Song 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

The piano has been drinking, not me.

— 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

For a songwriter, you dont really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes.

— 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

I like Thelonious Monk, he's so gnarled, he's like a piece of machinery that's pulled up the bolts on the floor and…

— 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 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

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 look for things that are left of center, something you've only seen your whole life, but never heard. Hit it! With…

— Tom Waits

It's rather mystifying when you think about writing songs - where they come from, and how they're born.

— 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 always had a great appreciation for jazz, but I'm a very pedestrian musician. I get by. I like to think that…

— Tom Waits

For a songwriter, you don't really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them…

— 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

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

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

— Tom Waits

There's a certain fast-food approach to the whole music thing that's changed the role it plays for us all. You are doing…

— Tom Waits

I used to imagine that making it in music - really making it in music - is if you're an old man…

— Tom Waits

If you can make a little painting for the ears with a few words, well, I like words; I like cutting them…

— Tom Waits

“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

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

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

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

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 think some bands thrive on the idea of changing instruments. When they're off their real instrument, the ability to go very…

— 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

Sometimes the magnetism of a song is impossible to ignore, and it demands that it be sung in a certain way.

— Tom Waits

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

— Tom Waits

There's a lot of intelligence in the hands.When you pick up a shovel, the hands know what to do. The same thing's…

— Tom Waits