Music Quotes by Tom Waits

Words are music, really.

— Tom Waits

The Universe is making music all the time.

— Tom Waits

Now it's closing time/the music's fading out.

— Tom Waits

The Music was like Electric Sugar

— Tom Waits

but it's so hard to dance that way when it's cold and there's no music.

— Tom Waits

I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.

— Tom Waits

I always thought songs are movies for the ears and films are like songs for the eyes.

— Tom Waits

Songs are really just very interesting things to be doing with the air.

— Tom Waits

Music has generally involved a lot of awkward contraptions, a certain amount of heavy lifting.

— Tom Waits

The large print giveth and the small print taketh away

— Tom Waits

With families and music, you're usually looking for something that can make you unique.

— Tom Waits

I like my music with the rinds and the seeds and pulp left in.

— Tom Waits

Most of us have the residue of thousands of songs in our ears, that if you end up songwriting, I think you're…

— Tom Waits

I think this whole division between the genres has more to do with marketing than anything else. It's terrible for the culture…

— Tom Waits

I'm trying to get music ideas that come and keep them alive. It's like carrying water in your hands. I want to…

— Tom Waits

Most changes in music, most exciting things that happen in music, occur through a miscommunication between people "I thought you said this."…

— Tom Waits

I'm always looking for sounds that are pleasing at the time. The sound of a helicopter is really annoying until you're drowning,…

— Tom Waits

Most songs that aren't jump-rope songs, or lullabies, are cautionary tales or goodbye songs and road songs.

— Tom Waits

What you want is for music to love you back. That's why you pay your dues. You want to feel like you…

— Tom Waits

It's terrible for the culture of music. Like anything that is purely economic, it ignores the most important component.

— Tom Waits

People make songs so that somebody else will hear them and want to do them. I guess it's an indication that the…

— Tom Waits

There's only one reason why you write new songs: You get sick of the old songs. It's not that I didn't do…

— Tom Waits

Children make up the best songs, anyway. Better than grown-ups. Kids are always working on songs and throwing them away, like little…

— Tom Waits

The first time I started listening to Irish music, I had a very strong connection. Strangely enough, there's a great many Japanese…

— Tom Waits

You know when you throw a party, you think people will show up and no one will like each other. It's like…

— Tom Waits

The blues is like a planet. It's an enormous topic. You can't ignore the impact that it has had and continues to…

— Tom Waits

Songs are pretty easy. They are small, they are modular, they are about as big as a bagel. They are easy to…

— Tom Waits

Popular music is like a big party, and it’s a thrill sneaking in rather than being invited. Every once in a while,…

— Tom Waits

“My kids are starting to notice I'm a little different from the other dads. "Why don't you have a straight job like…

— Tom Waits

He likes a day in the studio to end, he says, "when my knees are all skinned up and my pants are…

— Tom Waits

Sometimes words are just music themselves. Like 'Chicago' is a very musical sounding name.

— Tom Waits

Sometimes when you're making songs you just make sounds, and the sounds slowly mutate and evolve into actual words that have meaning.

— Tom Waits

I'm one of those guys that is still a bit afraid of the telephone, its implications for conversation. I still wonder if…

— Tom Waits

But then I'm one of those guys that is still a bit afraid of the telephone, its implications for conversation. I still…

— Tom Waits

I never looked at music as a serious ven­ture. There was very little encouragement from my family. I didn't have anybody to…

— Tom Waits

I think all songs should have weather in them. Names of towns and streets, and they should have a couple of sailors.…

— Tom Waits

I didn't really identify with the music of my own generation, but I was very curious about the music of others.

— Tom Waits

I like writing melody without an instrument. It's just so - it's more like the choreography of a bee; you just go.

— Tom Waits

Writing songs is like capturing birds without killing them. Sometimes you end up with nothing but a mouthful of feathers.

— Tom Waits

If you're in the middle of the ocean with no flippers and no life preserver and you hear a helicopter, this is…

— Tom Waits