Frank's Wild Years - Swordfishtrombones - Tom Waits - 1983 ( www.youtube.com )

livus , 10 months ago

I love that line "all halloween orange and chiminey red".

Wonder where I've hung my wild years.

Arotrios OP , 10 months ago

This track always gets me, because it encapsulates the feeling of living in LA so damn well. Too many freakin' chihuahuas in that town.

As an allegory for Wait's personal life, it always cracks me up, because he did exactly that - fled to Northern California to live out the rest of his days outside of Sebastopol on an old farm (where he records most of his music these days) - although I'm uncertain if arson was involved. I often wonder if he's referring to his wild years as the times when he tried to play it straight in the big city before accepting that his own personal "normal" was that of a rural recluse. He pretty much took himself off the circuit after the early 80s.

livus , 10 months ago

Good to know it's so evocative of real life, never having been to LA myself. His lyrics so often feel like movies to me.

On the other hand nobody could accuse Kathleen Brennan of being a spent piece of used jet trash... something I've long appreciated about Waits is he tends to give multiple, often contradictory explanations for the meaning of his lyrics.

I'll tell you all my secrets but I lie about my past/ so send me off to bed forever more...