Tom Waits
Bone Machine
Tom Waits is only 57 years old. He hasn’t even reached the optimum age for his point of view yet. At 24, Waits was a craggily old man. When he made Bone Machine in 1992, he was 43 years old—which is funny, because he sounds like Yoda. Funny, also, that so much of Bone Machine talks about screaming—“The Earth Died Screaming,” “Such a Scream”—because you couldn’t imagine Waits working up a scream even if he were drowning in a swimming pool. Then again, if you know anything about Tom Waits, you already know all of this. You know about that bedraggled voice and the subterranean, oldster perspective. You know this because Tom Waits has become more mythology than man. Bone Machine is his time on Ogygia, held captive by Calypso. We lost him for 7 years after this—maybe because Bone Machine reaches the apex of Waits’ sound, simplifies and deepens his aesthetic. “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up” encapsulates his career perfectly—a nursery rhyme that doubles as a plea from an octogenarian. More importantly, it’s a kick ass tune.
-Marty Brown, 2006
Comments