Medley - Jack & Neal/California, Here I Come, Foreign Affairs, Tom Waits [050]

Song by Song reaches its fiftieth episode as Waits returns to one of his greatest influences, the beat poets. With mixed feelings, Sam and Martin discuss extreme vocal styling (and its overuse) as a storytelling tool, the value (or lack thereof) of California as a location, as well as touching briefly on one of cinema and recorded music's iconic figures, Al Jolson. Song by Song is Martin Zaltz Austwick and Sam Pay; two musicians listening to and discussing every single Tom Waits track in chronological order. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: [email protected] Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Medley: Jack & Neal/California, Here I Come, Foreign Affairs, Tom Waits (1977) California, Here I Come, The Best Of Al Jolson, Al Jolson (1921/2002) We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly. Lyrics - Medley: Jack & Neal/California, Here I Come Jack was sitting poker faced with bullets backed with bitches Neal hunched at the wheel putting everyone in stitches Bragging about some nurse he screwed while driving through Nebraska And when she came she honked the horn Neal just barely missed a truck And then he asked her if she'd like to come like that to California You see a red head in a uniform will always get you horny Yeah and with her hairnet and those white shoes and a name tag and a hat She drove like Andy Granatelli and knew how to fix a flat And Jack was almost at the bottom of his MD 2020 Neal was yelling out the window trying to buy some bennies From a Lincoln full of Mexicans and the left rear tire blowed And the sons of bitches pretty near almost ran us off the road And while the nurse had spilled the Maneshewitz all up and down her dress And then she lit the map on fire Neal just had to guess Should we try and find a bootleg route or a filling station open The nurse was dumping out her purse and looking for an envelope And Jack was out of cigarettes and as we crossed the yellow line The gas pumps looked like tombstones from here And it felt lonelier than a parking lot when the last car pulls away And the moonlight dressed the double breasted foothills in the mirror Weaving out a negligee and a black brassiere And the Mercury was running hot and we were almost out of gas Just then Florence Nightingale she dropped her drawers and Stuck her fat ass half way out of the window to a Wilson Pickett tune And shouted Get a load of this and gave the finger to the moon Counting one eyed Jacks and whistling dixie in the car Neal was doing least a hundred when we saw a falling star And Florence wished that Neal would hold her instead of chewing on his cigar Jack was nodding out and wishing he was in a bar With Charlie Parker on the bandstand and not a worry in the world And a glass of beer in one hand and his arms around a girl Neal was singing to the nurse Underneath the Harlem Moon And somehow you could just tell we'd be in California soon Open up your golden gates California here I come I said California here I come Look out California here I come