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 Copy Share Image
Songs really are like a form of time travel because they really have moved forward in a bubble. Everyone who's connected with… — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
Your old home town's so far away, but inside your head there's a record that's playing, a song called 'Hold On — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
Some day I'm gonna be gone and people will be listening to my songs and conjuring me up. In order for that… — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
Songs are pretty easy. They are small, they are modular, they are about as big as a bagel. They are easy to… — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
Writing songs is like capturing birds without killing them. Sometimes you end up with nothing but a mouthful of feathers. — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
Most songs that aren't jump-rope songs, or lullabies, are cautionary tales or goodbye songs and road songs. — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
I don't like hearing Beatles songs in commercials. It almost renders them useless. I think, 'Oh God, another one bites the dust.' — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
I always thought songs are movies for the ears and films are like songs for the eyes. — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
Every single song has its own individual character and you can't treat each song the same way, because it wants to be… — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
I used to imagine that making it in music - really making it in music - is if you're an old man… — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
If you can make a little painting for the ears with a few words, well, I like words; I like cutting them… — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Well you wave your hand and they scatter like crows They have nothing that will ever capture your heart They're just thorns… — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
Most songs have meager beginnings. You wake up in the morning, you throw on your suspenders, and you subvocalize and just think.… — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
I don't know if any genuine, meaningful change could ever result from a song. It's kind of like throwing peanuts at a… — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
It's rather mystifying when you think about writing songs - where they come from, and how they're born. — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
People say all kinds of things about the ingredients of songs. But you know they are a kind of magic, in the… — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Sometimes the magnetism of a song is impossible to ignore, and it demands that it be sung in a certain way. — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
“Hold On" They hung a sign up in our town "If you live it up, you won't live it down" So she… — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
I think all songs should have weather in them. Names of towns and streets, and they should have a couple of sailors.… — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
Most of us have the residue of thousands of songs in our ears, that if you end up songwriting, I think you're mostly smoking… — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
Bill Hicks - blowtorch, excavator, truthsayer, and brain specialist. He will correct your vision. Others will drive on the road he built. — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
“an all time favorite: "The large print giveth, the small print taketh away.” — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
For a songwriter, you don't really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them and take… — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering. — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
I'm always looking for sounds that are pleasing at the time. The sound of a helicopter is really annoying until you're drowning, and it's… — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
I was born in the back seat of a Yellow Cab in a hospital loading zone and with the meter still running. I emerged… — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
There's not much difference between what I appear to be on stage and what I am. I think people like that, that I'm not… — Tom Waits Copy Share Image
