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Rating:
I remember the summer of 2004 quite well: I had just turned 15, I managed to finish the school year (5th year at the classical high school) with a respectable average of 8, and among the formidable women at my dojo, I stood out as the one who had succeeded in defeating her older brother with a perfectly executed sankaku-jime (he hasn't forgiven me yet, even after 17 years).
Stefania, our Italian teacher, was one of those unfortunately increasingly rare teachers who view their profession as a calling rather than a burden. That July afternoon, she invited me and two other classmates to her house for tea; our chats in the gazebo of her terraced house had become a regular appointment, usually accompanied by some excellent jazz from days gone by playing from the speakers. But that day, the music was different…
That cavernous, warm, and terrifying voice at the same time captivated me instantly.
Curious, I asked the teacher who it was. “Tom Waits.” Never heard of him. There was something about that music that captivated me, something primal, remote, and eternal all at once. Did I like it? Yes? No? I couldn’t say at the moment, but that raspy roar kept echoing in my head even on the way home and in the days that followed.
I decided to visit my trusted record dealer (yes: in 2004, p2p hadn't exploded yet as it would in the following years, and streaming was pure utopia, so a teenager who wanted a record, in most cases, had to buy it); I searched for that name navigating through the dust of eons covering the CDs' edges…There it is, it's him! “Tom Waits, Blue Valentine.”
The cover evoked melancholy and solitude, the same melancholy and solitude that I eagerly sought during that period when Saturday evenings were spent at home with headphones on, music blasting in my ears, and the city noise seemed so distant, even though it would have been enough to open a window to hear it again…
Back home, I inserted the CD into the player, and the notes of Somewhere seemed so familiar. How was it possible? On the second listen, with the first being very distracted as well. There had to be another explanation. And indeed…By the end of the 49-minute duration of the album, I found it: Blue Valentine was for me the concretion of all the moods, symbols, and stereotypes through which I had built my idea of America over the years, certainly inherited from the imagery that Hollywood's mythopoetic capacity had helped to spread. Tom Waits was both displacement and condensation - for those familiar with psychoanalytic jargon - of a thousand other names, all equally significant for the history and popular culture of a country and a century, or at least the first ¾ of that century. Jerome Kern and Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Gershwin, Busby Berkeley and Vincente Minnelli, B.B. King, Frank Sinatra...1000 names that at the time I had barely touched upon and that now whirl in my head when I listen to this music again.
I'm not going to make rankings here or list the titles of an album where each track is a perfect gem (perhaps the only relatively weak link in the album is Red Shoes by The Drugstore, which would have fit better in other Uncle Tom's albums), but I can say that Blue Valentines and Kentucky Avenue remain among the most heartbreaking and moving pieces ever recorded, and after all these years, I still can't help but get a lump in my throat when I listen to them.
Today things are very different from that 2004: the 15-year-old I was has given way to a 32-year-old woman, more aware and disenchanted, but with the same fears and vulnerabilities as that girl that I sometimes, looking back, still find.
My brother continues to be sore about that humiliating defeat, but that was our first and only encounter: he never wanted a rematch. Today he's married and has a daughter, he's gained quite a bit of weight, and I doubt he'll ever step on a tatami again.
Stefania passed away a few years ago due to a severe illness; she left all her former students with an important lesson: not to be fooled by what emerges on the surface, just as she saw us for who we were and not for the grades we brought home. For this teaching, her most important legacy, I will never be grateful enough.
My copy of Blue Valentine is still the same.
To Stefania, with immense gratitude and the same affection as always.
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
04 Romeo Is Bleeding (04:52)
Romeo is bleeding
But not so as you'd notice
He's over on 18th street as usual
Lookin' so hard against the hood of his car
And puttin' out a cigarette in his hand
For all the pachucos at the pumps
At Romeos paint and body
They all seein' how far they can spit
Well it was just another night
But how they're huddled in the brake lights of a 58 Belair
And listenin' to how Romeo killed a sherrif with his knife
And they all jump when they hear the sirens
But Romeo just laughs
All the racket in the world ain't never gonna
Save that coppers ass
He'll never see another summertime for gunnin' down my brother
And leavin' him like a dog beneath a car without his knife
Romeo says, "Hey man gimme a cigarette"
And they all reach for their pack
and Frankie lights it for him and pats him on the back
Throws bottle at a milk truck
And as it breaks he grabs his nuts
And they all know they could be just like Romeo
If they only had the guts
But Romeo is bleeding
But nobody can tell
He sings along with the radio
With a bullet in his chest
And he combs back his fenders
And they all agree it's clear
That every thing is cool now that Romeos is here
Romeo is bleeding
He winces now and then
He leans against the car door
Feels the blood in his shoes
Someones crying in the 5 point
In the phone booth by the store
Romeo starts his engines
And wipes the blood off the door
And he brodys through the signal
With the radio full blast
Leavin' the boys there hikin' up there chinos
And they all try to stand like Romeo
Beneath the moon cut like a sickle
And they're talkin' now in spanish all about their hero
Romeo is bleeding
As he gives the man his ticket
He climbs to the balcony at the movies
He'll die without a wimper
Like every heros dream
Like an angel with a bullet
And Cagney on the screen
Romeo is bleeding
Romeo is bleeding, hey man
Romeo is bleeding, hey man
Romeo is bleeding, hey man
Romeo is bleeding
07 Whistlin' Past the Graveyard (03:17)
I come in on a night train
With an arm full of box cars
On the wings of a magpie
Cross a hooligan night
I busted up a chifforobe
Way out by the cocomo
Cooked up a mess a mulligan
And got into a fight
Whistlin' past the graveyard
Steppin' on a crack
A mean Mother Hubbard Papa One Eyed Jack
You probably seen me sleepin'
Out by the railroad tracks
Go on and ask the Prince Of Darkness
What about all that smoke
Come from the stack
Sometimes I kill myself a jackel
Suck out all the blood
Steal myself a stationwagon
Drivin' through the mud
I want to whistlin' past the graveyard
Steppin' on a crack
I'm mean Mother Hubbard Papa One Eyed Jack
I know you seen my headlights
And the honkin' of my horn
I'm callin' out my bloodhounds
Chase the devil through the corn
Last night I chugged the Mississippi
Now that suckers dry as a bone
I'm Born in a taxi cab
I'm never comin' home
Whistlin' past the graveyard
Steppin' on a crack
I'm mean Mother Hubbard Papa One Eyed Jack
My eyes have seen the glory
Of the drainin' of the ditch
I only come to Baton Rouge
To find myself a witch
I'm-ona snatch me up a
Couple of 'em every time it rains
You see a locomotive
Probably thinkin' its a train
Whistlin' past the graveyard
Steppin' on a crack
I'm a mean Mother Hubbard Papa One Eyed Jack
What you think is the sunshine
Is just a twinkle in my eye
That ring around my finger
Called the 4th of July
When I get a little bit lonesome
And a tear falls from my check
There's gonna be an ocean in
The middle of the week
Whistlin' past the graveyard
steppin' on a crack
I'm mean Mother Hubbard Papa One Eyed Jack
I come into town on a night train
Arm full of box cars
On the wings of a magpie
Cross a hooligan night
I'm gona tear me off a rainbow
And wear it for a tie
I never told the truth
So I can never tell a lie
Whistlin' past the graveyard
steppin' on a crack
A mean Mother Hubbard Papa One Eyed Jack
10 Blue Valentines (05:50)
She sends me blue valentines
All the way from philadelphia
To mark the anniversary
Of someone that I used to be
And it feels just like theres
A warrant out for my arrest
Got me checkin in my rearview mirror
And Im always on the run
Thats why I changed my name
And I didnt think youd ever find me here
To send me blue valentines
Like half forgotten dreams
Like a pebble in my shoe
As I walk these streets
And the ghost of your memory
Is the thistle in the kiss
And the burgler that can break a roses neck
Its the tatooed broken promise
That I hide beneath my sleeve
And I see you every time I turn my back
She sends me blue valentines
Though I try to remain at large
Theyre insisting that our love
Must have a eulogy
Why do I save all of this madness
In the nightstand drawer
There to haunt upon my shoulders
Baby I know
Id be luckier to walk around everywhere I go
With a blind and broken heart
That sleeps beneath my lapel
She sends me my blue valentines
To remind me of my cardinal sin
I can never wash the guilt
Or get these bloodstains off my hands
And it takes a lot of whiskey
To take this nightmares go away
And I cut my bleedin heart out every nite
And I die a little more on each st. valentines day
Remember that I promised I would
Write you...
These blue valentines
Blue valentines
Blue valentines
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Other reviews
By Massimof
We don’t know America like this. Or we believe it doesn’t exist.
For those hungry for life. Guys, for me, the “warmest” album by Tom Waits.
By Mukkiodossa
Music is round, and to be transferred to CD, it must be squared. In this way, it loses some frequencies… music loses body.
The title track, desperate in its execution… enriched by a solo that reminds me of Paco De Lucia in spirit, though it is certainly far from his style.
