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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

But it’s so hard to dance that way when it’s cold and there’s no music.
TOM WAITS

Cold Dance Hard Music Way
There’s a beauty of show business. It’s the only business you can have a career in when you’re dead.
TOM WAITS

Beautiful Business Career Death Show Yourself
I’ve seen it all through the yellow windows of the evening train.
TOM WAITS

Evening Myself Train
Arithmetic arithmetock Turn the hands back on the clock How does the ocean rock the boat? How did the razor find my throat? The only strings that hold me here Are tangled up around the pier.
TOM WAITS

Arithmetic Boat Finding Hands Hold Myself Ocean
A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion, but doesn’t.
TOM WAITS

Gentle Man Play
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
When I was younger, I wanted to be older. Now I am older, I am not quite so sure.
TOM WAITS

Age Myself Old Quite Young
Living with kids is like living with a bunch of drunks. You know you really have to be on your toes all the time. Things are falling over and breaking and spilling. If you live on the second story, you really have to keep the windows shut all the time.
TOM WAITS

Break Children Fall Live Time Window Yourself
I’ve always believed that the way you affect your audience is more important than how many of them are there.
TOM WAITS

Affect Audience Believe Important Myself Way
And the earth died screaming, while I lay dreaming.
TOM WAITS

Death Earth Myself Scream
Slept all night in the cedar grove, I was born to ramble, born to rove, some men are searchin’ for the holy grail, but there ain’t nothin’ sweeter than ridin’ the rails.
TOM WAITS

Born Myself Night Search Sleep Sweet
The way you do anything is the way you do everything.
TOM WAITS

Action Style Way Yourself
I like Thelonious Monk, he’s so gnarled, he’s like a piece of machinery that’s pulled up the bolts on the floor and gone off on its own.
TOM WAITS

Floor Machine Myself Pieces
We have a deficit of wonder right now.
TOM WAITS

Imagination Right Wonder
You know, we just buy music now. We don’t make it any more. And that goes for just about everything. I think it’s so important that people develop and subscribe to and have confidence in their own ability to make music, however rough it is.
TOM WAITS

Ability Confidence Important Music Rough Thinking Yourself
Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, never drive a car when you’re dead.
TOM WAITS

Death Drive Man Trust Yourself

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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