Waits: Oh well you know, most of my songs are kinda travel logs. It's difficult to say exactly where they come from. I kinda sleep with one eye open. Uhh, this is a song here, it's titled On The Nickel. In downtown Los Angelas, there's a place called 5th street. And that's where all the Hobos are. And they call it on the Nickel. And there's a uhh, motion picture entitled On The Nickel, it was written by Ralph Waite. And so, this is a story. Kinda a little wino's lullaby. Cheers.
RU-vid is like working down a mine, you keep digging away and digging away at the same old but if your really lucky you find a pure 22 carot rough diamond like this one :)
I really like this interview and performance. Tom amused the audience with eccentricity in the interview portion and then the room fell silent when he turned on the magic in the performance. Television gold.
Don Lane --- Wikipedia sez: " Lane was born Morton Donald Isaacson at the Manhattan "Flower Hospital" in New York City to a Jewish father (Jacob) and a Catholic mother (Dolly), who later converted to Judaism. Jacob "Jack" Isaacson was a sergeant in the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and Dolly was a homemaker. He was raised in The Bronx, where he attended DeWitt Clinton High School and was classmates with Judd Hirsch and Garry Marshall."
I don't understand why all of you are giving the host a hard time. Maybe you don't understand the Australian humour but the host was clearly are huge fan of Tom and thought very highly of his talent and in the earlier interview was just having fun with him, played along with the way Tom acted. Which is in no way an insult, if you think so, you take yourself too seriously.
Agree, and I don't even think he had a specific sense of humor. Just funnying around and talking to a person, he admires. He very well knew the concept of laughter and tears.
I agree. Tom may be drunk, but he is acting to. Nobody can perform at the level of drunkenness he is showing. And, he has a hard time to hide his laugh.
Oh, I think most people know exactly what was happening here and can see the host was doing a fine job while having a lot of fun with a guest he clearly liked very much. In fact, if the host had not liked Tom so much, it could have gone really bad, But as it is - it's a great piece of film, both parts I & II. And, I might add, one of Tom's best performances of his all-time classic song 'On the Nickel'. Great clip -
I haven't seen this since I saw it live to air in 1979. At that time I was totally blown away by this performance and it has stayed with me ever since as one of the more emotionally significant moments of TV I've ever seen. Seeing it now 38 years later was extremely moving. Thank God for RU-vid.
All these years....I just never understood..the appeal...I was so very wrong. This is genius, this is torture, this is soul. This is just so incredible and personal, I almost feel like a voyeur.
Tom Waits is such an enigmatic and intriguing person. His music is so deep and soulful, yet he has such a great sense of humor. I think him mentioning his influences being some performers plays a big part in that. Also, his acting is incredible! I just put two and two together recently. He's truly an inspiration.
Thanks! His compassion for homeless guys "sleepin' in the rain...." "....'What becomes of little boys/who never say their prayers...And what becomes of little boys/who run away from home/The world keeps gettin' bigger/Once you get out on your own...."
Just came back for another listen to this. I do it once or twice a year. There is something about this Waits performance I find incredibly poignant and moving. Don't know why...it always struck me that here was a strange man in a strange land playing for an audience that didn't know what to make of him. And yet they were slowly but surely captivated by this gnome-like fellow.
I watched the Don lane show as a kid. He was the David Letterman of Australia. He had his moments but this was the first time Tom had been on tv here in Australia and he wasn't the well known legend he was around the world and unfortunately he was looked down on but success is the best revenge. And he certainly got that in spades
My Lord, the interviewer (Don Lane?) is just fantastic...even makes Tom laugh a few times. One of the few interviews I've seen with Waits where the interviewer is such an organic part of the humor. If you haven't seen it, check out "The best interview ever" with "The Piano Has Been Drinking" and some of the David Letterman interviews--full length one of "one Last Look" with George Clooney is hilarious and also touching. Sometimes called "Free the Glutens." How the interviewer calls him the ultimate set up (comedian) is so very accurate. I wonder sometimes what Tom Waits is like when he isn't playing his character. His choice to play a drunken broke down piano bar quasi-bum is so brilliant. He can make just about any political comment he wants if he so chooses.
Watch any interview with Tom prior to meeting Kathleen and he's a nervous wreck. Watch any interview post marriage and sobriety the nerves are all gone. Thankfully, Tom met his guardian angel and married her post haste!
There is something about Tom Waits delivery of a song that is so raw and so real that it transports you into places that music seldom does. Not since Louie Armstrong have we heard a voice like that, a deep gravelly growl of a voice that comes right from the heart and doesn't try to be pretty but just tells a story about life and humanity and love and sadness and sorrow. Tom Waits is unique. There is no one else out there like him and probably never will be again.
I love the fact that if you watch the first part you can tell the audience aren't sure if he's serious or not, especially when they show the short video footage him performing and you can hear the audience chuckling... And then he comes out and blows them away with a performance like this, he's nothing short of brilliant!
This is one bit of television I'll never forget. I was a teen at the time of this and was enthralled by this shy, gravelly voiced chain smoking man that blew me away. My best mate of the time gave me a better education of his music a few months later, and I've purchased everything he has released since. Don Lane handled him beautifully too, a stand-out interview.
I saw that show in Sydney,Don Lane told the viewers that He is not stoned,he simply is like that.We were fascinated to watch it and listen to his play,odd but wonderful.I have liked him and his music ever since. Like Waltzing Matilda.
I love how he blends Waltzing Matilda into the end of the song. Despite how agitated and fidgety he seems in the interview, as soon as he gets on the piano he completely changes
Joel McIntosh You mean “how he blends Ice Cream Man into the end of the song” because that tune has nothing to do with Waltzing Matilda. Check it yourself
@@pierpi5240 your totally wrong.. American artist in the 70s and 80s would add waltzing Matilda in there songs at concert as a salute to Australia... check out canned heat live at broadford 83..
quality man, singer and musician as well as actor especially in Bram Stokers Dracula as Renfield lol Master, Master you Promised to make me Immortal :)
omg... thanks for posting this! I felt that! How much pathos can one man fit into a song?! How could you possibly not connect with this?? I believe it, every word rings true..
Man, I'm fairly new to Waits, but listening to his music and seeing him here I can't help but think that he was (and is) just one of the most truly incredible and unique and wonderful and sincere people ever- like Bowie, just like an angel or an alien that almost doesn't belong here. Am I making this up? Can someone who really knows Waits and his career and life confirm or deny this?
I don't know the man personally but I've loved his work all my life and I totally agree with you. Waits' talent is beyond precocious; like Bowie's, it's so beyond "good", it hardly seems possible.
You get it, many don't understand Tom Waits. When I hear one of his songs it pulls out demons from deep within me. Demons and sadness I'd thought I had overcome but really I was just burying them. Last night I played a couple of tracks from Mule Variations and I'm still weeping, his music is so cathartic. God bless him.
Never knew about this perfromance until I read about it in the Innocent When You Dream - The Collected Interviews, which just said it brought the house down. It didn't dissapoint. Thanks so much for the upload.
I think Don did a great job of interviewing Tom. It was a fun interview and they were totally having a blast and riffing off each other. Tom looked very shy and the host made him laugh. And then at the end he really did his best to get people to attend Tom's shows and even gave him an open invite to appear on his show whenever he wanted.
Aos 45 segundos, quando o apresentador olha a câmara, percebe-se que ele tem a noção de estar perante um talento excepcional. É impressionante como, no final, Tom Waits parece querer fechar-se sobre si próprio; como se não existisse para além da sua música. Around 0:45, when he looks to the camera, you can notice that the host knows he´s in front of a truly talented man.
Tom Waits has got to be one of the most unusual people on the planet. When you see him like this, awkwardness personified during the interview, you wonder what he's all about. But then he sits down at that piano and something magical occurs. He starts to sing in that gravelly voiced rasp, piano keys tinkling, and you get the feeling that he is penetrating into some fundamental realities, tapping into things we know and feel but can barely touch, and pulling them out for us to see.
