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" George Bush is a fan of mine, he came to see me in the Seventies. His coke dealer brought him. "
Tom Waits
Dealer
Coke
Seventies
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" I don't know if any genuine, meaningful change could ever result from a song. It's kind of like throwing peanuts at a gorilla. "
Tom Waits
Change
Kind
Know
" Sometimes words are just music themselves. Like 'Chicago' is a very musical sounding name. "
Tom Waits
Music
Chicago
Name
" There's not much difference between what I appear to be on stage and what I am. I think people like that, that I'm not trying to pull a caper. "
Tom Waits
Think
Difference
I Am
" I'm one of those guys that is still a bit afraid of the telephone, its implications for conversation. I still wonder if the jukebox might be the death of live music. "
Tom Waits
Conversation
Music
Wonder
" I guess I've always lived upside down when I want things I can't have. "
Tom Waits
Want
Always
Down
" My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane. "
Tom Waits
Like
Reality
Man
" If you're a writer, you know that the stories don't come to you - you have to go looking for them. The old men in the lobby: that's where the stories were. "
Tom Waits
Looking
Know
Go
" Sometimes the magnetism of a song is impossible to ignore, and it demands that it be sung in a certain way. "
Tom Waits
Ignore
Way
Song
" I think I have an adrenaline addiction, no question about that. "
Tom Waits
Question
Think
Addiction
" Some day I'm gonna be gone and people will be listening to my songs and conjuring me up. In order for that to happen, you gotta put something of yourself in it. "
Tom Waits
Listening
Yourself
Up
" The sight of the first woman in the minimal two-piece was as explosive as the detonation of the atomic bomb by the U.S. at Bikini Island in the Marshall Isles, hence the naming of the bikini. "
Tom Waits
Island
Woman
Atomic Bomb
" But then I'm one of those guys that is still a bit afraid of the telephone, its implications for conversation. I still wonder if the jukebox might be the death of live music. "
Tom Waits
Wonder
Music
Conversation
" I always had a great appreciation for jazz, but I'm a very pedestrian musician. I get by. I like to think that my main instrument is vocabulary. "
Tom Waits
Jazz
Appreciation
Think
" The only thing worse than being in the Hall of Fame is not being in the Hall of Fame. "
Tom Waits
Hall
Fame
Being
" For a songwriter, you don't really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them and take them apart and see what they're made of, and wonder if you can make one, too. "
Tom Waits
You
Wonder
School
" I have an audio stigmatism whereby I hear things wrong - I have audio illusions. "
Tom Waits
Audio
Wrong
Illusions
" The piano has been drinking, not me. "
Tom Waits
Me
Drinking
Been
" The blues is like a planet. It's an enormous topic. You can't ignore the impact that it has had and continues to have on the whole musical culture. It's a tree that everyone is swinging from. Without it, I don't know where I would be. It's indelible and indispensable. "
Tom Waits
Ignore
Culture
Impact
" You know when you throw a party, you think people will show up and no one will like each other. It's like that with music - parts of your musical psyche have never met other parts. You wonder if you should get them together. "
Tom Waits
Music
Together
Think
" You almost have to create situations in order to write about them, so I live in a constant state of self-imposed poverty. I don't want to live any other way. "
Tom Waits
You
Create
Way
" I'm usually more concerned with how things sound than how they look on the page. Some people write for the page, and that's a whole other thing. I'm going for what it sounds like right away, so it may not even look good on the page. "
Tom Waits
People
Some People
Page
" I always liked the idea that America is a big facade. We are all insects crawling across on the shiny hood of a Cadillac. We're all looking at the wrapping. But we won't tear the wrapping to see what lies beneath. "
Tom Waits
See
America
Always
" George Burns was a Vaudeville performer I particularly loved. "
Tom Waits
Performer
Burns
Loved
" I'd rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy. "
Tom Waits
Rather
Than
Free
" All records are riddles, and whatever you may want people to think it's about, it may just be throwing them off. And you don't want it to get in the way of what someone else's understanding is. It's not really about anything. At the same time, it will find some meaning. "
Tom Waits
Think
People
Understanding
" Oh, I got a beautiful 1959 Cadillac Coupe DeVille four-door. No one will ride in it with me. "
Tom Waits
Beautiful
Me
Ride
" I knelt at the altar of Ray Charles for years. I worked at a restaurant, and that's all there was on the jukebox. "
Tom Waits
Ray
Years
Restaurant
" Their memory's like a train: you can see it getting smaller as it pulls away And the things you can't remember Tell the things you can't forget that History puts a saint in every dream. "
Tom Waits
Memory
Remember
History
" What you want is for music to love you back. That's why you pay your dues. You want to feel like you belong and are part of this symbiosis, metamorphosis, whatever you want to call it. "
Tom Waits
Want
Back
Feel
" If people are a little nervous about approaching you at the market, it's good. I'm not Chuckles The Clown. Or Bozo. I don't cut the ribbon at the opening of markets. I don't stand next to the mayor. Hit your baseball into my yard, and you'll never see it again. "
Tom Waits
Good
Baseball
People