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Tom Waits: Real Gone

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Anti Inc.
Released: 2004.10.05
Time:
 72:09
Category: Progressive Rock
Producer(s): Kathleen Brennan, Tom Waits
Rating: *******... (7/10)
Media type: CD
Web address: www.anti.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2006.11.20
Price in €: 15,99



 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Top of the Hill (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 4:54
[2] Hoist That Rag (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 4:20
[3] Sins of My Father (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 10:36
[4] Shake It (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 3:52
[5] Don't Go into That Barn (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 5:22
[6] How's It Gonna End (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 4:51
[7] Metropolitan Glide (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 4:13
[8] Dead and Lovely (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 5:40
[9] Circus (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 3:56
[10] Trampled Rose (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 3:58
[11] Green Grass (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 3:13
[12] Baby Gonna Leave Me (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 4:29
[13] Clang Boom Steam (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 0:46
[14] Make It Rain (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 3:39
[15] Day After Tomorrow (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 6:53
[16] Hidden Track (K.Brennan/T.Waits) - 1:17

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Tom Waits - Guitar, Percussion, Vocals, Producer, Chamberlin, Shaker

Les Claypool - Bass
Harry Cody - Banjo, Guitar
Brain - Percussion, Clapping
Marc Ribot - Banjo, Guitar
Larry Taylor - Bass, Guitar
Casey Waits - Percussion, Drums, Turntables, Clapping, Production Crew
Kellesimone Waits - Voices, Group, Production Crew
Sullivan Waits - Voices, Group, Production Crew

Kathleen Brennan - Producer
Mark Howard - Bells, Engineer, Clapping, Mixing
Gavin Lurssen - Mastering
Mason Baird - Production Crew
Mike Richardson - Production Crew
Dylan Barlow - Photography, Production Crew
Ronald M. Bean - Graphic Design
Chris Blum - Art Direction, Design
Julianne Deery - Production Coordination, Photography


 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


Real Gone is the fourth album that Tom Waits has releasedfor Epitaph sister label Anti and adds to his impressive back catalogue that spans four decades. Written and produced by Waits and his wife Kathleen Brennan, Waits drops his trademark piano and opts for a sound inspired by world music. Taking in funk, rock-steady, blues, and African and Latin melodies, the album showcases Waits unique mix of contemporary and traditional music.

Tom Waits is one of the most influential musicians in the world today, an artist who never rests on his laurels. He continues to re-invent music, push boundaries and create new sounds. On Real Gone, the up tempo tracks are some of the rawest and most kinetic he's ever laid down...He's never sounded like he's had this much fun...while the ballads are among his most beautiful and even chilling at times. Real Gone also contains his first overtly political song, "The Day After Tomorrow", a plaintive letter home from a young soldier in the middle of a war. Taken as a whole, the experience is breathtaking.

Written and produced by Waits with his wife and long-time collaborator, Kathleen Brennan, Real Gone features 15 tracks that echo everything from primal blues to what Waits calls, all mixed and mashed with rock-steady grooves, Latin rhythms and to create a unique new musical hybrid.



„Real Gone“ ist der unvorhersehbare Nachfolger zu den atmosphärischen und konzeptuellen Alben „Alice“ und „Blood Money“, die beide von den Kritikern gelobt und von Tom Waits gleichzeitig im Frühjahr 2002 veröffentlicht wurden. Weit weg von jenen CDs, hat Waits einen musikalischen Hybriden geschaffen, der - soundmäßig und ethnisch alte und neue musikalische Traditionen miteinander verbindet. Geschrieben und produziert von Tom Waits und Kathleen Brennan, seit langer Zeit seine musikalische Begleiterin, finden sich auf dem 15-Track-Album: ursprünglicher Blues, Jamaican rock-steady grooves, afrikanische und Latin Rhythmen und Melodien, und was Waits „cubist funk“ nennt. Trotz der vielen verschiedenen Einflüsse die auf „Real Gone“ aufeinander treffen bleibt es dank der traumhaft, düsteren Stimmung ein typisches Tom Waits Album.

Amazon.de



There's little risk of confusing Tom Waits with the gentle pop folk who have covered his songs - Rod Stewart, Sarah McLachlan, Everything But the Girl, just to name a few. That's because even though the eccentric songwriter is capable of summoning the most tender sentiments, his preferred method of delivery is through carnival melodies, crackpot instruments, and a bourbon-soaked bark. Real Gone continues the dark experimental streak of not just its predecessors like Alice and Blood Money, but the past 30 years. Yes, the percussion is sharper, the arrangements stranger, and the voice more ghost-like than ever, but at the center of all the chaos remains an uncanny storyteller - capable of ripping down governments ("Sins of My Father") and building up tears ("Day After Tomorrow").

Aidin Vaziri - Amazon.com



Tom Waits macht ein Tom-Waits-Album, nur alles, was bisher auf einem Tom Waits-Album zu finden war, fehlt hier: Die Hinterhof-Garagen-Atmosphäre, in der sich rein akustisch Piano und Bass-Klarinette anfauchen, wo teure Mikrofone kaputte Gitarren aufnehmen. Denn diesmal ist Tom Waits fast wie ein HipHop-Produzent vorgegangen, hat mit dem Mund die Beatbox simuliert, hat Turntables integriert, hat jede Menge Ton-Spuren übereinandergelegt und klingt dann am Ende wieder genau wie Tom Waits. Da wird es manchmal extrem krachig und fies, schon bei der Begrüßung "Top Of the Hill" und erst recht bei "Metropolitan Glide" möchte man dem armen Mann schnell mal einen Hustensaft holen, so hustet und spuckt und rotzt er sich auf den Rhythmus-Spuren durch diese Songs. Auf "Hoist" klingt er wie eine misslungene Session des Buena Vista Social Clubs durch einen Verzerrer geschoben. Das ist die eine Seite. Dann aber sind auch wieder wunderbare Melancholie-Perlen im 50er jahre Bar-Jazz Stil zu finden ("Dead And Lovely"), ein fast elfminütiges Voddo-Blues-Opus ("Sins Of my Father"), oder mit "Trampled Rose" einfach einer jener wunderschönen Songs, die wohl irgendwann von irgendwem als Coverversion in die Charts geschoben werden. Die Musik seines Idols Captain Beefheart hat er einmal als "aus Knochen und Schlamm" bezeichnet. Seine eigene Kreation Real Gone ist weniger organisch, eher aus Rost und Wellblech, aber kein bißchen weniger verstörend-genial.

Deborah Denzer - Amazon.de



Tom Waits ist da angekommen, wo um 1970 auch Captain Beefheart schon mal war: beim vollverdreckten Sound, in dem sich kehliges Krächzen suhlt wie die Sau im Schlamm. Natürlich hat Waits jene Blues-Basis, auf die sich Beefheart einst bezog, längst verlassen. Seine Stücke rumoren, zischeln und krauchen manchmal so repetitiv durch die Gegend, dass einem eine Szene aus dem Film "Delicatessen" in den Sinn kommt: Dort rammelt ein schwitzender Feistling seine Liebste derart durch, dass sich das rhythmische €chzen der Matratze zur komischen Musique concréte zusammenfügt. Auch Waits sucht seine Beats und Sounds überall, nur nicht unbedingt im Musikalienhandel. Und er findet tausend Wege, die Töne zu dengeln, schreddern und zu bleichen, zu zerbeulen, zu verschleiern; er rückt jedweder Klanghygiene mit Tonnen von Müll zu Leibe. Trotz kleiner sauberer Weill-artiger Balladen wie "Dead and lovely", die uns mal Atem schöpfen lassen: Nach dieser Platte braucht man ein Vollbad.

(mw) - Kulturnews



On Real Gone, Tom Waits and his band present a bold musical statement that is equally in tune with modern and traditional values. Blues standards are revisited, and reinvented; atypical blues instrumentation - turntables courtesy of Waits's son, Casey, and banjos - transform and refresh the design of Waits's deeply American sound. Throughout much of Real Gone, Waits sings of desperate situations in his trademark gravelly howl, conjuring images of emotionally haunted spaces that you would not wish to inhabit but may well be familiar with. "Sins of My Father" is one such lifesong, offering a glimpse into Waits's own world of imperfection. "How's It Gonna End" offers a sepia-stained cinematic take on the theme of departure, peaking with gospel backing vocals, but Waits brings it all back down to ground level with a heartfelt repetition of the song's (mark-less) question title. These are very real songs, honestly presented and without over-elaboration. Low down and gritty stompers provide what amounts to light relief from Real Gone's more emotionally demanding tracks. Opener "Top Of The Hill" is a raucous, bass-heavy blues number which finds Waits in exuberant form. "Hoist That Rag" follows, providing the album's catchiest hook and most formidable vocal take. Fittingly, though, as the subjects of Waits's roots and his country's changing times are woven through Real Gone's emotive songs, the album ends on a note of Dylan-esque reflection with the beautiful acoustic lake of "Day After Tomorrow". Tom Waits has rarely been a versatile as he is on Real Gone, and the record is all the better for it.

Jonathan Davies - Amazon.co.uk



Tom Waits played at London's Hammersmith Apollo
"One of the great concerts of this era: it was a privilege to have witnessed it"

Evening Standard. On Tuesday 23rd November



"You left feeling that, on this particular night, no one on earth had been listening to better music"

The Daily Telegraph, November 24th 2004



"A mesmerising presence … one of a kind. Long may he growl"

The Independent, November 24th 2004



On Real Gone, Tom Waits walks a fraying tightrope. By utterly eliminating one of the cornerstone elements of his sound - keyboards - he has also removed his safety net. With songwriting and production partner Kathleen Brennan, he strips away almost everything conventional from these songs, taking them down to the essences of skeletal rhythms, blasted and guttural blues, razor-cut rural folk music, and the rusty-edge poetry and craft of songwriting itself. His cast includes guitarists Marc Ribot and Harry Cody, bassist/guitarist Larry Taylor, bassist Les Claypool, and percussionists Brain and Casey Waits (Tom's son), the latter of whom also doubles on turntables. This does present problems, such as on the confrontational opener, "Top of the Hill." Waits uses his growling, grunting vocal atop Ribot's monotonously funky single-line riff and Casey's turntables to become a human beatbox offering ridiculously nonsensical lyrics. It's a throwaway, and the album would have been better had it been left off entirely. But it's also a canard, a sleight-of-hand strategy he's employed before. The jewels shine from the mud immediately after. The mutated swamp tango of "Hoist That Rag" has stuttered clangs and quakes for drums, decorated by distorted Latin power chords and riffs from Ribot, along with thundering deep bass from Claypool. On the ten-plus minute "Sins of My Father," Cody's spooky banjo walks with Taylor's low-strung bass and Waits' shimmering reverbed guitar as he ominously croons, revealing a rigged game of "star-spangled glitter" where "justice wears suspenders and a powdered wig." It's part revelation, part East of Eden, and part backroom political culture framed by the eve of the apocalypse. It's hunted, hypnotic, and spooky.

In stripping away convention, Waits occasionally lets his songs go to extremes with absurd simplicity, such as on "Don't Go into That Barn," a musical cousin to his spoken "What's He Building?" from Mule Variations. But there's also the downright riotous squall of "Shake It," which sounds like an insane carny barker jamming with R.L. Burnside, or the riotous raging blues of "Baby Gonna Leave Me." There are "straight" narratives such as "How's It Gonna End," with its slow and brooding beat storyline, and the moving murder ballad "Dead and Lovely," with its drooping, shambolic elegance. There's the spoken word "Circus," with its wispy spindly frame that features Waits on chamberlain. And "Metropolitan Glide" feels like a hell-bent duet between James Brown and Captain Beefheart's Magic Band, followed by the fractured, busted-love, ranting-at-God pain that rips through "Make It Rain." The tender "Green Grass" is among Waits' finest broken love songs; it's movingly rendered by a character who could have resided in one of William Kennedy's novels. The set closes with "Day After Tomorrow," featured on MoveOn.org's Future Soundtrack for America. It is one of the most insightful and understated antiwar songs to have been written in decades. It contains not a hint of banality or sentiment in its folksy articulation. Real Gone is another provocative moment for Waits, one that has problems, but then, all his records do. His excesses, however, do nothing to cloud the stellar achievements of his risk-taking vision and often brilliant execution.

Thom Jurek - All Music Guide



Strange times call for strange soundtracks, which makes this an ideal moment for Tom Waits to unfurl his freak flag one more time. The 15-song Real Gone owes quite a bit to its environment - Waits and wife/collaborator Kathleen Brennan holed up in an abandoned Mississippi schoolhouse to record the bulk of the tracks - but the singer's woozy, always dislocated delivery prevents it from sinking into conceptual Delta mimicry. Much like Björk did on Medúlla, Waits makes his voice the focal point, and sometimes the only point, of most of the disc's tunes. He layers scat-sung lyrics over percussive pops from his own larynx on the downtrodden "Baby Gonna Leave Me" and recombines multiple layers of throat matter on the eerie "Metropolitan Glide," a sort of post-millennial descent into Kurt Weill–ish duskiness. Always one for incorporating different styles of instrumentation, Waits chooses to pepper Real Gone with thick slabs of turntable scratching, courtesy of his teenage son Casey. That backing is most effective on the album-opening "Top of the Hill" and "Hoist That Rag," a loose-limbed ditty that also benefits from a loopy guitar solo by longtime Waits cohort Marc Ribot. And while most of the album is dominated by the surreal humor that often creeps into Waits's work, its best cut may well be its most serious: "The Day After Tomorrow," a tale spun from the point of view of a soldier stationed in Iraq, hits home sans melodrama, thanks to Waits's unfailingly off-center interpretation of what little things really matter most.

David Sprague - Barnes & Noble



Like an altar built of barbed wire, scrap metal and broken glass, "Real Gone" hammers ungraceful materials into something like beauty.

Jon Pareles - New York Times



The core of Real Gone, actually, is gospel music flipped inside out - an unholy voice, singing about the conspicuous absence of divine mercy.

Douglas Wolk - Rolling Stone



The absence of piano is significant - Waits's jazzy harmonic underpinning is entirely dismantled here, leaving only the most basic, blues-oriented structures atop which Waits hangs his distinctive poetic imagery, at once surreal and highly detailed. There's an overwhelming sense of darkness ("How's It Gonna End," "Dead and Lovely"), but there are also moments of pure unfettered glee "Metropolitan Glide," "Shake It"), which are often goosed along by Waits's son Casey on turntables and percussion. A perennial romantic, Waits does let in a little melodic sunshine on the poignant closing ballad, "Day After Tomorrow," but for the most part, REAL GONE is a deliriously wild ride. There have been many incarnations of Tom Waits - the boozy piano balladeer, the arch Kurt Weill acolyte, the bold sonic experimentalist - but the one that pops up on REAL GONE is probably most akin to the raw, howling, modern primitive of BONE MACHINE. As he did on that 1992 album, Waits gets in touch with his inner Captain Beefheart on REAL GONE. Instead of employing arrangements that merely suggest the accompaniment of a FAT ALBERT-style junkyard band, Waits actually sounds like he's hooting and hollering in the middle of a Salvation Army scrapyard, albeit one populated by junkmen with an inherent simpatico for his medium.

CDUniverse.com



Tom Waits chose not to lug a piano to Mississippi for the recording of Real Gone, his first album ever without the ivories. He did, however, bring pots and pans for banging, along with some old friends: Les Claypool and Larry Taylor on bass and Marc Ribot on guitar. Think of the grimiest, most rustic songs from 1999's Mule Variations and you're part way down the desolation road Waits is trying to lead you. Sometimes it feels like Tom Waits doing Tom Waits (rugged voice through distorted mic, clanking percussion, tales of one-eyed circus workers named Myra), but Waits is always more reliable than predictable. Yes, there's the woozy waltzing ballad (the war-is-hell weeper "The Day After Tomorrow"), but where you can really hear Waits raising the bar is in the rhythm. Opener "Top Of The Hill" features grunt 'n' groan beatboxing from Waits and turntable scratching from son Casey, and "Baby Gonna Leave Me" is about as syncopated as the blues gets—with Waits grumbling "graaah, booom guh ack" for bass and rhythm, while shakers keep a hot and speedy groove and Ribot's riffs leave powderburns. Real Gone is easily the most primal of Waits' recent works and it sounds, well, like a frigging junkyard at times. But there's genius and gold in them ruins.

Steve Ciabattoni - Oct 1, 2004
CMJ.com



Tom Waits bellows through Real Gone like he's been knocking back pure lava, rasping out sinister names and details: Horse Face Ethel, Knocky Parker, "a tattoo gun made out of a cassette motor and a guitar string." Waits has all but purged his early records' boozy, sentimental side - his one attempt at heartstring-tugging here, the ambivalent soldier's lament "Day After Tomorrow," is the album's slackest moment. These days, he prefers the ravaged lift-and-slam of prison work gangs, such as the murderer's catechism of "Don't Go Into That Barn": "Did you cover your tracks?/Yes, sir!/Did you bring your knife?/Yes, sir!" Waits retains his knack for recruiting world-class musicians - notably spider-clawed guitarist Marc Ribot and Primus' Les Claypool and Brain Mantia - who can play like they're falling down the stairs of hell. The percussion behind a lot of these songs is Waits' own coughs, barks and gurgles, a sort of brain-eating zombie-alien-beatbox effect that underscores the lyrics' savage visions. "Make It Rain" is a plea for retribution, not grace, but the God of the ten-minute "Sins of My Father" sneers, "Don't give me your tinhorn prayers." The core of Real Gone, actually, is gospel music flipped inside out - an unholy voice, singing about the conspicuous absence of divine mercy.

DOUGLAS WOLK - Oct 28, 2004
Rolling Stone
 

 L y r i c s


Top Of The Hill

I'm gonna get me on the ride up
I'm gonna get...

(...Can I have a little more on my voice? ...)

... get me on the ride up
I'm on the top of the hill
I'm only goin' to the top of the hill

New corn yellow and slaughterhouse red
The birds keep singing baby after you're dead
I'm gonna miss you plenty big old world
With our abalone earrings and your mother of pearl

Stop and get me on the ride up
Stop and get me on the ride up
Stop and get me on the ride up
I'm only goin' to the top of the hill
I'm only goin' to the top of the hill

I need your moon to be the sky against
Don't get your trouser button stuck on the fence
Diego red and bedlam money are fine
Why don't you come up here and see me sometime

Stop and get me on the ride up
Stop and get me on the ride up
Stop and get me on the ride up
I'm only goin' to the top of the hill
I'm only goin'
I'm only goin'
I'm only goin' to the top of the hill

There's very little leeway
I seen a mattress on the freeway
The moon rises over Dog Street
Jefferson said not every thing's reet
Have all the lights burned out on heaven again
I'll never roll the number 7 again

I'm made of bread and I'm on an ocean of wine
I hear all the birdies on the phone just fine

Stop and get me on the ride up
Stop and get me on the ride up
Stop and get me on the ride up
I'm only goin'
I'm only goin'
I'm only goin' to the top of the hill

Black joke and the bean soup
Big sky and the Ford Coupe
Old maid and the dry bones
A red Rover and the Skinny Bones Jones
47 mules to pull this train
We're getting married in the pouring rain
You need your differential and plenty of oil
You load the wagon till the end of the world

Stop and get me on the ride up
Stop and get me on the ride up
Stop and get me on the ride up
I'm only goin'
I'm only goin'
I'm only goin' to the top of the hill
I'm only goin' to the top of the hill

What's your throttle made of, is it money or bone
Don't you doddle or you'll never get home
Opium, fireworks, vodka and meat
Scoot over and save me a seat

Stop and get me on the ride up
Stop and get me on the ride up
Stop and get me on the ride up
I'm only goin'
I'm only goin'
I'm only goin' to the top of the hill

If I had it all to do all over again
I'd try to rise above the laws of man
Why don' cha gimme 'nother sip of your cup
Turn a Rolls Royce into a Chicken Coup

Stop and get me on the ride up
Stop and get me on the ride up
Stop and get me on the ride up
I'm only goin'
I'm only goin'
I'm only goin' to the top of the hill

I'm only goin' to the top of the hill
Hey!

Stop and get me on the ride up
Stop and get me on the ride up
I'm only goin' to the top of the hill
Ha! Ha!


Hoist That Rag

Well I learned the trade from Piggy Knowles
and Sing Sing Tommy Shay, boys
God used me as a hammer, boys
To beat his weary drum today

Hoist that rag!
Hoist that rag!
Hoist that rag!

The sun is up, the world is flat
Damn good address for a rat
The smell of blood, the drone of flies
You know what to do if the baby cries

Hoist that rag!
Hoist that rag!

Hoist that rag!
Hoist that rag!

Hoist that rag!
Hoist that rag!

Hoist that rag!

Well, we stick our fingers in the ground,
heave and turn the world around
Smoke is blacking out the sun
At night I pray and clean my gun

The cracked bell rings as the ghost bird sings
and the gods go begging here
So just open fire when you hit the shore
All is fair in love and war

Hoist that rag!
Hoist that rag!
Hoist that rag!
Hoist that rag!
Hoist that rag!
Hoist that rag!
Hoist that rag!
Hoist that rag!


Sins Of My Father

God said: don't give me your tin horn prayers
Don't buy roses off the street down there
Took it all and took the dirt road home
Dreaming of Jenny with the light brown hair

Night is falling like a bloody axe
Lies and rumors and the wind at my back
Hand on the wheel and gravel on the road
Will the pawn shop sell me back what I sold

I'm gonna take the sins of my father
I'm gonna take the sins of my mother
I'm gonna take the sins of my brother
Down to the pond

Birds cry warning from a hidden branch
Carving out a future with a gun and an axe
I'm way beyond the gavel and the laws of man
Still living in the palm of the grace of your hand

The world's not easy, the blind man said
Turns on nothing but money and dread
Dog's been scratching at the door all nite
Long neck birds flying out of the moon light

I'm gonna take the sins of my father
I'm gonna take the sins of my mother
I'm gonna take the sins of my brother
Down to the pond
Down to the pond

Smack dab in the middle of a dirty lie
The star spangled glitter of his one good eye
Everybody knows that the game was rigged
Justice wears suspenders and a powdered wig

Dark town alley's been hiding you
Long bell tolling is your Waterloo
Oh baby, what can you do
Does the light of god blind you
Or lead the way home for you?

I'm gonna take the sins of my father
Take the sins of my mother
I'm gonna take the sins of my brother
Down to the pond
Down to the pond

I'm gonna take the sins of my father
Take the sins of my mother
And take the sins of my brother
Down to the pond
Down to the pond

God all mighty for righteousness sake
Humiliation of our fallen state
Written in the book of too bold Cain
A long black overcoat will show no stain

Feel the heat and the burn on your back
The rip and the moan the stretch of the rack
All my belongings in a flour sack
Will the place I come from take me back

I'm gonna take the sins of my father
Take the sins of my mother
And take the sins of my brother
Down to the pond
Down to the pond

They'll hang me in the morning on a scaffold yea big
To dance upon nothing to the Tyborn Jig
Treats you like a puppet when you're under his spell
Oh the heart is heaven but the mind is hell

Jesus of Nazareth told Mike of the weeds
I's born at this time for a reason you see
When I'm dead I'll be dead a long time
But the wine's so pleasing and so sublime

I'm gonna take the sins of my father
Take the sins of my mother
I'm gonna take the sins of my brother
Down to the pond
Down to the pond

Kissed my sweetheart by the China ball tree
Everything I done is between god and me
Only he will judge how my time was spent
29 days of sinning and 40 to repent

The horse is steady but the horse is blind
wicked are the branches on the tree of mankind
The roots grow upward and the branches grow down
it's much too late to throw the dice again I've found

I'm gonna take the sins of my father
Take the sins of my mother
Take the sins of my brother
Down to the pond

I'm gonna wash them
I'm gonna wash them
I'm gonna wash the sins of my father
I'm gonna wash the sins of my mother
Wash the sins of my brother
Till the water runs clear
Till the water runs clear
Till the water runs clear


Shake It

Strip Poker Motel
Got a small blue tail
Hot ice, cold cash
I never been no good at staying out of jail

Wheel spin, roulette
Who’s giving, don’t get
Ripped shirt, black eye
Tuxedo, bow tie
Dark sound, straight road
Get lost, get loaded
Enlisted men, off duty
Stolen clouds, dark beauty
Cold gun, wild rose
Night clerk, door closed

Lie down baby
Your love is a faucet


Called China, cell phone
Chun King, not home

You know I feel like a preacher waving a gun around
Shake it, shake it. shake it baby!

Shake it, shake it, shake it now
Shake it, shake it, shake it baby
Shake it, shake it, shake it now
Shake it, shake it, shake it baby
Shake it, shake it, shake it now

Outside, it’s damp
Put a towel on that lamp
You look hot in this light
I can love you all night
Shoes off, hair down
Got a pink night gown
Mike Tyson, KO’ed
On the wild, blue road
Small town, straight road
That rooster, done crowed
Flat tire, homemade cross

You know I feel like a preacher waving a gun around
Shake it, shake it, shake it baby!

Shake it, shake it, shake it now
Shake it. shake it, shake it baby

Shake it, shake it, shake it now


Don't Go Into That Barn

Don’t go into that barn, yea
I said: don’t go into that barn, yea

Black cellophane sky at midnite
A big blue moon with three gold rings
I called Champion to the window
I pointed up above the trees

That’s when I heard my name in a scream
coming from the woods, out there
I let my dog run off the chain
I locked my door real good with a chair

Don’t go into that barn, yea
I said: don’t go into that barn, yea

Everett Lee broke loose again,
it's worse than the time before
Because he’s high on potato and tulip wine
fermented in the muddy rain, of course

A drunken wail, a drunken train
blew through the birdless trees
Oh, you’re alone alright
You're alone alright
How did I know
How did I know

Don’t go into that barn, yea
I said: don’t go into that barn, yea

An old black tree, scratching up the sky
with boney, claw like fingers
A rusty black rake
Digging up the turnips of a muddy cold grey sky

Shiny tooth talons
coiled for grabbing a stranger happening by
And the day went home early
and the sun sank down into the muck of a deep dead sky

Don’t go into that barn, yea
I said: don’t go into that barn, yea

Back since Saginaw Calinda was born,
it's been cotton and soyabeans, tobacco and corn
Behind the porticoed house of a long dead farm
they found the falling down timbers
of a spooky old barn

Out there like a slave ship upside down
Wrecked beneath the waves of grain
When the river is low
they find old bones and
when they plow they always dig up chains

Don’t go into that barn, yea
I said: don’t go into that barn, yea

Did you bury your fire?
Yes sir!
Did you cover your tracks?
Yes sir!
Did you bring your knife?
Yes sir!
Did they see your face?
No sir!
Did the moon see you?
No sir!
Did you go cross the river?
Yes sir!
Did you fix your rake?
Yes sir!
Did you stay down wind?
Yes sir!
Did you hide your gun?
Yes sir!
Did you smuggle your rum?
Yes sir!
I said: how did I know
How did I know
How did I know

Don't go into that barn, yea
I said: don't go into that barn, yea
Don't forget that I warned you
I said: don’t go into that barn, yea
Don’t go into that barn, yea
I said: don't go into that barn, yea

No shirt, no coat
Take me on a flat boat
Dover down to Covington
Covington to Louisville
Louisville to Henderson
Henderson to Smithland
Smithland to Memphis
Memphis down to Vicksburg
Vicksburg to Natchez
Going down to Natchez
Take me on a flat boat
Dover Dam to Covington
Covington to Louisville
Louisville to Henderson
Henderson to …


How's It Gonna End

He had 3 whole dollars,
a worn out car
And a wife who was leaving for good

Life’s made of trouble,
worry, pain and struggle
She wrote 'good bye' in the dust on the hood

They found a map of Missouri
Lipstick on the glass
They must of left in the middle of the nite

And I want to know the same thing
Everyone wants to know
How's it going to end?

Behind a smoke colored curtain,
the girl disappeared
They found out that the ring was a fake

A tree born crooked,
will never grow straight
She sunk like a hammer into the lake

A long lost letter and
and old leaky boat
Promises are never meant to keep

And I want to know the same thing
I wanna know
How's it going to end?

The barn leaned over,
the vultures dried their wings
The moon climbed up an empty sky

The sun sank down,
behind the tree on the hill
There’s a killer and he’s coming thru the rye

But maybe he’s the father,
of that lost little girl
It’s hard to tell in this light

And I want to know the same thing
Everyone wants to know
How's it going to end?

Drag your wagon and your plow,
over the bones of the dead
Out among the roses and the weeds

You can never go back,
and the answer is 'no'
And wishing for it only makes it bleed

Joel Tornabene,
was broken on the wheel
Shane and Bum Mahoney on the lamb

The grain was as gold,
as Sheila’s hair
All the way from Liverpool, with all we could steal

He was robbed of twenty dollars
His body found stripped
Cast into the harbour there and drowned

And I want to know the same thing
We all wanna know
How's it going to end?

The sirens are snaking,
their way up the hill
It’s last call somewhere in the world

The reptiles blend in,
with the color of the street
Life is sweet at the edge of a razor

And down in the first row,
of an old picture show
The old man is asleep, as the credits start to roll

And I want to know the same thing
We all wanna know
How's it going to end?

And I want to know the same thing
We all wanna know
How's it going to end?

And I just want to know the same thing
I wanna know
How's it going to end?


Metropolitan Glide

Are you ready!?
Are you ready!?
Are you ready!?

Knocky Parker told Bowlegged Sal
They all know how to kick it in Cal
They're playing this dope and this-a money tune
Dancing baby with a 7 mile broom
Things are bulging out the rafters like hell
Down there at the Hush Hotel
They’re jumping right out of their seats,
dancing to the bran’ new beat

Do……the Metropolitan Glide
Do……the Metropolitan Glide

The floor is polished and your momma's gone
You can quake and roll and moan
29 gypsies in a Cadillac stoned
Turn off the ringer on your cellular phone
Whip the air like a Rainbow Trout
Drag your tail pipe till you bottom out

Do……the Metropolitan Glide
Do……the Metropolitan Glide

Hey! Hey!

Do……the Metropolitan Glide

The low bottom of the China moon
The black swan and the way too soon
Ace pocket and the dog bone gone
The peacock and the mean black swan
The rain shower and high heeled shoe
Bombay money and I know I can do it
The sink hole and the victory dance
It's in the pocket in the real tight pants

Do.... the Metropolitan Glide
Do.... the Metropolitan Glide

Hey!

The Metropolitan!
The Metropolitan!

Show your teeth, bray like a calf
You kill me with your machine gun laugh
You make me trouble with the floor that’s creaking
I’ve been ready to ka-boom for a week
Put on your stockings and your powder and blush
Keep it all on the hush, hush, hush

Do..... the Metropolitan Glide
Do..... the Metropolitan Glide
Do..... the Metropolitan Glide
Do..... the Metropolitan Glide
The Metropolitan!

Do..... the Metropolitan Glide
Do..... the Metropolitan Glide


Dead And Lovely

She was a middle class girl
She was in over her head
She thought she would
stand up in the deep end

He had a bullet proof smile
He had money to burn
She thought she had the moon
in her pocket

But now she's dead
She's so dead
Forever dead and lovely now

I've always been told to
remember this:
Don't let a fool kiss you
Never marry for love

He was hard to impress
He knew everyone's secrets
He wore her on his arm
Just like jewelry

He never gave but he got
He kept her on a leash
He's not the kind of wheel
you fall asleep at

But now she's dead
Forever dead
Forever dead and lovely now

Come closer, look deeper
You've fallen fast
Just like a plane on a
stormy sea

She made up someone to be
She made up somewhere to be from
This is one business in the
world where that's no
problem at all

Everything that is left
They will only plow under
Soon every one you know
will be gone

And now she's dead
Forever dead
Forever dead and lovely now

Now she's dead
Forever dead
Forever dead and lovely now

I've always been told to
remember this:
Don't let a kiss fool you
Never marry for love

Everything has its price
Everything has its place
What's more romantic
then dying in the moonlight?

Now they're all watching the sea
What's lost can never be broken
Her roots were sweet
but they were so shallow

And now she's dead
Forever dead
Forever dead and lovely now

And now she's dead
Forever dead
And she's so dead and lovely now


Circus

We put up our tent on a dark
green knoll, outside of town by
the train tracks and a seagull dump
Topping the bill was Horse Face Ethel
and her 'Marvellous Pigs In Satin'

We pounded our stakes in the ground
All powder brown
And the branches spread like scary
fingers reaching
We were in a pasture outside Kankakee

And One Eyed Myra, the queen of
the galley who trained the
ostrich and the camels
She looked at me squinty with her
one good eye in a Roy Orbison
T-shirt as she bottle fed
an orangutan named Tripod

And then there was
Yodeling Elaine the
queen of the air who wore a
dollar sign medallion and she
had a tiny bubble of spittle
around her nostril and a
little rusty tear, for she had
lassoed and lost another
tipsy sailor

And over in
the burnt yellow tent
by the frozen tractor, the
music was like electric sugar
And Zuzu Bolin played
'Stavin' Chain' and Mighty
Tiny on the saw and he
threw his head back with a
mouth full of gold teeth
And they played 'Lopsided heart'
And 'Moon over Dog Street'

And by the time they played 'Moanin Low'
I was soakin' wet and wild eyed
And Doctor Bliss slipped me a
preparation and I fell asleep with
'Livery Stable Blues' in my ear

And me and Molley Hoey drank
Pruno and Koolaid and she had a
tattoo gun made out of a cassette
motor and a guitar string and
she soaked a hanky in 3 Roses
and rubbed it on the spot
and drew a rickety heart and
a bent arrow and it hurt like hell

And Funeral Wells spun
Poodle Murphy on the target
as he threw his hardware,
Only once in Sheboygan did he miss
at a matinee on Diamond Pier and
she'd never let him forget it

They were doing two shows and she
had a high fever and he took
off a piece of her ear and
Tip Little told her she should
leave the bum
but Poodle said, "He fetched me
last time I run."
But I'd like to hammer this ring into a bullet
And I wish I had some whiskey and a gun
my dear

And I wish I had some whiskey and a gun
my dear


Trampled Rose

Long way going to
get my medicine
Sky’s the autumn grey of a lonely wren

Piano from a window played
Gone tomorrow, gone yesterday

I found it in the street
At first I did not see
Lying at my feet
a trampled rose

Passing the hat in church
It never stops going around

You never pay just once
to get the job done

What I done to me,
I done to you
What happened to the trampled rose?

In the muddy street
with the fireworks and leaves

A blind man with a cup I asked
Would he sing 'Kisses Sweeter Than Wine'

I know that rose,
like I know my name
The one I gave my love,
it was the same
Now I find it in the street,
a trampled rose


Green Grass

Lay your head where my heart used to be
Hold the earth above me
Lay down in the green grass
Remember when you loved me

Come closer don't be shy
Stand beneath a rainy sky
The moon is over the rise
Think of me as a train goes by

Clear the thistles and brambles
Whistle 'Didn't He Ramble'
Now there's a bubble of me
and it's floating in thee

Stand in the shade of me
Things are now made of me
The weather vane will say:
It smells like rain today

God took the stars and he tossed 'em
Can't tell the birds from the blossoms
You'll never be free of me
He'll make a tree from me

Don't say good bye to me
Describe the sky to me
And if the sky falls, mark my words
we'll catch mocking birds

Lay your head where my heart used to be
Hold the earth above me
Lay down in the green grass
Remember when you loved me


Baby Gonna Leave

Well I stood on the corner
Until my feet got wet
I stood by the faucet
Till the sink filled up
I stood by the window
Until the moon came up
My baby's bought a ticket
Long as my clothes line

Na na na na, na-na-na
Na na na na

My baby went and left me in a '49 Ford
Going down the highway in a 49 sword
My baby ripped my heart out
with every turn of the moon
Somebody told me
there’s never been a rose without a thorn

Na na na na, na-na-na
Na na na

Well I'm just another sad guest
on this dark earth

And if I was a tree
I'd be a cut down tree
And if I was a bed
I'd be an unmade bed
I'll get my 32/20 and it'll have to do

Na na na na, na-na-na
Na na na na

Gone like the wind in the meadow
And the rain on the hill
You even left your lipstick
And your powder and your blush

Baby gonna leave me
on a Grey Hound bus
The stars are melting
all across the sky

Na na na na, na-na-na
Na na na na

I let the dog out
But he didn’t come back
Stood on the corner until
my feet got wet

Baby leave me in a '49 Ford
I stood by the window
untill the moon came up

Na na na na, na-na-na
Na na na na


Clang Boom Steam

Well my baby’s so fine
Even her car looks good
from behind

Oh yeah!

Well my baby’s so fine
Even her car looks good
from behind

But the train that took
my baby…
It went clang, boom and steam


Make It Rain

She took all my money
and my best friend
You know the story
Here it comes again
I have no pride
I have no shame
You gotta make it rain
Make it rain!

Since you're gone
deep inside it hurts
I'm just another sad guest
on this dark earth

I want to believe
in the mercy of the world again
Make it rain, make it rain!

The nite's too quiet
Stretched out alone
I need the whip of thunder
and the wind's dark moan

I’m not Able, I'm just Cain
Open up the heavens
Make it rain!

I’m close to heaven
Crushed at the gate
They sharpen their knives
on my mistakes

What she done, you can't give it a name
You gotta make it rain
Make it rain, yeah!

Without her love
Withour your kiss
Hell can’t burn me
more than this
I’m burning up all this pain
Put out the fire
Make it rain!

I’m born to trouble
I’m born to fate
Inside a promise
I can’t escape
It’s the same old world
But nothing looks the same
Make it rain!
Make it rain!

Got to make it rain
Make it rain
You got to make it rain
Got to make it rain
You got to...

I stand alone here!
I stand alone here!
Sing it:
Make it rain!
Make it rain!


Day After Tomorrow

I got your letter today
and I miss you all so much here
I can’t wait to see you all
and I’m counting the days here

I still believe that there’s gold
at the end of the world
And I’ll come home to Illinois
on the day after tomorrow

It is so hard and it's cold here
and I’m tired of taking orders
And I miss old Rockford town
up by the Wisconsin border

What I miss, you won't believe
shoveling snow and raking leaves
And my plane will touch down
on the day after tomorrow

I close my eyes every nite
and I dream that I can hold you

They fill us full of lies, everyone buys
'bout what it means to be a soldier
I still don't know how I'm supposed to feel
'bout all the blood that's been spilled
Will god on this throne
get me back home
on the day after tomorrow

You can't deny, the other side
Don't want to die anymore then we do
What I'm trying to say is don't they pray
to the same god that we do?

And tell me how does god choose
whose prayers does he refuse?
Who turns the wheel
Who throws the dice
on the day after tomorrow

I'm not fighting, for justice
I am not fighting, for freedom
I am fighting, for my life
and another day in the world here

I just do what I've been told
We're just the gravel on the road
And only the lucky ones come home
on the day after tomorrow

And the summer, it too will fade
and with it brings the winter's frost dear
And I know we too are made
of all the things that we have lost here

I'll be 21 today
I been saving all my pay
And my plane will touch down
on the day after tomorrow
And my plane it will touch down
on the day after tomorrow
 

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


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