Swordfishtrombone

Tom WaitsTom Waits 

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Tom Waits

Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car." With this trademark growl, his incorporation of pre-rock music styles such as blues, jazz, and vaudeville, and experimental tendencies verging on industrial music, Waits has built up a distinctive musical persona. He has worked as a composer for movies and musical plays and has acted in supporting roles in films including Paradise Alley and Bram Stoker's Dracula; he also starred in the 1986 film Down by Law. He was nominated for an Academy Awa… more »

Year:

1983

3:00

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Well, he came home from the war
With a party in his head
And modified Brougham DeVille
And a pair of legs that opened up like butterfly wings
And a mad dog that wouldn't sit still
He went and took up with a Salvation Army band girl
Who played dirty water on a swordfishtrombone
He went to sleep at the bottom of Tenkiller lake
And he said "gee, but it's great to be home"
Well, he came home from the war with a party in his head
And an idea for a fireworks display
And he knew that he'd be ready with a stainless steel machete
And a half a pint of Ballentine's each day
And he holed up in room above a hardware store
Cryin' nothing there but Hollywood tears
He put a spell on some poor little Crutchfield girl
And stayed like that for twenty-seven years
He packed up all his expectations, he lit out for California
With a flyswatter banjo on his knee
With a lucky tiger in his angel hair and Benzedrine for getting there
They found him in a eucalyptus tree
Lieutenant got him a canary bird and skanked her head with every word
Chesterfielded moonbeams in a song
He got twenty years for lovin' her from some Oklahoma governor
Said "everything this Doughboy does is wrong"
Now some say he's doing the obituary mambo
Now some say that he's hanging on the wall
Perhaps this yarn's the only thing that holds this man together
Some say he was never here at all
And some say they saw him down in Birmingham
Sleeping in a boxcar going by
And if you think that you can tell a bigger tale
I swear to God you'd have to tell a lie

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