Tom Waits - 1986 Letterman Tango til They're Sore

[fakethat93]

This must be what heaven sounds like

[mixmastermeeks]

Holy shit. I have this album and I love it. I never looked at the date! I thought it was late 1990's or early 2000's

[grahamlaur]

"Very nice", says Letterman.  Excuse me, it was BRILLIANT.

[StasisAna]

my husband introduced me to his wonderful world of music. every time i listen to him i think of him

[johnsteven001]

SIMPLY

A

GENIUS.

[overkillll]

People laugh when they hear BETAMAX, but this would've both looked and sounded better than VHS.

[mindingosafado]

man the only crappy part about listening to tom waits is the part where it makes me feel beyond untalented :'(

[troutfeatures93]

@mindingosafado the only crappy part is the part where it ends...

[PhoebelovesJBieber]

keep my clarinet beneath your bed till I get back in town!

[LittleTonnie]

the intro has got one of the finest piano melodies ever written!

[maximus50238]

his best song in my opinion. soo good. i love the confetti

[usingt]

I agree whole heartedly with ddillenback, that is exactly who tom waits is for, and being through both physical and emotional pain in the last 2.5 years. Tom's been in constant rotation in my playlists lately.

[markd514]

How the hell did this dickhead get ANY notoritey? HE SUCKS BIG TIME!!!!

[JuanDeSoCal]

@markd514

No, "Big Time" came out a little over two years later.

[ddillenback]

Tom waits speak to anyone who has ever felt pain, and has understood the irony in it.

[NapiurPictures]

4 people are Ke$ha

[buggyed1]

just makes me feel better when i need to get away from people who think this weird...cause its beautiful

[AurelioAngly]

He got the lyrics wrong... I'm pretty sure he was drunk

[suzylizette]

I LOVE nightmare circus music!!

[yoseph89]

that didnt sound right

[peterthemighty]

@yoseph89 I totally agree. I love Tom and Tango till they're sore is my favourite song but the record version seems better. Although it's a heck of a show)

[TheRunoske]

joeygarage77 I will join you in your shed

let's take some checked plaids and two rocking chairs:-)

[Surfbat45]

the audio is out of sync

[swordfishtrumpets]

Even if he appeared with an apple on his head i would consider it cool just because it's Tom Waits

[WaldronicTomotron]

@swordfishtrumpets Thats why I don't like a lot of people listening to his music.

[drunkdeaddude]

tom waits FTW!

[katkal3]

my favorite tom waits album raindogs. i love how tom always messes with the structure of the song and manages to make it more interesting each time.

[SuperIllustrious]

Letterman had hair??

[lzangaro]

@SuperIllustrious yep .... a long long time ago ..... once upon a time .....

[tattat44]

That's the thing I love about Tom Waits. You may kill him, but you will never insult him, his originality defies labeling.

[eclipse561]

tom and letterman should be bffs.

[bamboosa]

Could any of you critics, in your entire intellectually pompous life, write and perform one very good song? C'mon, here comes the long, black Mariah to whisk your still inexplicably animated carcass away, just make one good song.

[vizaric]

Tom Waits this is my favorite author. I am Russian, but hearing it for the first time in 1986 and immediately adopted it. When you have talent, no boundaries, age and nationality. You do not need to know the language to understand his wonderful exquisite mir.Spasibo you that thanks to your channel, I was a little pobyla in this world. Add to avail myself, I do not understand how I talk.

[eclipse561]

I do not understand how you talk either.

but I do understand that tom waits is pretty great.

[TheShadowNebula]

Madman.

[sax071]

amazing lirycs on a beautiful melody with a series of totally out of tune chords. This song comes from the devil or maybe from god when he's drunk...

[johnjdegree]

tom waits is a kind-of mad genius...the opium joe group does a pretty good version of Tango Till They're Sore on YouTube.

[joeygarage77]

tom waits is jesus's and shakespears baby whos music was said to seduce the devil himself

i will lock myself in a shed and drink whiskey while playing toms records

[nezvanova]

@joeygarage77 If only we all could have a whiskey shed for those times we really need to listen to Tom Waits alone. *sigh*

[yvettemadelaine]

he makes a whole other world the second he starts playing. Amazing...

[Gagagrr]

Truely one of the greatest entertainers living.

[runningpetro]

then you would be the coolest

[boylans]

post some musicians that you like

[thelatedavidsmith]

go listen to james taylor

[Avocalypse]

Your name is fitting.

[colt45zzx]

idiot

[WhyNotTheWhales]

I'd like to know what you like. Yes quite some time has passed since you posted that, but I'm very curious as to what you like.

[LandoftheShanks]

@cluelesslibs i think you mneant to post this on the jonas brothers video

[bloodandwhiskey5]

Tom Waits made me a smoking jackass. Thanks, asshole!

[Mygalej]

LOL!

[AudioSuede]

I find it interesting that while Bob Dylan has been making the same record for about two decades now, Tom Waits never stops being creative.

[Heeey333]

tom waits has been making the same record sense the 80s while every bob dylan album sounds pretty different then the last(time out of mind, love and theft, tougher then life)

[AudioSuede]

I'm actually fairly certain that's the exact opposite of the truth. I have Time Out of Mind, Love and Theft, and Modern Times. They are the same record. I have Tom Waits' Blood Money, Alice, Mule Variations, Bone Machine, and Real Gone, and they are all distinctly unique records. He has a signature sound, but he plays with it, which Bob Dylan has long since stopped doing.

[Heeey333]

how is "not dark yet" like "po'boy"? and no, i've heard all of those tom waits albums too and after rain dogs he's stopped making major changes to his sound. you're just pulling words out of your ass, mule variations for example was just a combination of everything he has done before if you know what i mean on one album, bone machine just a huge extension of his song "underground", alice a resurrection of his old jazz sound combined with his modern sound, etc etc

[ErinZ0na]

Mule Variations is very good :)

[msdhsisgay]

Bob Dylan and Tom Waits are different, and they're awesome in their own sense, man! Leave 'em be.

[hectorleon87]

it was one of the most original musical performers making records then as he is now

[CurtisMateer]

The mix of Viennese Expressionism and jazz, or maybe it's just modern American serialism, is awesome, almost uncategorizable, like Duke Ellington and Bobby circa Highway 61 Revisited. 5*s

[prokiprich]

Waits , one of the last man from that generation whos got and also able to share with us some real dirty and strange feel or could we call it wahtever who cares.. very emotional to me.

[Corporations8MyBaby]

Alot of people missed "Wristcutters: A love story" with Patrick Fugit. You'll love who Tom Waits turns out to be in that one. His performance is flawless. Just like this amazing song. I can feel the confetti now. :-)

[sclogse1]

Check out Tom in the film Cold Feet. It's on DVD, it's cheap, and it's Tom's biggest role ever, and he's very nuts, dangerous, and comic in it. It's vintage, and gold. I should mention that I just uploaded three parts of a show tom did in L.A. Jan. 2008. Not seen before.

[SophabulousSinger]

You Know You Have Issues When You Start To Identify With This Man XD

A True God =]

[quadroonlicious]

My cousin "he has such an annoying voice!"

me: "what do expect him to sound like, Andrea Bocelli?!"

[MimiSweden]

He's the man! :D Check out the weird and wonderful film Down By Law, with Tom in the leading role! It's great :)

[fjallman90]

Yeah, well Jim Jarmusch never fails to thrill

[Adinator87]

absolutely right but all the movies by jim jarmusch are great for instance night on earth with music by t.w.

[tailesill4]

don't know why but an all time fave waits lyric:

let me fall out of the window with confetti in my hair, deal me jacks or better

on a blanket by the stair...

[HST99]

yes

yes

indeed

[TheAnimalOrchestra]

I tell you all my secrets but i lie about my past so send me off to bed forever more. love it!

[tailesill4]

i don't know why but that image of playing cards "on a blanket by the stairs" (rhyming with "confetti in my hair") just slays me. true poets evoke rather than tell.

[fionamacgillivray]

I love that crazy hand-motion he makes at the very end.

Oh, and amazing song.

[textproduktion]

Hold your breath until the sun gets down...

Doesn't get any better than that, does it?

/Peter

[gemco]

is that Bill Murray playing the xylophone?

[VladTepeshu]

he even moves the same!!! :D

must be him!

[arsenicbaby]

Everytime I hear this song, even when I'm drunk, it just makes me sit outside of my porch with a bottle of rum and just sing along to this as loud as I can, until the neighbors start screaming at me...."I'd tell you all my secrets but I lie about my past, so send me off to bed forever more"

[schaefersmann]

fall out of the window with confetti in your hair...

[georjec]

I use to sing this around my son when he was around 4 or 5 and it tickled me when he would sing the refrain " tell you all my secrets but I lie about my past" cause at 4 or 5 ..he didn't have a past.. :)

[felfella69]

Talking about an American Icon of Music, awsome...

[frietag]

I love this song

[ribbie2008]

I love that line "I'll tell you all my secrets but I lie about my past" not sure why

[chug16]

i agree - the line just stands out as great but i cant quite identify why... Great song, long live tom waits

[Howler15]

i tell my gf that and she agreed :)

[Dillbob1]

@ribbie2008 its kinda like the "I have never told the truth so I could never tell a lie" line from Whistlin' Past the Graveyard

[mynamemyway]

this is my favorite waits composition, nice.

[martyboi000]

if you havent heard of tom waits, you're living an incomplete life...

[aargyr]

I first find out about Tom Waits when i was around 10. My father used to listen his songs when he was drunk... and i hated it. I though it was 'old folks music'. Ten years later and a major part of my hard drive is filled with Tom Waits!

[ricardostube]

That is f'ing genius... even the arrangement with touches of dissonance. to is one of those artists that in my eyes become even more amazing as i study and learn more about music.

[JoeyNavinski]

I feel the same way. It was like before I heard him I had been listening to cheap immitations of music. Until understanding Tom and really hearing him your swimming in the shallow end of the pool.

[paulrandig]

Agreed. You should listen to Zappa as well...

[hellfire712]

how can you respond to something like that? goddamn genius.

[MaxyBand]

You are a disgraceful child

[fillyourhearts]

reject.

[morningbear]

I think this was the first I heard too, brilliant!

[Scinauticando]

I've noticed just after 50 times Tom was surronded by soap bubbles... ahahhaha, what a genius

[manwithoutabody]

He loves that bubble machine.

[CostelloCostigan]

When ya play that tarantella all the hounds'll start to roar...

[RaymondMcCarron1]

Tom is a fine example to those who need it that genius is not inhibited by marriage and settling down. in his case, it was his wife kathleen, who in part, directed and enabled it. god, what a great performer.

[Scinauticando]

Great song, one my favorite one of the genius !!!

[losttraindude]

Wonderful song

"Write my name on the hood and send me off to another town" it's an amazing verse...

Unfortunately he skips "Put my clarinet beneath your bed 'till I get back in town"

By the way, it's amazingly wonderful... I hope he will come in Italy soon

[Scinauticando]

Speriamo!!!

[jonnychrist1708]

yeah my favourite too. Lyrics are amazing

[Rab379]

This is my absolute fave Tom Waits song, first 1 I ever heard!

thanx! :P

[MissesJaneDoe]

Yeah!

Immerzu lässt der gute, alte Tom Waits

Konfettis regnen!

[chrisnud]

It seemed that Tom stopped wait and started play!!!!

[wiggysmoke]

this is my favorite live version ive seen of this song its one of toms best for sure

[minobutterfingers]

Great!!

[osalot00]

wow

[thedaveness]

Thank You for this.