Waits’ first great song, “Ol’ ’55” came out of the first flush of love rather than from its dissolution. A mumbly, countryish paean to his beat-up old Buick, it painted a vivid picture of a young man rising reluctantly from his girlfriend’s bed at dawn to drive home on the freeway. He was pining for his girl, and the cars were flashing him to get out of the fast lane, but he felt “so holy” and “so alive” as the stars faded and the sun rose on the horizon. Historian Simon Schama would describe it as “the single most beautiful love song since Gershwin and Cole Porter shut their piano lids”.
