Listening to Tom

Tom Waits has hovered around me for many years and I just recently dove in to his many CDs we have around the house. This is thanks to Mr. Dale Batten who dedicated about an hour after his irreverent Bible Study, Tuesday night, to getting Meg, Lisa, and me hooked on Tom Waits' music. I left his house wondering what on earth Tom was getting at when he wrote the lyrics:

hen the weather gets rough
and it's whiskey in the shade
Ii's best to wrap your savior
up in cellophane
He flows like the big muddy
but that's ok
Pour him over ice cream
for a nice parfait

In his Chocolate Jesus song. I knew I loved it, but I didn't know why. Lisa and I talked about what we thought the song meant, and it turned out that we were pretty much right--we said it's a comment on how "accessable" people make Jesus for themselves. That line pretty much depicts that. I think it's pretty amazing.

After Dale's, I've been listening to his CDs incessently. I decided today at JC Penney that you can pretty much gauge that a soul is good if the person listens to Tom Waits.

Much of his content is poetry with some kind of jazz in the background. It's great poetry. I think you can pretty much gauge that a soul is good if the person reads poetry.