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Tom Waits - your opinions?

Some covers are truly outstanding.

Check out Pearl Jam's cover of Masters of War.



i can't take you seriously anymore because of that.
i do like hendrix's all along the watchtower - tis one of the only things i like of his
 
i can't take you seriously anymore because of that.
i do like hendrix's all along the watchtower - tis one of the only things i like of his

I am stunned.

This is a fantastic cover of one of most powerful anti war songs ever written. As relevant today as it ever was. He could be singing to Tony Blair




I hope that you die
And that your death will come soon
I'll follow your casket in the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while your lowered into your death bed
And I'll stand over your grave till I'm sure that your dead!!
 
tbh i never paid much attention to the lyrics. i don't really hear them unless the singer has an engaging voice and hendrix ain't much of a singer
 
oh wait, were you talking about the pearl jam cover? i refuse to entertain the notion that pearl jam could produce anything worth listening to.
 
I think Waits has got a ghastly singing voice. Plus his songs have that sort of torch song smoky club atmosphere that does nothing for me.
I've probably listened to Waits about fifty times over the years and only enjoyed the experience once or twice.
I've tried to like him, but it's like fingers down a blackboard to me.
I remember that I have liked the song Jersery Girl in the past, but I just you tubed it and I wanted to immediately pull the plug.
Definitely an acquired taste.
 
Well yeah if people dont like his voice then its understandable that they wont be impressed.

I love his voice and Im sure thats a fair part of why I like his music so much.

Now then, what the hell happened to Dylan's voice?
 
Sorry Tom Waits fans but I prefer gruff to dog arse rough. Compare for example TW's version of "Waltzing Mathilda" and that by "The Pogues". Waits utterly destroys it. His version is bereft of melody and feeling. It's like having twenty fillings without anaesthetic.

Don't misunderstand me, I love gravelly voices and rave over Dr. John, Steve Earle and Leon Redbone but I would ditch them if they had no feel to their music.

As for comparing Dylan. Impossible! He's already proved he has a range of voices both vocally and his material.

Enjoy what you like.
 
I love Tom. He's fantastic.

I certainly enjoy him a lot more than bloody Dylan.

yeh yeh he's a genius, culturally important, blah blah bleh - just don't make listen to him OK? certainly not after the 60's.

Tom, I'd say, does more interesting stuff with similar influences and certainly in his later (for me better) stuff brings in a load of other crazy stuff that brings out some completely unique music
 
shore leave shits all over anything dylan's done - would dylan bother with that kind of instrumentation and that performance?
 
all i hear from dylan is a harmonica and dull guitar strumming. and a wasp trapped in a jam jar.
 
all i hear from dylan is a harmonica and dull guitar strumming. and a wasp trapped in a jam jar.

Then you really haven't heard Dylan

Listen to Blood on the tracks or Desire and you will see how wrong that opinion is. Both albums are masterpieces.
 
"name me a good record dylan's made since the 60's?"


"DESIRE"

In particular: "Hurricane". Dylan is a genius at narrative songs.

Then listen to "Romance in Durango". Read the lyrics and see how he uses each syllable to great effect.

And lastly from the Rolling Stone.

"On the best songs, Dylan returns to the fantastic images, weird characters and absurdist landscapes of the Sixties. The metaphors work on so many levels they're impossible to sift, and just when you think you have one firmly defined, it slips off into something else again. The crucial ideas are cinematic; in fact, one song, "Romance in Durango," seems to be an explicit parable about making Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid in 1973. There are the usual romances, the stories of hard-luck kids from rough slums, a couple of other westerns, even a bit of travelogue ("Mozambique"). Some of the songs, like "One More Cup of Coffee" (which is apparently based on a story Ramblin' Jack Elliott used to tell), seem ancient, as though Dylan were once more using the resources of traditional folk music for his melodies and themes."

:p
 
I've heard the odd song I like, but most of what I've heard really doesn't do it for me. I guess some people like the idea of him because he's never really been mainstream.
 
well i've never been big into songwriting but waits creates characters and tells stories in his songs and that grabs me way more than whiny waspvoiced dylan singing about how the times are a changing.

That's what get's me about Waits too. The characters and stories. I absolutely love him. My first album of his was "The Heart Of A Saturday Night". A favorite song? Too many but I'm paticularly partial to Ole 55, Diamonds on My Windshield, San Diego Serenade, Jersey Girl, Hope I don't Fall In Love With You and Closing Time.

 
There's a Bob Dylan thread over there look --------->

Read the bloody sign, this is the Tom Waits thread :mad:
 
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