Mar 30, 2016
For the final tracks of Nighthawks, Sam and Martin are joined by Andrea Solomon, talking from the start about the jazz stylings of the album and its instrumentalists, the dual attitude of Waits towards relationships, as well as the relative temperatures of well-digger's posteriors, ticket-takers smiles and...
Mar 23, 2016
Slowing into the final tracks, Catherine, Martin and Sam find Tom Waits in a calmer, more observational mood, as he swings through small-town America and describes some much more wholesome figures than we've encountered so far. And then… Martin picks a song about a serial-killer for contrast… and we get into...
Mar 16, 2016
As Waits moves away from his standup stylings, Sam, Martin and Catherine discuss the contribution of some of the other performers on the album, the strengths (or lack thereof) in the songwriting as well as the details of the 1970s described in the lyrics. More conversations as well around drinking culture, and the...
Mar 9, 2016
All smooth phrases and cold analysis, Martin, Sam and Catherine head down Easy Street for some hard looks at Waits’s attitude towards alcohol and the lifestyle that surrounds it. Thinking about place and location, and the contrast between the two performances Waits gives us of this number, we edge up to some tough...
Mar 2, 2016
Guest host Catherine Hirst joins Song by Song, and straight away gives us new perspective on the yearning qualities of Waits’s peon to solitude. Whether the song is an honest rejection of marriage or just a cover for a sublimated desire to be told not to go fishing, we discuss the broader implications of mutual love...