Dust on the Hood

He had three whole dollars
A worn out car
And a wife who was
Leaving for good
Life's made of trouble
Worry, pain and struggle
She wrote goodbye in
The dust on the hood

How's it Gonna End
(Waits/Brennan)
Tom Waits

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Tag Christof

Devil Leaves His Porch Light

        How do the angels get to sleep when the devil leaves his porch light on.

Tom Waits

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Bernard Schul

Terrible Things

         I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.

 Tom Waits

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unknown

Hard to Dance

Down by the Riverside motel
It's ten below and falling
By a ninety-nine cent store
She closed her eyes and started swaying
But it's so hard to dance that way
When it's cold and there's no music
Oh your old hometown's so far away
But inside your head there's a record that's playing

Hold On
(Brennan/Waits)
Tom Waits

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unknown

Dust on the Hood

He had three whole dollars

A worn out car

And a wife who was

Leaving for good

Life's made of trouble

Worry pain and struggle

She wrote goodbye in

The dust on the hood

How's It Gonna End

(Waits/Brennan)

Tom Waits

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John Vachon

To Take the Place

Your life's a dime store novel

This town is full of guys like you

And you're looking for someone to take the place of her

You must be reading my mail

And you're bitter 'cause she left you

That's why you're drinking in this bar

Well only suckers fall in love with perfect strangers

I Never Talk to Strangers
(Waits)
Tom Waits

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unknown

In the Nightstand Drawer

Though i try to remain at large
They're insisting that our love
Must have a eulogy
Why do i save all of this madness
Here in the nightstand drawer
There to haunt upon my shoulders
Baby i know

I'd be luckier to walk around everywhere i go
With this blind and broken heart
Sleeps beneath my lapel

Blue Valentines
(Waits)
Tom Waits

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Eugene Smith

Blue Valentines

 

Blue Valentines
(Waits)
Tom Waits

When the Devil

How do the angels get to sleep when the devil leaves his porch light on.

Tom Waits

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Peter Lundsteen

Take My Chances

And she popped her gum and arched her back
Hell, Marysville ain't nothing but a wide spot in the road
Some nights my heart pounds like thunder
Don't know why it don't explode
'Cause everyone in this stinking town's got one foot in the grave
And i'd rather take my chances out in Burma Shave

Burma Shave
(Waits/Alcivar)
Tom Waits

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Penyo Ivanov
Tom Waits

So Far Away

Down by the Riverside motel
It's ten below and falling
By a ninety-nine cent store
She close her eyes and started swaying
But it's so hard to dance that way
When it's cold and there's no music
Oh your old hometown's so far away
But inside your head there's a record that's playing

Hold On
(Brennan/Waits)
Tom Waits

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unknown

How's It Gonna End

He had three whole dollars

A worn out car

And a wife who was

Leaving for good

Life's made of trouble

Worry pain and struggle

She wrote goodbye in

The dust on the hood

They found a map of Missouri

Lipstick on the glass

They must have left

In the middle of the night

How's It Gonna End

(Waits/Brennan)

Tom Waits

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unknown

When I Please

I'll be sleeping until the crack of noon

Midnight howling at the moon

And i'll be going out when i want to

Coming home when i please

Don't have to ask permission

If i wanna go out fishing

Never have to ask for the keys, no

Better Off Without a Wife
(Waits)
Tom Waits

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KW Gullers

Don't Misspell Her Name

Well i've lost my equilibrium, and my car keys and my pride

The tattoo parlor's warm so i hustle there inside

And the grinding of the buzzsaw "what you want that thing to say?"

"just don't misspell her name buddy, she's the one that got away"

The One That Got Away

(Waits)

Tom Waits

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Wolfgang Suschitzky

                       https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/tomwaits/theonethatgotaway.html

A Good Man is Hard to Find

I always play Russian Roulette in my head

It's seventeen black and twenty-nine red

How far from the gutter ; how far from the pew

I'll always remember to forget about you

A good man is hard to find

Only strangers sleep in my bed

My favorite words are good-bye

And my favorite color is red

A Good Man is Hard to Find

(Waits)

Tom Waits

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Mike Shea -
Janet Pilgrim
Playboy 1956
                                    http://www.tomwaits.com/songs/?q=blood+money

It Becomes Beautiful

          It's where guys with flasks in their pockets line up on street corners at 4am to ride rattletrap buses  into agricultural fields to pick tomatoes or top onions. Downtown is rife with greasy diners, fleabag hotels and steamy dive bars. Drunks take cover from the rain in incinerator silos. Boxers bust each other's noses in basement gyms. Dissolute men pine for wives who have ditched them, and dissolute women carp at no-good boyfriends. It's not pretty, yet somehow, through the honesty of it's grime and the earnest way it's inhabitants try to scrape and spar their way out of it, it becomes beautiful. "Fat City" is an Edward Hopper painting, a Robert Frank photograph, a midnight-choir Tom Waits operetta plunked on an out-of-tune piano.

excerpt from
Finding 'Fat City' with the Man Who Wrote It
Karen Schoemer
New York Times
2017

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Jason Henry

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/30/travel/leonard-gardner-stockton-california-finding-fat-city-novel.html

Highway Cafe

Now there's a small truck-stop on Route 64

If you happen to be passin' by

There's a trucker that never stops in anymore

There's a waitress who wished she knew why

Highway Cafe

(Waits)

Tom Waits

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unknown
                          https://genius.com/Tom-waits-highway-cafe-lyrics

Guys Like You

Your life's a dime store novel

This town is full of guys like you

And you're looking for someone to take the place of her

You must be reading my mail

And you're bitter 'cause she left you

That's why you're drinking in this bar

Well only suckers fall love with perfect strangers

I Never Talk to Strangers
(Waits)
Tom Waits

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Jack Loughran

Dead and Lovely

Dead and Lovely
(Waits/Brennan)
Tom Waits

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The Man Who Wasn't There

She Had the Moon

She was a middle class girl

She was in over her head

She thought she would stand up in the deep end

She had a bullet proof smile

She had money to burn

She thought she had the moon in her pocket

Dead and Lovely

(Waits/Brennan)

Tom Waits

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Bunny Yeager
Maria Stinger 1955

                      https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107858535985/