Tom Waits on Tom Waits: Interviews and Encounters (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781569763124)

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.

Author: Paul Maher
ISBN-10: 1569763127
ISBN-13: 9781569763124
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Language: English
Published: 08/01/2011
Pages: 480
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.39lbs
Size: 9.01h x 6.08w x 0.93d

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 06/01/2011
Library Journal 07/01/2011 pg. 83
Shelf Awareness 08/26/2011