Tom Waits might just be the most American of all the Americans, he does whatever he wants and says whatever he wants. That's what freedom is all about.
Anyone who tries to call Tom Waits a Beefheart ripoff clearly lacks the musical intelligence to hear past the raspy voice... Completely different musical entities.. Beefheart's music was extremely technically, and texturally complex. Utilizing odd meters, metric ambiguity, and poly-rhythms. Tom Waits is more about character and timbre within his songs, most of them are based on relatively simple blues and country structure... Both are brilliant, can't you people just appreciate that?
@WordEdwin Amazing performance. He played a sympathetic Devil. The eternal adversary, a being that lives for the debate, the argument, the game. It doesn't matter whether he wins or loses, just as long as the game goes on. A character who lives to fulfill the role of antagonist and takes pride and a certain satisfaction in the duty. It is less about evil and more about professional pride.
Apparently, that's a children's "clapping song" that's old as America, called "Rubber Dolly". One of the versions of this song had this little rhyme too. For a pretty version recorded on the 60's, look for "Shirley Ellis The Clapping Song" on RU-vid.
He just reminds me of those old (I'm guessing 50's) detective movies, where it's basically a novel being narrated throughout a film. In first person. Tom would be the protagonist within the shadows.
While it doesn't sound like Beefheart, if you listen to the stuff he did before and after he said he found out about Beefheart, you can tell that it had a pretty strong effect on his music. I think the voice isn't a good thing to point out because he was doing the rough voice thing long before he says he found out about Beefheart. So yeah, while the two don't really sound anything alike, the influence is still pretty strong. Waits took the spirit of Beefheart's work, but not the sound. :)
If I heard one of Waits' songs--especially from the Big Time album--on the radio not knowing any better, I could see myself confusing him with Howlin' Wolf.
"Raspy Voice= the other Raspy Voice" if that was true than "High Pitched Voice =The Other High Pitched Voice" which would mean Sara Mclachlan and Justin Bieber are just ripping off one another. Thank you sir for knowing things.
I prefer this live version so much to the album version. It's a pitty that the sound quality here is not as good as on the Big Time LP but nevertheless you get the idea of its power. btw: His introduction is absolutely sick.
Yeah I agree, gosh don't speak with such detail of Gattaca, I studied that last semester *laughs* I love how that works, in fact, just today, I was speaking of time and place, "You could have been anyone the day I met you, as could I, you happened to be you, and I happened to be me, and we happened to fall in love."
Wine, wine, why the goose drank wine And the monkey chewed tobacco on the street corner Now the line broke and the monkey got choked And they all went to heaven in a little row boat Clap hands
That film gets a little too lost in the scientific elements of the plot to really be considered a detective movie, but I know what you mean. It does have that feel. Who'd suspect that two strangers would click via the internet and draw parallels between the lovably eccentric Tom Waits and the dystopian, eugenic dreamscapes of little ol' Gattaca?
never got what all the fuss was about with this lad. I know people that are like disciples to him - but to me he just sounds like a drunk (and not in a good way)
jcvilla789 the best thing about Tom Waits is that folk like you just don't get him and bleat on about him sounding like a drunk. I don't want you to get him. His USP is that he doesn't fit into your pigeon holes, if he did then he'd have sold out and I like that he never has
Absurd. Everyone borrows from those who've influenced them. If in this instance you feel he's "ripped off" Beefheart, all you need do is point out a prime example of where you see that and in turn I'll guarantee you, a case could be made for whomever it appears Beefheart in turn has "ripped off". Waits is many things, however Captain Beefheart is IMO not even chief among those whom I see him drawing from. The diversity of the material performed for this film and Tom's delivery of it feels more like a mixture of Howlin' Wolf, Astor Piazzolla, Louis Prima, Kurt Weill, and Irish Tenor John McCormack, with elements of Mexican Norteño bands and Vegas lounge lizards, yet not so much Don Van Vliet and if you're hearing that, I contend that it goes deeper in that these similarities are due more to the mutual musical influences of those who predated both Waits and Beefheart.
