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I like vocal word stuff. But I don’t always write with an instrument, I usually write a capella. It’s more like drawing in the air with your fingers. It’s closest to the choreography of a bee. You’re freer.

Tom Waits

I’ve been riding on the crest of a slump lately.
TOM WAITS

Late Myself Ride
Mostly I straddle reality and the imagination. My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane.
TOM WAITS

Blind Imagination Myself Need Reality Requirement
I’m just trying to make a buck like everyone else.
TOM WAITS

Money Myself
The dog won’t bite if you beat Him with a bone.
TOM WAITS

Beat Bite Bone Dog Yourself
I sold a quart of blood and bought a half a pint of scotch.
TOM WAITS

Alcohol Blood Myself
You can drive out nature with a pitch fork But it always comes roaring back again.
TOM WAITS

Drive Nature Roar Yourself
You’ve gotta have somebody to trust, that knows a lot.
TOM WAITS

Known Trust Yourself
For a songwriter, you don’t really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them and take them apart and see what they’re made of, and wonder if you can make one, too.
TOM WAITS

Learning Listening Oneself Song Wonder Writing
Not the kind of wheel you fall asleep at.
TOM WAITS

Fall Kind Yourself
It’s very hard to stop doing things you’re used to doing. You almost have to dismantle yourself and scatter it all around and then put a blindfold on and put it back together so that you avoid old habits.
TOM WAITS

Avoid Habit Hard Old Scatter Stop Togetherness Yourself
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
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
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
New York forces you to be in endless surreal situations.
TOM WAITS

End Force Surreal 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 ocean doesn’t want me today, But I’ll come back tomorrow to play. The riptide is waging And the life guard’s away But the ocean doesn’t want me today.
TOM WAITS

Guard Life Myself Ocean Play

I like vocal word stuff. But I don’t always write with an instrument, I usually write a capella. It’s more like drawing in the air with your fingers. It’s closest to the choreography of a bee. You’re freer.

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I like vocal word stuff. But I don’t always write with an instrument, I usually write a capella. It’s more like drawing in the air with your fingers. It’s closest to the choreography of a bee. You’re freer.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Tom Waits Quotes