Poetry Blog #28 is about Tom Waits. Now, before you get all up in arms and start emailing me about how song lyrics aren’t really poetry, let me remind you that one of the recent Nobel Prize winners for literature was none other than a poet named Dylan. And I’m not talking about Dylan Thomas (whoever he was), little joke for you fans of Simon and Garfunkel. (Check out “A Simple Desultory Philippic (or How I Was Robert McNamara'd into Submission) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOvs3rCFI2A
I do know who Dylan Thomas is. Speaking of Paul Simon, he’s not a bad poet himself, Rhymin’ Simon.
And while poetic tastes, like musical tastes, are very subjective, I’d also add Tom Lehrer, Cole Porter, and whoever wrote the lyrics to the ballads “Midnight Sun” and “Everything Happens to Me” among the poets I like.
But I digress.
This is about Tom Waits, who in addition to singer/songwriter, is an accomplished actor. It is difficult to select just one example to post here. I could listen to Tom Waits all day, and sometimes I do. His other songs have such memorable lines like, “you got to get behind the mule/in the morning and plow”, “goodnight to the street sweepers/The night watchman flame keepers and goodnight, Mathilda too”,
and of course, “my piano has been drinking”. But I’ve chosen Invitation to the Blues. Enjoy, and look up his other songs.
I’ll see you next time on this used-to-be-weekly blog.
Ed
Invitation to the Blues
Well she's up against the register with an apron and a spatula,
Yesterday's deliveries, tickets for the bachelors
She's a moving violation from her conk down to her shoes
Well, it's just an invitation to the blues
And you feel just like Cagney, she looks like Rita Hayworth
At the counter of the Schwab's drugstore
You wonder if she might be single, she's a loner and likes to mingle
Got to be patient, try and pick up a clue
She said How you gonna like 'em, over medium or scrambled?
You say 'anyway's the only way', be careful not to gamble
On a guy with a suitcase and a ticket getting out of here
It's a tired bus station and an old pair of shoes
This ain't nothing but an invitation to the blues
But you can't take your eyes off her, get another cup of java
It's just the way she pours it for you, joking with the customers
Mercy mercy, Mr. Percy, there ain't nothing back in Jersey
But a broken-down jalopy of a man I left behind
And the dream that I was chasing, and a battle with booze
And an open invitation to the blues
But she used to have a sugar daddy and a candy-apple Caddy
And a bank account and everything, accustomed to the finer things
He probably left her for a socialite, and he didn't 'cept at night
And then he's drunk and never even told her that her cared
So they took the registration, and the car-keys and her shoes
And left her with an invitation to the blues
Cause there's a Continental Trailways leaving local bus tonight, good evening
You can have my seat, I'm sticking round here for a while
Get me a room at the Squire, the filling station's hiring
And I can eat here every night, what the hell have I got to lose?
Got a crazy sensation, go or stay? now I gotta choose
And I'll accept your invitation to the blues.
Tom Waits (from the album, Small Change)