Tom Waits

Author profile

born

in Pomona, California, The United States

December 07, 1949

gender

male

website

http://www.anti.com/artists/view/1

genre

Poetry

About this author

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Thomas Alan Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by one critic as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months and then taken outside and run over with a car." With this trademark growl, his incorporation of pre-rock styles such as blues, jazz, and Vaudeville, and experimental tendencies verging on industrial music, Waits has built up a distinctive musical persona. Waits has also worked as a composer for movies and musical plays and as a supporting actor in films, including The Fisher King, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Short Cuts. He has been nominated for an Academy Award for his soundtrack work on One from the Heart.

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Tom Waits's Books

Average rating: 4.18 · 1,097 ratings · 112 reviews · 23 distinct works · Similar authors

	Innocent When You Dream: The Tom Waits Reader by Tom Waits, Mac Montandon (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Frank Black (Foreword by) 4.12 of 5 stars 4.12 avg rating — 593 ratings — published 2005 — 6 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Early Years: The Lyrics, 1971-1983 4.38 of 5 stars 4.38 avg rating — 82 ratings — published 2007 — 4 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Seeds on Hard Ground 4.38 of 5 stars 4.38 avg rating — 29 ratings — published 2011	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Little Black Songbook 4.65 of 5 stars 4.65 avg rating — 20 ratings — published 2009	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Alice 4.71 of 5 stars 4.71 avg rating — 17 ratings — published 2002	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Tom Waits - Anthology 4.28 of 5 stars 4.28 avg rating — 18 ratings — published 1988	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Blood Money 4.67 of 5 stars 4.67 avg rating — 12 ratings — published 2002	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Beautiful Maladies 4.67 of 5 stars 4.67 avg rating — 12 ratings — published 1996 — 2 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	True Confessions 3.67 of 5 stars 3.67 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 2008	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Big Time 5.0 of 5 stars 5.00 avg rating — 2 ratings	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Tom Waits

“My kids are starting to notice I'm a little different from the other dads. "Why don't you have a straight job like everyone else?" they asked me the other day.

I told them this story:
In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, "Look at me...I'm tall, and I'm straight, and I'm handsome. Look at you...you're all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you." And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, "Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest." So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day.”
― Tom Waits

tags: humor, individuality, music, musician, non-conformity

701 people liked it

“I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.”
― Tom Waits

tags: music, power-of-music

513 people liked it

“There ain't no devil, only God when he's drunk.”
― Tom Waits

tags: ironic, music

434 people liked it

See all Tom Waits's quotes »