The song Tom Waits wrote as an ode to his childhood best friend
There is an endearing yet indecipherable quality to all of Tom Waits‘ work. At times, the crooner’s yearning love songs from the gutters of the city feel so universal that his lyrical content matters very little to the enrichment his tunes provide. However, when we really connect with the poet’s words, the full power of Tom Waits rattles through the speakers like a freight train.
A freight train is perhaps the most obvious mode of transport to describe the delivery of Waits’ music to his audience. From far away, it may seem like it crawls across the country at a snail’s pace, smoothly pushing its way across the musical landscape, taking its audience from point A to B with ease. However, as the listener approaches, the sonic trajectory gathers pace. The sheer power and furious metallic speed almost belie the shining beauty of its construction, and the wonder of Waits becomes all the more clear.
While it may be an engine fuelled by the power of music at large, with Waits normally more concerned with the audio structure of his tunes than the literary conceit, his music truly gets up to top gear when he combines the two. On ‘Kentucky Avenue’, a classic from Waits’ 1978 record Blue Valentine, Waits pays tribute to his childhood and one friend, in particular.
The title, taken from the street Waits grew up on during his childhood in Whittler, California, has become synonymous with Waits’ autobiographical songwriting style. Within the track are several real-life characters under different guises. Joey Navinski, the character who bragged of his liaisons with a strip-poker playing Hilda, was a real kid who grew up on Waits’ street. Dicky Faulkner was known for having a snivelling nose in real life but had “a switchblade and some gooseneck risers” in the tune.
But there is one character given more time than others, the child struck down with polio and stuck in his wheelchair. In reality, this was Waits’ best friend, Kipper, as Waits’ told Smash Hits: “I didn’t understand what polio was. I just knew it took him longer to get to the bus stop than me…”
Speaking with the publication, Waits tapped into the childhood intuition we all have that seems to fade with maturity: “Sometimes I think kids know more than anybody. I rode a train once to Santa Barbara with this kid, and it almost seemed like he lived a life somewhere before he was born, and he brought what he knew with him into this world, and so… it’s what you don’t know that’s usually more interesting. Things you wonder about, things you have yet to make up your mind about.”
As ever, Waits’ concluding comment, much like the song, trembles across the airwaves like fine poetry: “There’s more to deal with than just your fundamental street wisdom. Dreams. Nightmares.”
It’s exactly the kind of allegorical mischief that lies within his music-making. While Waits may, on the face of it, provide an accessible artistic point, beneath the noise are the simple universal truths that govern us all, something perfectly encapsulated within the small and vibrant worlds that unfurl before children’s eyes.
