The song so good Billy Bob Thornton can’t even listen to it: “It’s a shame”
The best songs are the ones you can listen to over and over again without getting sick of them, unless you’re Billy Bob Thornton, in which case the best songs are the ones so powerful that you can’t even bring yourself to hear them without running the risk of turning into a trembling pile of emotionally ravaged goo.
It sort of defeats the entire purpose of having an emotional connection to a certain track if the mere prospect of tuning it up, locking in, and experiencing it for the umpteenth time is one that causes trepidation, but it’s fair to say that the Academy Award-winning screenwriter isn’t the most usual of fellas.
Thornton has many phobias, some of which are weirder than others, but none that could be considered normal. What’s more terrifying: Komodo dragons, antique furniture, or Benjamin Disraeli’s facial hair? It’s a nonsense question if it were posed to anyone other than Thornton, who’d need some serious time to deliberate.
When he’s not busy bringing his distinct brand of southern charm to a swathe of film and television projects, the actor, writer, director, producer, and musician can be found either in the recording studio or on tour with his band, the Boxmasters. Just don’t call him a Hollywood guy who dabbles in music, because that’s one of the easiest ways to piss him off.
It’s not even accurate, either, with Thornton evidently not doing it to massage his ego. He’s released over a dozen albums as a solo artist or as a member of a band, and with his preferred style hardly being geared towards mainstream success, his secondary career was born from nothing but a love of the game.
To that end, when he tried to describe his first solo record, 2001’s Private Radio, to Peter Murphy, he described it as “a conglomeration, sort of like my love of dark, moody rock and The Byrds and Leonardo Cohen and Tom Waits and Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson,” which wasn’t exactly Billboard material.
Zeroing in on the latter, Thornton pointed to a specific track from a specific album as one that he adores so much he can’t even bring himself to hear it. “Tom Waits is fantastic,” he offered. “There’s a song called ‘On the Nickel’ from Heartattack and Vine; it’s such a moving song I can’t even listen to it. You know, it’s a shame, probably the things I love the most are movies that I can’t watch and songs that I can’t listen to.”
Well, that’s not strictly true, since it’s a well-known fact that his one and only favourite movie of all time is Fred Zinnemann and Gary Cooper’s High Noon, which he said he watched around three times a month. He can revisit the classic western upwards of 30 times a year, but still can’t wrap his ears around ‘On the Nickel’.
Waits’ seventh studio album was viewed as a transitional moment for the artist, and the song that gives Thornton the fear was originally recorded for the movie of the same name, directed by Ralph Waite, which follows a recovering alcoholic who revisits his old stomping grounds in Los Angeles’ ‘Skid Row’ and tries not to get drawn back into the life he left behind. It’s a fine piece of work, not that the Landman star has experienced it for himself in a long time.
