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I’ll take a rusty nail and scratch your initials on my arm.

Tom Waits

My wife called me a mule. She once said, “I didn’t marry a man; I married a mule!” I kept thinking about it. It was in the back of my head. I think it makes a good title for an album.
TOM WAITS

Animal Goodness Man Marriage Myself Thinking Wife
A mental midget with the IQ of a fence post.
TOM WAITS

Dumb Intelligence Mental
You can drive out nature with a pitch fork But it always comes roaring back again.
TOM WAITS

Drive Nature Roar Yourself
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
People get frightened that success is going to take them out of life. They’re no longer going to be on the corner of Bedlam and Squalor; life will only be something you can get through the mail.
TOM WAITS

People Scare Success Yourself
We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness. We are monkeys with money and guns.
TOM WAITS

Abundance Beneath Bury Confusion Gun Happiness Information Knowledge Money Weapon Weight
Did the devil make the world while God was sleeping?
TOM WAITS

Devil God Sleep World
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
Songs are really just very interesting things to be doing with the air.
TOM WAITS

Air Interest Song
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
The average person spends two weeks over their lifetime waiting for the traffic light to change.
TOM WAITS

Average Change Life Person Time Traffic
Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends.
TOM WAITS

Friendship Pain Reality
I think all songs should have weather in them. Names of towns and streets, and they should have a couple of sailors. I think those are just song prerequisites.
TOM WAITS

Couple Myself Song Thinking Weather
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

Culture Known Music Myself Planet Topic
The Universe is making music all the time.
TOM WAITS

Music Time Universe
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

I’ll take a rusty nail and scratch your initials on my arm.

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I’ll take a rusty nail and scratch your initials on my arm.

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