This is blue’s music! It’s been over six months since I posted a Tom Waits song and it feels like now, is the time to get ‘lowdown‘. This song was released as the second song of a three-disc edition in 2006 (image above) in which the first disc this song appears is ‘blues and rock-based‘. The second and third contain other genres and styles. Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards was listed as one of the highest-scoring albums of the year in Metacritic and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album.
She’s a crooked Sheriff in a real straight town
She opened the door shake shake the lights go down
Clover honey and the Jimson Weed
Red leather skirt way up above her knees
Oh yeah, my baby’s lowdown
She’s a gone lost dirt road
There ain’t no way back I been told
Well she’s a story they all tell
She’s a rebel, she’s a yell
Oh yeah, my baby’s lowdown
Just as an aside: A couple of weeks ago, my kids and I were watching the Western anthology film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs written and directed by the Coen brothers. In one vignette called All Gold Canyon, Tom Waits appears as an astute and hearty gold digger determined to find a grand fortune of gold in a lovely valley which is irrepressibly captured on screen. Tom is a gifted actor, and I reminded the kids of Tom’s music which they hear on occasion.
Waits has described the Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards collection as:
A lot of songs that fell behind the stove while making dinner, about 60 tunes that we collected. Some are from films, some from compilations. Some is stuff that didn’t fit on a record, things I recorded in the garage with kids. Oddball things, orphaned tunes
I really like the lyrics in today’s featured track Lowdown and also how it sounds. I’m amazed there isn’t any article I could find about it. Lowdown reminds me of the vibe of Bob Dylan’s New Pony from his Street Legal record (1978). I think Dylan himself would have been proud to have written these lyrics by Tom. It feels a privilege to present this track to you. Thank you for reading.
Reference:
1. Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards – Wikipedia
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand
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