I am late

I realize I might be late on this. For the first time, perhaps, I realize the genius of Tom Waits.

We share a dinner with Peter and Alison. As the evening winds down, the Itunes brings us to Closing Time. Three tracks in, they leave; Amanda reads in bed; I stay up with a bottle of whiskey and actually listen to the lyrics for the first time.

His musicians run circles around him. It doesn't take a genius to notice the complex patterns the drummer brushes around his clunky chords; the tasteful blues notes of the guitar slinking their way beneath the clinky plinked piano. He is not a vituoso. In fact, he can barely play.

I remember reading somewhere, or perhaps hearing firsthand, I can't remember, that Tom Waits used to know someone in Whittier, an old college buddy. He'd visit late at night, before he'd recorded anything professionally, and he'd tap out tunes on the friend's piano, early into the morning. He was horrible, and he kept the neighbors up. There were complaints, threats to call the police if the behavior conitnued.

I had never really listened to a Tom Waits song before tonight. I had never noticed the hearbreaking sincerity wound between the deceptively simple melodies and themes. Heartbreak can only carry a song so far, and it becomes easy to write a melody off for being recognizable. The lyrics are not groundbreaking. They do not express anything that Cole Porter never thought of. They are absurd, but they carry something more than true in their artifice. Tom Waites has made a career out of creating a character, a disheveled ballader, a ner'do well whiskey hound, a hobo with a penchant for Joyce and Brecht. His songs do not mean anything, and yet, they mean exactly everything.

I don't know how to adequately communicate exaclty what it was that I discovered tonight. Perhaps it's that his songs seem to be lacking something; they seem tired and cliche, but retain something so startling and urgent that they demand your fullest attention and loyalty. You want to believe him, though you know he is chasing something impossible. He represents something lost, a Tin Pan Alley nightmare skating on thin ice. But I am right there, waiting to hear what he will say next. And no matter how inevitable it may seem, the next line always seems perfect, fitting, the only phrase that could have ever worked.

It's strange how small perfections can slip your notice, when you are too busy looking for something profound.