Pillow Talk: Tom Waits for Everyone

by Sarah Hepola

I didn’t like Tom when I first met him. Isn’t that how love stories go? The gravelly voice, such a far planet from the melismatic songbirds who ruled the early Nineties: Whitney and Mariah if you were a normie (I was), Natalie Merchant and Tori Amos if you were an art-weirdo (I was that, too). But Tom Waits grew on me. He had a wicked sense of humor. Maybe that’s an odd quality to seek in a balladeer, but a) I seek that in everyone and b) that’s just Tom. Funny-sad, my favorite combo. Stumbling drunk, cigarette dangling, my favorite pose back then.

A listener asked me which Tom Waits songs were my favorites. Well siddown, kid, lemme tell you a story.

[tinkle of the piano, cigarette smoke wafting into the rafters of neon-lit bar as we fade to …]

Tom Waits and Rickie Lee Jones, one of my all-time favorite couple’s photo. Happy early Valentine’s Day, everyone. Love comes in many forms.