Tom Waits - Anthology | Piano Vocal Guitar Songbook | Rock Sheet Music Book with 29 Songs | Medium Difficulty Piano Arrangements | Piano Music Book for Adults | Tom Waits Piano Sheet Music Collection

by Tom Waits

Complete piano/vocal arrangements with chord diagrams of over 20 of this poet/songwriter/ actor‘s greatest hits Ol’ 55, Jersey Girl, and Shiver Me Timbers.

Genres: Music

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

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.

Lyrically, Waits' songs are known for atmospheric portrayals of bizarre, seedy characters and places, although he has also shown a penchant for more conventional ballads. He has a cult following and has influenced subsequent songwriters, despite having little radio or music video support. His songs are best known to the general public in the form of cover versions by more visible artists — for example "Jersey Girl" performed by Bruce Springsteen, "Downtown Train" performed by Rod Stewart, and "Ol' '55" performed by the Eagles. Although Waits' albums have met with mixed commercial success in his native United States, they have occasionally achieved gold album sales status in other countries. He has been nominated for a number of major music awards, and has won Grammy Awards for two albums, Bone Machine and Mule Variations.

Reviews

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

In my opinion Tom Waits is the best lyricist of the last 50 years, the alter ego of similarly gifted Springsteen, born in the same year, and I would not be surprised to hear about them dying on the same day, the Jefferson and Adams way, consoled by the knowledge that the other was still alive and that the idea of America that they both fought for persists in the heart of everyone affected by their words.

Anyone in doubt of Waits's lyrical ability and his ability to tackle difficult subjects needs to check out these tracks:
1. Alice (about Alice in Wonderland)
2. I'm Still Here (Alzheimer's)
3. Burma Shave (Car crash)
4. On the Nickel (Homelessness in Los Angeles - great live video on Youtube)
5. A Soldier's Things (Family coping with military death)
6. Day after Tomorrow (Soldier in the field)
7. Kentucky Avenue (Growing up wild and poor in the bad part of town)
8. Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis (Desperation of prostitution)
9. Take it with Me (Greatest love song ever written?)
10. Georgia Lee (child murder)
11. If I Have to Go (Separation)
12. Time (Overcoming tragedy - look for Tori Amos's cover on Letterman after 9/11)
13. Wrong Side of the Road (Escapism)
14. $29.00 (Poor black girl being taken advantage of)
15. The Road to Peace (The conflict in the Middle East)