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The blues is like a planet. It’s an enormous topic. You can’t ignore the impact that it has had and continues to have on the whole musical culture. It’s a tree that everyone is swinging from. Without it, I don’t know where I would be. It’s indelible and indispensable.

Tom Waits

Bill Hicks – blowtorch, excavator, truthsayer, and brain specialist. He will correct your vision. Others will drive on the road he built.
TOM WAITS

Brain Built Drive Himself Road Specialist Vision Willing
The trick is to have a career and have a family. It’s like having two dogs that hate each other and you have to take them for a walk every night.
TOM WAITS

Career Family Night Trick Yourself
I’ve seen it all through the yellow windows of the evening train.
TOM WAITS

Evening Myself Train
I dunno when I started writing really. I was, like, filling out applications and stuff real early. Last name first, first name last, sex. ‘occasionally’ , stuff like that. Then I was writing letters, filling out forms, writing on bathroom walls.
TOM WAITS

Application Fill Myself Sex Start Writing
Oh, I’m not a percussionist, I just like to hit things.
TOM WAITS

Funny Instrument Musician Myself
I’d rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy.
TOM WAITS

Freedom Myself Science
Most people don’t care if you’re telling them the truth or if you’re telling them a lie, as long as they’re entertained by it.
TOM WAITS

Care Entertainment Lying People Truth Yourself
All that you’ve loved is all you own.
TOM WAITS

Love One Liner Yourself
Got a head full of lightning, a hat full of rain.
TOM WAITS

Head Rain
When you’re writing‚ you’re conjuring. It’s a ritual‚ and you need to be brave and respectful and sometimes get out of the way of whatever it is that you’re inviting into the room.
TOM WAITS

Brave Conjuring Invitation Room Writing Yourself
Don’t plant your bad days. They grow into weeks. The weeks grow into months. Before you know it, you got yourself a bad year. Take it from me – choke those little bad days. Choke ’em down to nothing.
TOM WAITS

Bad Day Growth Plant Yourself
It’s rather mystifying when you think about writing songs – where they come from, and how they’re born.
TOM WAITS

Born Mysterious Thinking Writing Yourself
I’m trying to get music ideas that come and keep them alive. It’s like carrying water in your hands. I want to keep it all, and sometimes by the time you get to the studio you have nothing.
TOM WAITS

Alive Hands Ideas Music Time Yourself
I’m always looking for sounds that are pleasing at the time. The sound of a helicopter is really annoying until you’re drowning, and it’s there to rescue you. Then it sounds like music.
TOM WAITS

Drowning Music Rescue Sound Time Yourself
The folks who know the truth aren’t talking. The ones who don’t have a clue, you can’t shut them up!
TOM WAITS

Talk Truth Yourself
Writing songs is like capturing birds without killing them. Sometimes you end up with nothing but a mouthful of feathers.
TOM WAITS

Capture End Feature Song Writing

The blues is like a planet. It’s an enormous topic. You can’t ignore the impact that it has had and continues to have on the whole musical culture. It’s a tree that everyone is swinging from. Without it, I don’t know where I would be. It’s indelible and indispensable.

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Popular Authors

The blues is like a planet. It’s an enormous topic. You can’t ignore the impact that it has had and continues to have on the whole musical culture. It’s a tree that everyone is swinging from. Without it, I don’t know where I would be. It’s indelible and indispensable.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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