"Green Grass" by Tom Waits
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I keep playing the song "Green Grass" by Tom Waits non-stop. For those who are unfamiliar with Mr. Waits, he's a pretty cool cat. The man has been making music for over 36 years, and has developed a loyal cult following. He is currently signed to -Anti records, the same label with which one of my favorite bands, Man Man, is also signed. In fact, Man Man frontman Honus Honus' vocal style is highly influenced by Waits' signature growl.
Music critic Daniel Durchholz once famously described Waits' voice 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."
Oh Yeahhhh.
Recently Mr. Waits has been appearing in several indie films, such as Jim Jarmusch's "Coffee and Cigarettes" and Goran Dukic's "Wristcutters: A Love Story". He is currently shooting Terry Gilliam's (!!!) new film "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus".
Listen to Waits' haunting and heart-wrenching "Green Grass" here:
http://www.myspace.com/tomwaits
"Green Grass" by Tom Waits
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
Comments (1)
One of the most gratifying experiences in the world is when a song gets inside your head like that...just gets inside you.
Sounds as though the way "Green Grass" has gotten through to you is very much the same experience I had when I first heard Dylan's "Simple Twist of Fate."
"They sat together in the park
As the evening sky grew dark,
She looked at him and he felt a spark tingle to his bones.
'Twas then he felt alone and wished that he'd gone straight
And watched out for a simple twist of fate."
So devastatingly severe yet beautiful in its bleak, matter-of-fact simplicity. He starts as if it's just going to be another cliche love story, and seconds later he lays on the truer more painful realization that love doesn't always work out...and how lonely that feels the first time it hits you. All within the first stanza!
Thanks for the revisit to Waits. It can do us all some good every now and then to look back to those songs that broke through.