Saturday Night and get a flood of outraged comments. (And look, the next song up is from that album. Uh oh.)

This long housekeeping preamble is to say: Every Tom Waits Song is back! For now. Maybe for just this week? No idea. I’m gonna write ‘em when I feel like it, and not when I don’t. That simple. I’ll still run ‘em on Sunday mornings, but I’m not gonna be scheduling them weeks out like I was before. That came to feel too much like work. Hopefully I’ll get as far as the long-teased third diamond song eventually—maybe even next Sunday—but no guarantees. I mean, Tom Waits is like the patron saint of quiet quitting. Quiet retiring, in his case.

Honestly, one thing that inspired me to come back is remembering I’d left off at this week’s song. I love “Diamonds and Gold!”

The opening line, “Broken glass, rusty nails, where the wild violets grow” strikes me as a perfect description for Tom’s music generally. Beauty emerging from ugliness. That applies to this specific song too. The plonking marimba and thudding percussion driving the rhythm sound light years’ removed from anything resembling a pop song. Marc Ribot’s guitar lines sound “wrong” when you judge by traditional lead-guitarists standards. And Tom Waits’ voice…well, it sounds like what he said up top. Broken glass, rusty nails.

But despite—excuse me, because of—all that, it’s beautiful. Especially in his post-Swordfishtrombones era, Tom’s weirdness and idiosyncrasies sometimes obscure his gift with melody, but the chorus here is infectious. “Earworm” seems like the wrong word to use with Tom, like he’s playing the same game as Max Martin, but I do find this gets stuck in my head. I have no idea what the words mean. Some lines point to the song being about the homeless or vagrants or people riding the rails, but it’s oblique. Not like his “Brother Can You Spare a Dime?” cover from a decade later.

It’s hard to argue that Tom’s most acclaimed album has any underrated songs, but “Diamonds and Gold” might be close. I don’t see it get the sort of superfan love as “Cemetery Polka” or “Tango ‘Til They’re Sore.” It certainly wasn’t any sort of hit like “Downtown Train” (hey, that one’s coming up soon too). Tom’s never even bothered to play it live. But “Diamonds and Gold” is as close as Rain Dogs gets to a hidden gem. And yes, that was a diamond joke.

PS. Here’s a good cover by My Terrible Friend. Gotta love some bowed banjo.