Ten Years! Will Tom Wait's ever break his silence?

Creative Strategy #5: Listen to the poet of the broken.

Maybe it’s my wilting ears but damn doesn’t Tom Waits sound smoother, and sweeter, these days — like a fine Irish Whiskey.

Haven’t tasted one in decades, but we’ll always have alcoholism.

Somebody took the argh out. I mean I don’t know my remastering from my Dolby button, but clearly somebody said OK this master is shit. Not pointing any fingers but who forgot to flange that sucker?

Suddenly this muttering cackling old soul is getting his point across.

They put a sheen on. I mean they polished everything till it shone clearly — the swing, the stories, the nasty fucking counterpoint. The joyous dirty grace his bands bring to his songs.

I don’t mean to belabor the point. Check for yourself. If Ole Tom hasn’t tripped over yer earbones lately, this cat is clean.

The argh is a profound topic — Clearly — Tom don’t need any more argh.

Even when he’s softly muttering a Hawaiian love song like “Back in the crowd” and on “Big in Japan” he sounds saner, looser and more swinging than all the hyperkinetic dance stuff today.

Tom often seems two steps removed from his deck of narrators. Like he pushed them onstage and its their show. And he’s behind the curtain clutching a handkerchief to his lips.

I will always admire and cherish the drunken salesman going on and on about his wife to some stranger in “Johnstown Ill.” If you love her so much why aren’t you home? She kicked you out, didn’t she? It’s up there in Eleanor Rigby territory in terms of character swiftly drawn.

Tom makes me think about songs when he sings.

“Music is just very interesting things to be the doing with air.”

He sings the songs of the besotted. The helpless. And occasionally those who look good without a shirt. Someone so overcome with love or beauty or lust they skitter on the borders of sappy and for the duration of the song their heart sings unchained and heaven is here and all is possible.

I hear a lot of old Men dispensing knowledge. Funny I should notice. Wisdom wears many faces: ringmaster, old teacher, Veteran hobo, grizzled sailor, slave.

Shanty tunes and work songs and bar blues form one of the spines of his songs. Getting behind the mule.

Singalongs. Which require welcome and simplicity and clarity. A sense of dream building in the real world. When the voices join it can be overwhelming. Selma. Tiannamin Square. Charlottesville. Texas.

Pirates. And hobos. And slaves. And drunks. The ones life has defeated.

Someone once said that a drunk is the lowest form of sainthood for its the bottom rung of spiritus. The breath. Something interesting to be doing to the air.

Lost souls. Hard breaks. Fringe. Lost at the bottom of the world.

Dirges, funeral marches, hard luck lullabies. Why does all this sadness make life more beautiful?

What if the meaning of life was to evolve an instrument capable of music. Maybe that’s all it is.

I was watching the pond yesterday with a family of brown ducks. I put on something classical and they all turned their heads in unison. We listened together and watched the sunset.

Check out Tom’s Nirvana

I know two things. Music and dreams are essential.

And nobody understands them.

Hey, Tom. Whatever you wanna drop on us — we’re ready.

We miss you.

As your brother Leonard Cohen once sang,

“Many men have fallen where you promised to stand guard.”

And, speaking in showbiz terms, Mr Waits & Ms Brennan,

if fucking ABBA can put out a new album after 40 years,

you can release your Kraken, too.

Love,

Patrick O’Leary