On this day of this rare astronomical eclipse event, and after a series of other lunar-related songs, we come to an artist who has, across the course of his career, described this celestial body in around 100 different ways. It's been a lunar obsession of poetic brilliance. There is simply not enough space to analyse the many moons of Tom Waits, the beautiful metaphors of love, fear, yearning, death, and especially eating, but here is a selection of five variously bloody, cheese-like, silvery and romantic moons to get our teeth into, eyes and ears around, with a chance to also see how Waits's voice and style as evolved in his career of more than 40 years.
Grapefruit Moon comes from his debut album, Closing Time of 1973, a slow, jazz-folk bar-room piano collection, in which the moon is part of a melancholy love song. Drunk On The Moon comes from 1974's The Heart of Saturday Night, a sleazier, boozier depiction of visual distortion, of a "silver slipper" of inebriation. Yet by 1985, after he had met and married Kathleen Brennan, his style had developed considerably, and the brilliant Rain Dogs is full of the extraordinary creaks, crashes and atmospheric shudders that is his hallmark, including on the extraordinary poem song, 9th & Hennepin, "the moon's teeth marks are on the sky" reflects cracked, visceral tragedy depicted on this urban Minneapolis street. I'll Shoot The Moon is more of a romantic meandering, part of his German folklore inspired theatrical show album of 1993, The Black Rider. And finally to round of this selection, the moon is at the very heart of a child's imagination, it is rotten wood and green cheese, and is a farewell, lullaby-style song, Children's Story, from the Bastards section of 2006's Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards triple album, inspired by the work of Georg Büchner, there's mischievously nothing sentimental about the moon at all. There's your moon. There's your story. Night night.
Grapefruit moon, one star shining
Shining down on me
Heard that tune, and now I'm pining
Honey, can't you see?
Cause every time I hear that melody
Something breaks inside
And the grapefruit moon, one star shining
Can't turn back the tide
Never had no destinations
Could not get across
You became my inspiration
Oh, but what a cost
And every time I hear that melody
Something breaks inside
And the grapefruit moon, one star shining
Is more than I can hide
Now I'm smoking cigarettes
And I strive for purity
And I slip just like the stars
Into obscurity
And every time I hear that melody
Puts me up a tree
And the grapefruit moon, one star shining
Is all that I can see.
Tight slack clad girls on the graveyard shift
'Neath the cement stroll, catch the midnight drift
Cigar chewing Charlie in that newspaper nest
Grifting hot horse tips on who's running the best
And I'm blinded by the neon
Don't try and change my tune
Cause I thought I heard a saxophone
I'm drunk on the moon
And the moon's a silver slipper, it's pouring champagne stars
And Broadway's like a serpent pulling shiny top-down cars
Laramer is teeming with that undulating beat
And some Bonneville is screaming, it's way wilder down the street
And I'm blinded by the neon
Don't try and change my tune
I thought I heard a saxophone
I'm drunk on the moon
Hearts flutter and race, the moon's on the wane
Tarts mutter their dream hopes the night will ordain
Come schemers and dancers, cherry delight
As a Cleveland-bound Greyhound, and it cuts through the night
And I've hawked all my yesterdays
Don't try and change my tune
Cause I thought I heard a saxophone
I'm drunk on the moon.
Well it's 9th and Hennepin
And all the donuts have
Names that sound like prostitutes
And the moon's teeth marks are
On the sky like a tarp thrown over all this
And the broken umbrellas like
Dead birds and the steam
Comes out of the grill like
The whole goddamned town is ready to blow
And the bricks are all scarred with jailhouse tattoos
And everyone is behaving like dogs
And the horses are coming down Violin Road
And Dutch is dead on his feet
And the rooms all smell like diesel
And you take on the
Dreams of the ones who have slept here
And I'm lost in the window
I hide on the stairway
I hang in the curtain
I sleep in your hat
And no one brings anything
Small into a bar around here
They all started out with bad directions
And the girl behind the counter has a tattooed tear
One for every year he's away she said
Such a crumbling beauty, but there's
Well, nothing wrong with her that
$100 won't fix
She has that razor sadness
That only gets worse
With the clang and the thunder
Of the Southern Pacific going by
As the clock ticks out like a dripping faucet
Till you're full of rag water and bitters and blue ruin
And you spill out
Over the side to anyone who'll listen
And I've seen it
All through the yellow windows
Of the evening train.
I'll shoot the moon
Right out of the sky
For you baby
I'll be the pennies
On your eyes
For you baby
I want to take you
Out to the fair
Here's a red rose
Ribbon for your hair
I'll shoot the moon
Right out of the sky
For you baby
I'll shoot the moon
For you
A vulture circles
Over your head
For you baby
I'll be the flowers
After you're dead
For you baby
I want to build
A nest in your hair
I want to kiss you
And never be there
I'll shoot the moon
Right out of the sky
For you baby
I'll shoot the moon
For you
Once upon a time there was a poor child
With no father and no mother
And everything was dead
And no one was left in the whole world
Everything was dead
And the child went on search day and night
And since nobody was left on the earth
He wanted to go up into the heavens
And the moon was looking at him so friendly
And when he finally got to the moon
The moon was a piece of rotten wood
And then he went to the sun
And when he got there
The sun was a wilted sunflower
And when he got to the stars
They were little golden flies
Stuck up there like the shrike
Sticks 'em on a blackthorn
And when he wanted to go back down to earth
The earth was an overturned piss pot
And he was all alone
He sat down and he cried
And he is there till this day
All alone.
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