Tom Waits Shore Leave

From his 1983 album Swordfishtrombones

Lyrics:

Well with buck shot eyes and a purple heart
I rolled down the national stroll
and with a big fat paycheck
strapped to my hip sack
and a shore leave wristwatch underneath
my sleeve
in a Hong Kong drizzle on Cuban heels
I rowed down the gutter to the Blood Bank
and I'd left all my papers on the Ticonderoga
and was in a bad need of a shave
and so I slopped at the corner on cold chow mein
and shot billards with a midget
until the rain stopped
and I bought a long sleeved shirt
with horses on the front
and some gum and a lighter and a knife
and a new deck of cards (with girls on the back)
and I sat down and wrote a letter to my wife

and I said Baby, I'm so far away from home
and I miss my Baby so
I can't make it by myself
I love you so

Well I was pacing myself
trying to make it all last
squeezing all the life
out of a lousy two day pass
and I had a cold one at the Dragon
with some Filipino floor show
and talked baseball with a lieutenant
over a Singapore sling
and I wondered how the same moon outside
over this Chinatown fair
could look down on Illinois
and find you there
and you know I love you Baby

and I'm so far away from home
and I miss my Baby so
I can't make it by myself
I love you so

Shore Leave...
Shore Leave...

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Tom
• Waits
• Shore
• Leave
• Swordfishtrombones

[SindySexSlave69]

Brilliant. Superb. Bizarre. Beats even Nick Cave into a cocked hat. The antithesis - nay, the nemesis - of the pop song. It makes me want to roll in the damp cloddy gutter with a rusty Zippo trying to light a soggy cigarette while reciting Edgar Allen Poe and J D Salinger. Don't you know that god is tom waits bear?

[XAVIERCUERVO]

uck you there is no black or white. thers only music.

*fuck

[PeeingMyOwnBlood]

3:25 Axl Rose? lol.

[abombinreverse]

and I wondered how the same moon outside

over this Chinatown fair

could look down on Illinois

and find you there

and you know I love you Baby

[slavarymashevsky]

this song really shocked me when i listened it 1st time long time ago in 90th , this is grate grate one! thanks to Tom!

[karenhunter58]

One of the most awesome Tom Waits songs ever IMO, and one that you don't hear as much as a lot of others. Thank you for the upload.

[MMRJL]

Timeless

[kwakky]

@SindySexSlave69 wow, hyperbole much? also, what does nick cave have to do with this?

[ph1i1]

When I see the 1983 release tag to this song I feel my heart slip away as I didn't discover Lord Waits until 2001. I would kiss his feet just for him to shake my hand

[zutal0rs]

Haunting.

[spinnact]

great song, and what a fucking album. a true artist, thats all there is to say really.

[TheGraydog2000]

@SindySexSlave69

I am soooooooooooo down there wit U girl:)

Loved tom for 25 years.

underated American Poet extraidainaire!