#55 The Crown Prince of Coupe DeVilles

Tom Waits - "The Ghosts Of Saturday Night (After Hours at Napoleone's Pizza House)"

Something people don’t always realize is that Tom Waits is a fictional character. From a book, or a painting, or a poem. He’s not real.

His drinks taste better than a real person’s and his nights last longer. He exists sometime between 1955 and 4 A.M. and lives in a neon-buzzing diner somewhere next to a circus, between LA, New York, New Orleans, and St. Louis.

Where he lives every car is either a Cadillac or an 18-wheeler. The waitresses are always serving breakfast, black coffee, and pie but never in the morning. Because the mornings never come. Every word he says is exhaled in a cloud of smoke and accompanied by a scattered applause.

You might think his music is a little dramatic, theatrical, corny, or melodramatic

And that would be entirely true. If he was a real, normal person like the rest of us.

But he’s not.

Hear for yourself.

Thanks for listening,

Will