The Tom Waits song Scarlett Johansson called “heartbreaking”
Whilst Hollywood has its distinct set of ‘cool’ actors, there aren’t many as engaging as Scarlett Johansson. Although she is known to an entire generation of movie lovers primarily for her role in the expansive Marvel Cinematic Universe, her career reaches much further than this. In her time, she’s provided many iconic, much more artful moments, including Lost in Translation and Under the Skin.
Whilst her acting talent is undoubted, Johansson backs this up with great authenticity in other areas of life. One example is that she has shown herself as both a lover of great music and a competent musician. In 2008, she released her debut album, Anywhere I Lay My Head, which features collaborations with David Bowie and members of Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Celebration. It was also produced by Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio.
Furthermore, the album was a love letter to the gravel-voiced musician Tom Waits and contains four songs by him as a solo artist and six he wrote with his wife, Kathleen Brennan. In fact, the only original composition on the album was ‘Song for Jo’, which Johansson penned with Sitek.
When speaking to KCRW in 2009 to reminisce about some of her favourite music, Johansson picked the Tom Waits song, ‘Burma-Shave’, and explained why the Californian’s work has made such a monumental impact on her. Discussing the track from 1977’s Foreign Affairs, she noted its “heartbreaking” beauty and how Waits’ voice is particularly effective in it.
Johansson said: “The next song I have is a Tom Waits song. When I was about 12, a friend of mine and I, we would take trips. We would take driving trips with her father. We would drive to Maine or wherever from New York, but long driving trips and stuff like that. And her dad listened to all different kinds of music, a very eclectic group of different types of artists and everything, but he loved Tom Waits. Often, we would only listen to Tom Waits for hours and hours and hours while we were driving. At first, my friend and I were sort of like, ‘Oh, your Dad listens to such weird music’ or ‘My Dad’s a freak,’ kind of thing.”
The Black Widow actor continued: “I think because Waits’ songs often – I think they really appealed to us as kids, because they are beautiful stories and strange stories and the sounds can often be, I don’t know, there’s a certain big top quality to some of the songs, and then others are just really dark and spooky, and some are just beautifully melodic. We just ended up – after such a long drive and only listening to Tom Waits the whole weekend and the drive back and everything – we both were completely mad for Tom Waits, and I’ve listened to him ever since then.”
She concluded: “It’s such a beautiful song, and the lyrics are so heartbreaking. It sort of reminded me of Last Picture Show kind of — it’s just got this — again, I will say, a cinematic quality to it that is just heartbreaking and I absolutely love. And his voice is so beautiful in it. Even when I work on a film, I often listen to a lot of music, and I always go back to Tom Waits. I just love him. So I have picked ‘Burma-Shave’ to share with you today.”
Listen to ‘Burma-Shave’ below.
