Anytime I mention Tom Waits to my contemporaries, I usually get a shoulder shrug, face scrunch "I can only take him in small doses" response. Some told me Bob Dylan on his worse day sounds better. I guess it is just something you have to "get" Heck, I don't need to change the world, I just need to make mine better and with Mr. waits taking up residence, I believe it is. This version is taken from "Glitter And Doom: Tom Waits In Concert at Atlanta's Fox Theater" - Two Hour Plus '08 Live Show

A wonderful recent Waits performance from Atlanta's Fox Theater.

A typically kinetic Two Hour Plus Show!

Uncle Vernon

- Tom Waits (1993): "There's no one really in show business in my family but there were two relatives who had an effect on me very young and shaped me in some way. They were Uncle Vernon and Uncle Robert. I always hated the sound of my voice when I was a kid. I always wanted to sound more like my Uncle Vernon, who had a raspy, gravelly voice. Everything Uncle Vernon said sounded important, and you always got it the first time because you wouldn't dare ask him to repeat it. Eventually, I learned that Uncle Vernon had had a throat operation as a kid and the doctors had left behind a small pair of scissors and gauze when they closed him up. Years later at Christmas dinner, Uncle Vernon started to choke while trying to dislodge an errant string bean, and he coughed up the gauze and the scissors. That's how Uncle Vernon got his voice, and that's how I got mine- from trying to sound just like him." (Source: "Tom Foolery - Swapping stories with inimitable Tom Waits". Buzz Magazine: May, 1993)

Cemetery Polka

Uncle Vernon, Uncle Vernon

Independent as a hog on ice

He's a big shot down there at the slaughterhouse

Plays accordion for Mr. Weiss

Uncle Biltmore and Uncle William

Made a million during World War II

But they're tightwads and they're cheapskates

And they'll never give a dime to you

Auntie Mame has gone insane

She lives in the doorway of an old hotel

And the radio is playing opera

All she ever says is go to Hell

Uncle Violet flew as pilot

And there ain't no pretty girls in France

Now he runs a tiny little bookie joint

They say he never keeps it in his pants

Uncle Bill will never leave a will

And the tumour is as big as an egg

Has a mistress, she's Puerto Rican

And I heard she has a wooden leg

Uncle Phil can't live without his pills

He has emphysema and he's almost blind

And we must find out where the money is

Get it now before he loses his mind

Uncle Vernon, Uncle Vernon

Independent as a hog on ice

He's a big-shot down there at the slaughterhouse

He plays accordion for Mr. Weiss

Written by: Tom Waits

Published by: Jalma Music (ASCAP), © 1985

Official release: Rain Dogs, Island Records Inc., 1985

Arrangement and lyrics published in "Tom Waits - Beautiful Maladies" (Amsco Publications, 1997)