Back In the Good Old World (Gypsy) - Tom Waits

Back In the Good Old World (Gypsy) - Tom Waits

2:29

Night On Earth, 1992

Written by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan

Clunking, shambling percussion and bleating horns punctuate an accordion line as Waits growls out what appears to be a ghost's determination to return.  "On October's last I'll fly back home / Rolling down winding way." he avers.  He may return on Halloween but he longs for summer.  "And all I've got's a pocket full of flowers on my grave," the spirit rumbles.  It's a great song, but the production could be clearer; it's a muted sound, even compared to the Waltz version of the song on the same album.

New Year's Eve - Tom Waits

New Year's Eve - Tom Waits

4:28

Bad As Me, 2011

Written by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan

A New Year's Eve party filled with hooligans and hard-scrabble ne'er-do-wells as only Waits can paint it.  There's fireworks and sirens and noise and fighting and curses.  "All the noise was disturbing and I couldn't find Irving / It was like two stations on at the same time / And then I hid your car keys, and I made black coffee."  And someone has drugs and might get arrested, and someone's planning to leave with just the clothes on his back and a bunch of records in a brown paper sack.  There's a confusion of proper names and it's all pretty vague and chaotic.  That's where Waits is at home.