Happy Valentine’s Day from Tom Waits

Your essential playlist of Tom Waits for Valentine’s Day and any other day. You’ll notice I snuck in a cover or two…

Note: For those of you who, for some reason, can’t stand Tom Waits’ voice, I encourage you to withhold judgement until you’ve heard a few different albums from various periods in his career (and voice).  Or just get over it.

A special love note to Tom’s wife, Kathleen Brennan. She is the unsung and mostly silent co-writer on many of Mr. Waits’ songs. Here she is in a rare moment of video:

Kathleen Brennan co-wrote the lovely “Picture in a Frame.”

At once nostalgic, sentimental, and intimate, Tom Waits’ love ode “Picture in a Frame” manages to tug the heart without ever once dipping into maudlin territory, a feat that Waits has been able to pull off for the greater part of 30 years. With this simple song, Waits again effortlessly makes the case that he is our best living balladeer. While old-timers like Frank Sinatra were able to balance the masculine, tough-guy shell with the generous-hearted and sensitive interior, there has probably not been one singer/songwriter as emotionally evocative while remaining so undeniably cool as Waits, never mind one of his contemporaries.

…co-written with his wife and frequent collaborator Kathleen Brennan — is characteristically rich with unique and personal detail as Waits sings a litany of specific and memorable images that remind him of the precise moment his love became true: “I came calling in my Sunday best/Ever since I put your picture in a frame/I’m gonna love you till the wheels fall off…oh yeah.” The recording, from Waits’ Mule Variations (1999), begins with the room sounds of a piano bench creaking and a few breaths and grunts from the performer as he sets himself down at the piano, the warm atmosphere mirroring the intimacy of the lyric. From the gentle self-mockery of the old fashioned “Sunday best” courtship image to the final, understated verse “I love you baby and I always will,” we are left with the impression that we have been given a little trip down memory lane in a relationship, a privileged glimpse at the joy two lovers have shared. – Bill Janovitz

Here’s Mr. Waits on the song…

Simple song. Sometimes I listen to Blind Lemon Jefferson or Leadbelly, and you’ll just hear a line or a passing phrase. The way they phrase something sounds like the beginning of another whole thing, and they just use it as a passing thought, kind of a transitory moment in the song. But it sounds to me like it could have opened up into another whole thing. I heard that title, “Picture in a Frame,” in another song. I don’t even remember what the song was now. And I thought, that’s a good title for a song. So I made it about Kathleen and me. – Tom Waits (1999 Interview)

Observe the magical and almost unbearable restraint of these lyrics…

Sun come up it was blue and gold
Sun come up it was blue and gold
Sun come up it was blue and gold
Ever since I put your picture in a frame.

I come calling in my Sunday best
I come calling in my Sunday best
I come calling in my Sunday best
Ever since I put your picture in a frame

I’m gonna love you
till the wheels come off
oh yea

I love you baby and I always will
I love you baby and I always will
I love you baby and I always will
Ever since I put your picture in a frame

Now for something a bit different…