Il fantasma del sabato sera. Interviste sulla vita e la musica

by Tom Waits, Paul Maher Jr. (Editor), Claudia Durastanti (Translator)

Tom Waits, even with his barnyard growl and urban hipster yawp, may just be what the Daily Telegraph calls him: “the greatest entertainer on Planet Earth.” Over a span of almost four decades, he has transformed his music and persona not to suit the times but his whims. But along with Bob Dylan, he stands as one of the last elder statesmen still capable of putting out music that matters.            Journalists intent upon cracking the code are more likely to come out of a Waits interview with anecdotes about the weather, insects, or medieval medicine. He is, in essence, the teacher we wished we had, dispensing insights such as: “Vocabulary is my main instrument;” “We all like music, but what we really want is for music to like us;” “Anything you absorb you will ultimately secrete;” “Growth is scary, because you’re a seed and you’re in the dark and you don’t know which way is up, and down might take you down further into a darker place . . .;” and “There is no such thing as nonfiction. . . . People who really know what happened aren’t talking. And the people who don’t have a clue, you can’t shut them up.”           Tom Waits on Tom Waits is a selection of over fifty interviews from the more than five hundred available. Here Waits delivers prose as crafted, poetic, potent, and haunting as the lyrics of his best songs.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Biography, Biography Memoir, Unfinished

Paperback

First published November 1, 2011

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

[Amy Armstrong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unsurprisingly, the Kirkus Review was unimpressed by Paul Maher's loving compilation of interviews with Tom Waits. They complained that he didn't include interviews from the big name magazines like Playboy and Rolling Stone. (What a surprise: Maher points this out in his introduction and explains that including them would have been prohibitively expensive and kind of silly since you can get most of those online.) Most of the interviews in Tom Waits on Tom Waits: Interviews and Encounters come from small music rags, but in some ways, I think that makes it truer to the evolution of Tom Waits's career, aesthetic and his life. A lot of the reporters covering his early shows were in the same position he was: following their passions and hoping those passions would be enough to pay the next month's rent.

This is one of those books that I read as a digital galley and kind of want to buy just to have a physical copy that I can flip through whenever I think all of my creative pursuits are worthless. In some of the early interviews, you can feel Waits's frustration with his work, his label and finding an audience (or not), and those interviews took place after he'd achieved a level of success most musicians only dream of. It's hard to create something new with every project and while Waits doesn't make it look easy, he keeps delivering interesting new work. That's pretty amazing considering that he has always been committed to writing his own songs, and working on achieving a sound that isn't quite like anything else.

The only problem with this book is I may have to go on a Tom Waits binge for the next six months.

[Joe Young · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tom Waits on Tom Waits by Paul Maher. On paper the idea of publishing a sequential series of personal interviews of Tom Waits sounds intriguing but, in practice it suffered from terminal redundancy. It wasn't enough that Tom Waits viewed most interviews as a challenge to mislead the interviewer with a made up persona that deliberately misrepresented not only his views and motivations but what actually happened in his life. The litany of bad jokes and worn out stories were bad enough but, to have them repeated again and again with each additional interview was nearly intolerable. Tom's inclination to go against the grain and deliberately flaunt any authority may have been an accurate interpretation of his beat hero's inclinations but I didn't find any enlightenment or further understanding of either Tom Waits or his musical muse. The few closing words of Tom Waits interviewing Tom Waits titled "True Confessions" with his questions and answers gave a fuller view of who this character was and a more thorough understanding of his interests and motivations than the entire remaining parts of the book. Certainly, over ninety percent of the words were just wasted noise. Maybe Tom Waits would find that humorous as he seemed to like noise for noise sense.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with most collections of interviews, you need to be a fan to really enjoy a book such as this. Thankfully, I am a fan, although not as rabid as some, of Tom Waits.

This book of interviews covers him from the beginning of his career to the present, and I found it to be quite enjoyable...if not a bit repetitive.

Sadly, most of the interviews (especially in the beginning of the book) repeat quite a bit of the same quotes and stories and jokes, which can make it skippable at times. But seeing the process in which Waits actually is creating and honing his stage character is actually pretty interesting.

Waits is known for fabricating parts of his life, and his outlandish tales are great. He has an incredibly sharp mind and full of wit, even if reluctant to give interviews on occasion.

This book spawned a discussion with my husband about Tom Waits as we drunkenly stumbled home one evening, providing one of my favorite memories thus far in my marriage, so I have this book to thank for that.

I think in the end, this book is meant for people who really enjoy Tom Waits as well as people who enjoy reading a book of interviews (which I'm not sure I've ever done before).

*** 1/2 stars = glad I read it, I enjoyed it

ARC provided by NetGalley

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars because I love the subject. Took almost a year to read, savoring how the man can make a few words melt into a 1000 pictures.

[Richard]

A little bit of Tom goes a long way but if you're a Waits fan or at least curious about his motivations and creative process you'll find this interesting. His elliptical responses to straight questions are frequently funny but decidedly off-putting to the interviewers brave enough to try to engage him in a conversation making for a challenging read.

[Kevin Tindell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lets face it, you will only pick up this book if you're a Tom Waits fan. And if you are a Tom Waits fan you don't need me to tell you what a book containing a transcription of various magazine and radio / TV interviews etc covering a period from when he started out until 2006 is like. There is a lot of repetition (you can't expect him to say new things in every interview) but also some amusing anecdotes and interesting nuggets.

[Wayne Louis · Rating 5 out of 5]

My lovely lovely tom

[Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book thinking it was something else, a true biography about a person. And in a way that is exactly what I got. The thing with Tom Waits is you're never sure what just happened was really true, or something you've already misremembered. I just didn't know that when I purchased it.

This was a great read and it inspired me to deep dive into his music, which has been exciting. I don't love reading a bunch of interviews which kept this from being a true 5-star book, but the content was incredible as is the man.

If you're even a little curious about the man, or the myth, that is Tom Waits I highly suggest you pick this book up.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second collection of Tom Waits interviews I've read. Yes, that would seem at least one too many. I've also read an unauthorized, and not terribly great, biography. But he's such a raconteur and such an extraordinary songwriter, it was worth it.

He rarely shows his hand and many of these interviews are more about the interviewers trying to define, provide context to and imitate Waits. But even as he chooses to expose very little of who he is in private, you do get an impression he may be one of the great artists who's pretty swell outside his profession as well.

[Mariel]

So far nothing I haven't already read. This is something to read when I can't concentrate on anything. More of a to keep me from falling into a not reading anything at all slump more than anything else. If I sleep with it under my pillow maybe I'll wake up with cool Tom Waitsian self assurance and ability to lie awesomely through my teeth when real life folk harass me with personal questions I dread answering. Could happen.

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely love Tom Waits. He's not only everything an artist should be, but he also never rested on his laurels when long-overdue success finally reached him. His music never lies in that it never promises that things are going to get better, or that all we need is love, or crap like that.

However, Waits is infamous for lying to journalists. Being interviewed is one of the prices you have to pay for being a musical artist. But you get asked the same questions over and over again. For years. And you get your words twisted by people who often gave no clue as to who you are or what your music is about. Little wonder that David Bowie wouldn't allow interviews for 10 years before he died (and his last interview was a parody.) Or that other artists often refuse interviews.

Waits decided that there had to be a sharp line between his public persona and his private life. I thought his music was genius -- but so were his tactics to make interviews as painless for himself as possible. He'd deflect with interesting facts from nature or history, or just make stuff up on the fly, such as mentioning that New York City had the most beautiful horses.

This book is a selection from print and radio interviews from 1973 to 2009. There are bits of press releases as well, including a piece where Waits interviews himself. One journalist even went a step further and turned the interview into a work of fiction. Another journalist almost got into a fight with Waits. One interviewer was director Terry Gilliam.

Since this is a collection of interviews, many things are bound to repeat. Sometimes, Waits would completely change his answer years later at the same questions. Like Bowie, he eventually became completely in charge of what he allows you to see and hear.

Nothing wrong with that, as long as it's entertaining. And it sure is. Interesting for me, personally, was that Waits had praised Charles Bukowski back in 1973.

This book was written for Waits fans, so if you're not a Waits fan, you really need to not read this book, but go listen to the music.

Waits is now 75, so it's highly doubtful that any new albums would be forthcoming, let alone a tour. But, if anyone deserved to retire, it's Waits.

One edition of this book is still currently available on The Open Library.

[J. David Thayer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, as a Tom Waits fan to a ridiculous degree, it was hardly possible that I would NOT like this book. And since I discovered him much too late in life, it is likely that recordings and books and YouTube vids and films etc. will be as close as I will ever get to seeing him preform live. So, admittedly, this one had the cards stacked in its favor form Page One. Got it as a HUGE Christmas surprise from my wife, and I loved all of it!

Just as with the rest of Tom Waits, you will either get this book or you will not. Due to the nature of the format, there is a ton of repetition. Multiple interviews on the same press tour will understandably overlap with similar questions and, thus, similar answers. But there was really no path for Mr. Maher to avoid this. What was he supposed to do: cut a paste different excerpts together just to ensure the reader encountered the same story only once? No way. Have to print the exchanges in full, no matter the overlap.

I loved coming to understand the evolution of Waits public persona over the years. I loved witnessing how meeting his wife (Kathleen Brennan) worked to stabilize the man over time, while also compelling him to produce his most significant work. One interesting aspect of Waits, that can be said for far too few of rock's elder statesmen, is that his work continues getting better as time rolls along. Not to say every album is continually better than the one that preceded it, but there is no lull in the Waits catalogue. Who else can say that? This fact comes through while reading Tom Waits on Tom Waits. It is amazing to observe his transformation from the affected boozy hobo Beat persona of his early years into a fiercely protective husband and father, guarding his family's privacy with dogged tenacity. I love the way he answers questions that he perceives as intrusive with random factoids about insect colonies or non sequiturs about traveling freak shows from the early 1900s. I may try on a bit of that strategy myself, going forward.

TLDR: If you like Tom Waits, you'll love this book. Great read!

[Melissa Gors-Schafer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tom Waits is my absolute overall favorite artist. I love lots of other music and entertainers, like Cat Stevens, Queen, and about a zillion others. But, no one has the brilliance, the humor, the poignancy, the command of listeners’ emotions like Mr Waits - no one’s words move me like his do. He’s so inventive, so interesting and different, and no one can wend words around a heart quite like him.

This book is a compilation of many interviews by and about Mr Waits, and covers the beginning of his career to the mid-2000s, and is really detailed, and eye-opening how, even early in his career he was motivated conversations about what a refreshing change hand his music was. It’s a LONG book, and that’s why it gets 4 stars, cause I think fewer interviews documented would convey about the same information given here. But, good book for established fans, and good introduction for people looking to be introduced to his work.

[Chrissy Poo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lives and dies by how much stock you put into Waits's self-made mythology. If you enjoy the tall tales and the bullshitting you'll love it; personally I found myself just wanting Waits to answer some of the damn questions honestly instead of prattling on about blow fish and ants. I still love his music, and some of the interviews are brilliant (Terry Gilliam's comes to mind), but this is pretty much exactly what you'd expect from an artist known to keep his artistic persona and his private life completely separate.

[Daniel Stefanski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tom Waits has the heart of a poet and the carries the sentiment of a mechanic. Even if you are not of fan of his vaudevillian jaunts, growling vocals, and atypical song arrangements, you'll enjoy this book if you like music. He's alive, full of energy. . . the blue-collar mystic. This book, which is set up in chronological order as a series of interviews and profiles of Tom Waits, does the character and the music of Tom Waits justice.

[J.Istsfor Manity · Rating 3 out of 5]

some great interviews and writing here from disparate sources, but also lots of repetition... lots of repetition... lots of repetition... lots of repetition... lots of repetition... lots of repetition... lots of repetition...

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think he's the best.

[Freyr E · Rating 3 out of 5]

Það er fátt skemmtilegra en að lesa viðtöl við Waits. Sem oftast nær er bara hreint bull. En skemmtilegt bull.

[Becky Gouvier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars b/c I love the subject. Took almost a year to read, savouring how the man can make a few words melt into 1,000 pictures.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Waits is a genius, and an amazing interview subject. However, this does get a little repetitive (I blame the interviewers). It's probably best enjoyed by a fan.

[Norberto Fumagally · Rating 5 out of 5]

I now know a whole bunch more than I used to do about Tom Waits (arguably one of the most uncompromising artists to ever attain a certain level of fame) and his music, which can't be bad

[Sebastian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty sweet compilation of interviews from the gravel-voice man himself, contains lots of wise nuggets from Waits.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Tom Waits and found this book so interesting, do I feel I know him anymore.. no and yet the book was highly entertaining.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most entertaining and enjoyable books I have read. It is indispensable reading for anyone who is a fan of Tom Waits (non-fans will likely have no idea what is going on). I have always loved Waits' music but knew little to nothing about the man himself. The "interviews and encounters" collected here provide a "portrait" of the singular, brilliant eccentric that Tom Waits is. I put the work portrait in quotes, given Waits ' self-admitted penchant for preferring a good prevarication to the truth, going as far as stating there actually may not be such a thing as "the truth". Veracity is not an issue here. Say what he will, Tom Waits is simply fascinating, working from a plane altogether different than most anyone else. His facility with language is frankly amazing. He possesses a peculiar yet wonderfully inventive creativity, in music, language, and ideas. It is not going too far to call Waits a genius, certainly not in the conventional sense of that word, given that he basically cannot be categorized, but a genius nevertheless. The editor has done a stellar job in selecting the material. The idea to structure the book based on the chronological issuing of Waits' recordings is brilliant, so that the format tracks the development of the man and his work as it progresses through the years, resulting in an extremely informative presentation. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

[Massimiliano Città · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tom Waits l’ho conosciuto una sera d’inverno. Alla Tv. Trasmettevano un film intrigante, “Smoke”, una carrellata di personaggi fuori dagli schemi, reietti, emarginati, fuori di testa, soli. In coda al film, ad accompagnare il melanconico “racconto di natale” un suo pezzo. Innocent when you dream.
Da allora è diventato imprescindibile modo di essere, cercare di restare innocenti quando si sogna, da allora la voce gracchiante di Tom, quel suo andare dinoccolato lungo i tasti del pianoforte, fino a uscirne fuori, fino a capire che uno strumento come tanti non è in grado di contenere la vitalità espressiva di uno come pochi, di uno come lui. Da allora il martello delle sue melodie risuona dentro il mio rifugio e m’accompagna, come poche voci, nel cammino.
In questo libro si prova a raccogliere alcune delle sue bizzarrie, nella speranza di conservarne intatta la bellezza.

“Il processo creativo è fatto di immaginazione, ricordi, incubi; si tratta di smantellare alcuni aspetti del nostro mondo e assemblarli al buio. Le canzoni non sono necessariamente cronache veritiere o aneddoti da diario, sono come fumo. Le canzoni sono fatte di fumo. Diciamo che una canzone può ricordarti qualcosa, riportarti indietro nel tempo e farti ripensare a qualche persona o qualche luogo. Le canzoni sono come pietra di paragone o come nebbia.” [p. 167]

[Annelize · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am so very glad I took a long time to read this. It allowed me to appreciate the interviews and their content without becoming bogged down by repetition of questions and pat answers. After all, there are certain stock questions that are going to occur when a series of music journalists interview a musician in rapid succession upon the release of a new album.

Waits says that vocabulary is his main instrument, and he plays it brilliantly; there are masterful gems of vocabulary acrobatics to be found throughout the collection.

I appreciate the archival value of this book and I am very happy to have found it. I hope it will allow others to discover the wit and wisdom of Mr. Waits for decades to come.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is as close as you're going to get to a Tom Waits biography. He's financially secure, so secure he doesn't really tour (he got 2.5 million dollars in a lawsuit with Frito Lay). He is very private as these interviews show..."he lies about his past" put him off to bed for ever more.

But he's a great artist. There is a lot of repetitive preambles to these interviews...skim at will. What this does capture is a time when he wanted to prove himself. Where he wasn't lying as much.

I like that the narrative goes more by album. I learned about a couple of albums that I'd like to check out. I own the most Tom Waits albums of any artist in my collection. Whether you go for the jazzy piano man or the the Captain Beefheart wannabe...this book is worth reading if you're a fan.

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Waits in, largely, his own words - a remarkably (though not completely) comprehensive compendium of interviews with the Great Man over 45 (45 !!!) years of his career. Frequently repetitive, often very funny, always evasive, few performers of Waits's stature have managed to maintain and control their public image as expertly as Tom, perhaps because all the potentially scandalous stuff - drink, drugs, prostitution, waking up half-dressed in gutters - were always part of his *schtick*, so that no revelation about him was likely to bring him into any more disrepute than that which he'd already carefully cultivated. In fact, the biggest shock I had from reading this book was discovering that he had written songs for Barbra Streisand ! I was scandalised.

[David James · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is like a Tom Waits album: beauty, brutality and cacophony all at once. If you are an admirer of his work, you'll love it. If you can't stand him, you won't. I've been a fanboy since "Rain Dogs" came out in the eighties and I enjoyed every page. My wife would be happy to never hear his voice again and grew sick of me reading one quote after another. Choose your poison.

To my wife's credit, she has bought me every album Waits has issued since he put out "Alice" and "Blood Money" on the same day. These have been gifts to me. My gift to her has been to keep them in the garage. I'm sure Tom would approve.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

The problem with "Tom Waits on Tom Waits" is that it isn't by Tom Waits. I wanted to hear more by the man himself, not a hundred different descriptions of his voice. And the problem with reading interviews with Tom Waits is that he's consistently and cleverly evading the interviewers. There was a lot of dreck to wade through, and a lot of repetition. Thankfully though, in the actual quotes of Tom interspersed with the journalistic tripe, there was enough wit and wisdom for this to be a worthwhile read.