The best songs of the British invasion, according to Tom Waits
It’s a creative U-turn few saw coming. Initially playing the down-and-out weathered romantic behind the dive-bar piano on 1973’s Closing Time, Tom Waits‘ jazzy late-night tales soon gave way to raconteur eccentrism into the 1980s. Encouraged to explore his creative intuitions by scriptwriter and future-wife Kathleen Brennan, coupled with his acting debut in 1978’s Paradise Alley, Waits embraced a junkyard blues style of Captain Beefheart cinema from 1983’s acclaimed Swordfishtrombones.
Born in 1949, Waits’ formative chart soundtrack provides a perfect outline of music’s coming of age. Devouring The Shirelles’ R&B and James Brown’s funk as he entered his teens, he later left high school in the thick of the 1960s counterculture.
Despite harbouring an uneasy relationship with the era’s hippy trends and sharing little musical relation to psychedelia, Big Brother and the Holding Company’s acid soul and the feverish garage rock of Question Mark and the Mysterians piqued the young Waits’ interest amid the progressive freakouts.
Like many of his generation, the moment The Beatles opened The Ed Sullivan Show with ‘All My Loving’ in 1964, the British invasion dam burst all over the Billboard charts and pointed scores of young kids toward a path to music. The resulting UK wave and the scores of British singles playing on US airwaves would form an essential piece of the American cultural tapestry—The Rolling Stones later to play as much a presence of the 1960s countercultural story as Woodstock and Charles Manson.
Over the years, Waits has shed light on the songs he loves the most. Avoiding many of the obvious choices, his taste for the British invasion boiled down to three bands who couldn’t be more English if they tried. Going back to The Kinks’ early cuts, the garage rock stomper ‘You Really Got Me’ was frontman Ray Davies at his most Americana—an open embrace of blues and R&B he and all his peers cut their teeth with. It’s still charged with a buzzing strut over 60 years later, paving the way for The Stooges and the ensuing punk revolution.
Another pick is The Yardbirds’ ‘Train Kept-a-Rollin’’. Originally recorded by Tiny Bradshaw in 1951, the Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page triple-guitar threat soaked up the States’ heritage while on an American tour, Beck’s fuzz-toned attack would pull rock one step closer to psychedelic terrain, and provide a blueprint for future renditions including Aerosmith’s 1974 version.
For his final 1960s UK hit, Waits expressed affection for The Who’s ‘Boris the Spider’. Conceived after a night’s drinking with Stones bassist Bill Wyman, the comedic number is thought to be John Entwistle‘s first composition for the band. Being the second track from 1966’s A Quick One, principal songwriter Pete Townsend took a lyrical backseat and afforded the rest of the group to offer pieces, Entwistle gifting his The Goon Show inspired arachnid caper and reportedly Jimi Hendrix’s favourite Who number.
More than any other, arguably, ‘Boris the Spider’ struck the deepest chord with Waits—an animated slice of surrealism that served as a predecessor to Waits’ later art-rock.
