Quote:
Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel
oh my god i would have LOVED to see a show like that !!! some of my favorite cds are the concert ones where he's just singing and playing the piano and telling stories in between songs...
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Okay, damn you, Queen Zee, and you, Barcey.
When I was a kid, my parents' musical taste couldn't be said to be apalling. Hey, I got a lot of The Beatles, my parents took me to the
Rocky Horror Picture Show when it came to the movies (they didn't realise at the time what it was about, but still bought the soundtrack afterwards), one of my Mum's favourite albums is Talking Heads'
Little Creatures, and they even went through a heavy disco phase (which you can criticise all you like, but, nevertheless, it was popular, and my parents were "with it"). In the end, my musical tastes converged a lot on a period just before my time, in that it was just
after my time, in the early 70's (I was born 1970), but it was my parents' broader tastes that took me wherever I wanted (and if I ever want to put myself back there - in the car, the back of the Kingswood with my two brothers, on a stinking hot summer's day, all windows down, probably lying half-asleep in the footwell arched over the transmission hump, coming home from Avalon Beach or Stockton Beach on a Sydney weekend road full of brake-light traffic - I just have to put on Meatloaf's
Bat Out Of Hell and pretty soon I can feel the sand in the crack of my arse and the surf-grime sticking my then-blonde hair every which way...and it brings a salty tear to my eye).
There's others though, which perhaps are not so...defensible. Nana Mouskouri is a guilty pleasure, as is Neil Diamond (Gods and devils!
Crunchy Granola Suite is already tapping its toe in my head). One, however, only loved by Dad, has never made it into my head, shut out by stubbornness and now by fear of bringing in the grief again. Dad loved Tom Waits. The LP cover I remember (hey, it'll still be in the stack under his stereo in his custom-made stereo cabinet) is
Heartattack and Vine. I remember none of Waits's music - I left the room and hid my head whenever it came on, and it became only rarely played (I don't think Mum was a fan either).
So, as I've said before, I can't listen to Tom Waits, because of everything that rolls around with it. Listening to it is like a sliver of ice through the heart, because of the loss it brings forward. It makes me miss my Dad like I'd miss my sight or my hearing or forever the pleasure of bodysurfing a nice, full, green, clean wave all the way onto a sandy shore.
Well, I couldn't listen to Tom Waits, but I'm prepared to give it a go now, because of your persistence. There are things that need to be brought forward so they can be picked up and moved on with. I need your help to point me to the album you think I am most likely to enjoy, and which shows his talent the best. Any advice?
(Unfortunately Ennio Morricone's score for
The Mission is still down the back, in the dark dusty corners of my head, with things with too many exoskeletal legs crawling all over it...but that's another part of the story.)
Cheers,
Marc