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Tom Waits

Tom Waits Quotes

Singer-songwriter

Tom Waits, born on December 7, 1949, is an influential American singer-songwriter and actor. Known for his unique musical style that blends blues, jazz, folk, and country elements, he is often referred to as 'the oddball of American music.' Waits is renowned for his distinctive voice and expressive lyrics, and his work has earned high praise in both the music and literary worlds.

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All Knows Ifs Thinking Song Way Want People Writing Bigs Hands

Famous Tom Waits Quotes

“I'm not one of those people the tabloids chase around.”

People Tabloids

Author:Tom Waits

“There's a certain fast-food approach to the whole music thing that's changed the role it plays for us all. You are doing it while you are doing other things. Not that that is new - people have had music on in the background as long as there has been music.”

People Long Has Beens Play Whole Certain Roles Changed Approach Backgrounds Fast Food

Author:Tom Waits

“Songs are pretty easy. They are small, they are modular, they are about as big as a bagel. They are easy to build. Films are overwhelming in their magnitude and scope. By comparison, a lot of film directors wish they were writing songs because you can do it while getting your hair cut.”

Writing Bigs Film Song Wish Easy Can Do Cutting Hair Directors Comparison Overwhelming You Can Do It Scope Magnitude Writing Songs Film Directors Bagels Hair Cut

Author:Tom Waits

“If you are recording, you are recording. I don't believe there is such a thing as a demo or a temporary vocal. The drama around even sitting in the car and singing into a tape recorder that's as big as your hand - waiting until it's very quiet, doing your thing, and then playing it back and hoping you like it - is the same basic anatomy as when you're in the recording studio, really. Sometimes it's better that way because some of the pressure is off and you can pretend it's throwaway.”

Ifs Way Believe Sometimes Hands Bigs Waiting Car Drama Quiet Singing Sitting Pressure Don't Believe Studios Temporary Tape Vocal You Like It Anatomy Recorders Demos Recording Studio

Author:Tom Waits

“It's terrible for the culture of music. Like anything that is purely economic, it ignores the most important component.”

Important Culture Economic Terrible Components

Author:Tom Waits

“Songs are really just very interesting things to be doing with the air.”

Song Interesting Air Very Interesting Interesting Things

Author:Tom Waits

“There's a lot of intelligence in the hands.When you pick up a shovel, the hands know what to do. The same thing's true of sitting at the piano.”

Knows Hands Picks Sitting Piano Shovels

Author:Tom Waits

“If there's one thing you can say about mankind, there's nothing kind about man.”

Ifs Men Kind One Thing Mankind

Author:Tom Waits

“Some men are searching for the Holy Grail, but there ain't nothing sweeter than riding the rail. Pregnant women and Vietnam vets, beggin on the freeway, bout as hard as it gets.”

Men Hard Holy Vietnam Riding Pregnant Rail Freeways Vets Pregnant Women Holy Grail Vietnam Vets

Author:Tom Waits

“Break windows, smoke cigars, and stay up late. Tell 'em to do that, they'll find a little pot of gold.”

Littles Break Advice Late Musician Window Gold Smoke Ems Pot Cigar Pot Of Gold

Author:Tom Waits

“The dog won't bite if you beat Him with a bone”

Ifs Dog Beats Bones Bites

Author:Tom Waits

“Folks who work here are professors. Don't replace all the knowers with guessors keep'em open they're the ears of the town”

Ears Towns Folks Ems Professors

Author:Tom Waits

“You cannot really be too concerned with what people think of you. You're on your own adventure of growth and discovery. So it's not always good to be who people think you are, especially if you subscribe to it as well ... which is easily done, because then you don't have to figure out who you are, you just ask somebody else.”

People Ifs Thinking Wells Done Asks Growth Figures Adventure Discovery Concerned Who You Are Think Of You

Author:Tom Waits

“You choke my days, I'll choke yours.”

Author:Tom Waits

“I like turning on two radios at once. I like hearing things wrong… I get a lot of ideas by mishearing things.”

Two Ideas Radio Hearing Hearing Things

Author:Tom Waits

“I finally discovered that my life is more important than show business.”

Important Shows Life Is Show Business

Author:Tom Waits

“You've gotta have somebody to trust, that knows a lot.”

Author:Tom Waits

“The average person spends two weeks over their lifetime waiting for the traffic light to change.”

Persons Two Light Waiting Week Lifetime Average Traffic Two Weeks Average Person Traffic Light

Author:Tom Waits

“All medical procedures require two hands, so in a sense it's like when you play an instrument. That's what they call things that they use in their work: They call them instruments. A lot of people start out majoring in medicine and drop it and change their major to music.”

People Two Play Use Hands Majors Instruments Medicine Medical Procedures Two Hands Medical Procedures

Author:Tom Waits

“It's rather mystifying when you think about writing songs - where they come from, and how they're born.”

Thinking Writing Song Born Writing Songs

Author:Tom Waits

“I like writing melody without an instrument. It's just so - it's more like the choreography of a bee; you just go.”

Writing Instruments Melody Bees Choreography

Author:Tom Waits

“There's truths there that spiral out of what appears to be just a word game. That's what I find mystifying about the meanings of things: they kind of unscrew themselves from the practical words.”

Kind Games Practicals Spirals

Author:Tom Waits

“I like Thelonious Monk, he's so gnarled, he's like a piece of machinery that's pulled up the bolts on the floor and gone off on its own.”

Art Gone Pieces Monk Machinery Bolts

Author:Tom Waits

“Living with kids is like living with a bunch of drunks. You know you really have to be on your toes all the time. Things are falling over and breaking and spilling. If you live on the second story, you really have to keep the windows shut all the time.”

Ifs Knows Art Stories Kids Fall Window Bunch Toes Spilling

Author:Tom Waits

“I'm always looking for sounds that are pleasing at the time. The sound of a helicopter is really annoying until you're drowning, and it's there to rescue you. Then it sounds like music.”

Art Sound Annoying Rescue Drowning Helicopters

Author:Tom Waits

“It's hard to play with a bagpipe player. It's like an exotic bird. I love the sound, it's like strangling a goose.”

Art Hard Play Sound Player Bird Exotic Geese Strangling Bagpipes

Author:Tom Waits

“Every single song has its own individual character and you can't treat each song the same way, because it wants to be treated differently and there are songs that are like scared birds that you have to sneak up on over the course of months in the woods.”

Way Want Character Song Courses Individual Months Bird Treats Scared Woods Treated Sneak

Author:Tom Waits

“If you walk with Jesus, he's gonna save your soul. You gotta keep the devil way down in the hole. He's got the fire and the fury at his command.”

Ifs Way Soul Jesus Walks Fire Devil Holes Command Your Soul Fury

Author:Tom Waits

“I can't listen to so much music at the same time. I think you really have to have a diet. You're just processing too much, there's no place to put it. If you go a long time without hearing music, then you hear music that nobody else hears.”

Ifs Thinking Long I Can Too Much Long Time Hearing Diets Processing Hearing Music

Author:Tom Waits

“I'm trying to get music ideas that come and keep them alive. It's like carrying water in your hands. I want to keep it all, and sometimes by the time you get to the studio you have nothing.”

Want Trying Ideas Sometimes Hands Water Alive Studios

Author:Tom Waits

“I think some bands thrive on the idea of changing instruments. When they're off their real instrument, the ability to go very far from the original idea is reduced.”

Thinking Ideas Real Ability Band Originals Instruments Thrive Original Ideas

Author:Tom Waits

“Most changes in music, most exciting things that happen in music, occur through a miscommunication between people "I thought you said this." Poetry comes out of that too.”

People Said Happens Exciting Exciting Things Miscommunication

Author:Tom Waits

“The first time I started listening to Irish music, I had a very strong connection. Strangely enough, there's a great many Japanese melodies and vocal styles that sound very much like Hungarian music. You start seeing all these cross-references and comparative, independent musical cultures.”

Firsts Enough Culture Strong Sound Seeing Style Listening First Time Crosses Connections Independent Musical Great Men Melody Very Strong Vocal Hungarians Strong Connection Irish Music

Author:Tom Waits

“There's a beauty of show business. It's the only business you can have a career in when you're dead.”

Shows Careers Show Business

Author:Tom Waits

“Jesus Christ, this godamn rain, will someone put me on a train.”

Jesus Christ Jesus Christ Rain Train

Author:Tom Waits

“I put food on the table and roof overhead. But I'd trade it all tomorrow for the highway instead.”

Tomorrow Tables Trade Roof Highways Overhead

Author:Tom Waits

“Bill Hicks - blowtorch, excavator, truthsayer, and brain specialist. He will correct your vision. Others will drive on the road he built.”

Brain Vision Built Bills Specialists Hicks

Author:Tom Waits

“If you can make a little painting for the ears with a few words, well, I like words; I like cutting them up and finding different ways of saying the same thing... I get into a spell, and it all comes easy. I don't labor over it. I go inside the song, I think you make yourself an antenna for songs, and songs want to be around you. And then they bring other songs along, and then they're all sitting around, and they're drinkin' your beer, and they're sleeping on the floor. And they are using the phone, they're rude, thankless little f---ers.”

Ifs Thinking Way Want Wells Littles Different Song Easy Sleep Cutting Painting Findings Labor Ears Drinking Phones Beer Different Ways Over It Spells Rude Few Words Thankless Antenna

Author:Tom Waits

“I don't like hearing Beatles songs in commercials. It almost renders them useless. I think, 'Oh God, another one bites the dust.'”

Thinking Song Hearing Dust Useless Bites

Author:Tom Waits

“You know, we just buy music now. We don't make it any more. And that goes for just about everything. I think it's so important that people develop and subscribe to and have confidence in their own ability to make music, however rough it is.”

People Thinking Knows Important Ability Rough Have Confidence

Author:Tom Waits

“Did the devil make the world while God was sleeping?”

World Sleep Devil

Author:Tom Waits

“When you say you're doing an opera, it's like when you're a seven-year-old and say, 'I'm off to Washington, Dad.' You kind of go, 'Sure. Sure you are, son.'”

Years Kind Son Dad Seven Opera Seven Years

Author:Tom Waits

“Anton brings the camera. I'll bring a tuba, wear black, not shave, and take us to a burned-down Chinese restaurant. (On being photographed by his longtime photo collaborator Anton Corbijn)”

Black Cameras Chinese Restaurants Burned Collaborators Tubas

Author:Tom Waits

“My wife called me a mule. She once said, "I didn't marry a man; I married a mule!" I kept thinking about it. It was in the back of my head. I think it makes a good title for an album.”

Thinking Men Said Wife Married Albums My Wife Titles Mules

Author:Tom Waits

“There's only one reason why you write new songs: You get sick of the old songs. It's not that I didn't do anything during the time when I wrote no songs. I was creative, but in another way. I had ideas for songs and collected the ideas.”

Way Writing Ideas Reason Song Creative Sick Reason Why Another Way New Songs Old Song

Author:Tom Waits

“You just write and you don't try to make sense of it. You just put it down the way you got it.”

Way Writing Trying Make Sense

Author:Tom Waits

“I was always laughing in church.”

Church Laughing Always Laughing

Author:Tom Waits

“I don't know what the 'big time' is.”

Author:Tom Waits

“New York forces you to be in endless surreal situations.”

Force Situation New York Endless Surreal

Author:Tom Waits

“There's nothing that makes me laugh more than being in the situation where you're not supposed to laugh. Funerals. People crying. Breaking down. Telling you their life. I'm the worst. I'm the worst at that.”

People Situation Laughing Worst Cry Funeral Breaking Down Make Me Laugh

Author:Tom Waits

About the Author

Born: December 7, 1949
Known for: Singer-songwriter
Quotes: 290

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Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

The Early Years: The Lyrics of Tom Waits 1971-1983Related source material

The Early Years: The Lyrics, 1971-1983Related source material

Tom Waits: Mule Variations Piano, Vocal and Guitar ChordsRelated source material

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