Swordfishtrombone, Swordfishtrombones, Tom Waits [101]

Some genuine detailed discussion this week (instead of the usual tangential nonsense) as Sam and Martin question the divide between the political and the personal. 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: Swordfishtrombone, Swordfishtrombones, Tom Waits (1983) A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan (1963) 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 - Swordfishtrombone Well, he came home from the war with a party in his head and modified Brougham DeVille and a pair of legs that opened up like butterfly wings and a mad dog that wouldn't sit still he went and took up with a Salvation Army Band girl who played dirty water on a swordfishtrombone he went to sleep at the bottom of Tenkiller lake and he said "gee, but it's great to be home" Well he came home from the war with a party in his head and an idea for a fireworks display and he knew that he'd be ready with a stainless steel machete and a half a pint of Ballantine's each day And he holed up in room above a hardware store cryin' nothing there but Hollywood tears and he put a spell on some poor little Crutchfield girl and stayed like that for 27 years Well he packed up all his expectations he lit out for California with a flyswatter banjo on his knee with lucky tiger in his angel hair and benzedrine for getting there they found him in a eucalyptus tree lieutenant got him a canary bird and skanked her head with every word And Chesterfield moonbeams in a song and he got 20 years for lovin' her from some Oklahoma governor said everything this Doughboy does is wrong Now some say he's doing the obituary mambo and some say he's hanging on the wall perhaps this yarn's the only thing that holds this man together some say he was never here at all Some say they saw him down in Birmingham, sleeping in a boxcar going by and if you think that you can tell a bigger tale I swear to God you'd have to tell a lie...