Books

Biographies & Interviews

Written In My Soul
Written by Bill Flanagan
An excellent book of searching interviews with rock songwriters. Contains an eight page interview with Tom Waits.

A View Through a Window of a Subway
Published by Tas Print, Belgrade, Yugoslavia
Printed 1991
Written by Dragan Todorovic

Includes:
This Serbian book includes a biography with a lot of pictures.

Small Change, A Life of Tom Waits
Published by St. Martin's Press, New York
Printed October 1990
Written by Patrick Humphries
US.ISBN 0.312.04582.4

Includes:
This book is a biography of Tom Waits, that delves in his life from the multiple stories of his birth to his works up to Frank's Wild Years. This biography also goes into fairly good detail of his acting career up to the same time period. This book has some of Tom Waits' cliches and is full of the author's own advice and cliches. This book has been noted to be full of inaccuracies, but if you don't mind that and you can get past the cliches, it is a very interesting book, with a discography at the end.

Jockey Full of Bourbon
Published by Gradina (Edition "Otkrivanja 21"), Nis, Yugoslavia
Printed May 1990
Written by Dragan Todorovic

Includes:
This Serbian book includes a short biography, essays about his poetry and some translations.

Sheet Music
& Music Related Books

Tom Waits: Beautiful Maladies (Sheet Music)
Published by Amsco Publications
Printed 1997
Order No. AM 940291
UPC 7 52187 94029 6
US ISBN: 0.8256.1581.X
UK ISBN: 0.7119.6107.7

The book has a 9 x 12 trim size, 248 pages, a number of interior black & white photos of Mr. Waits by Jim Jarmusch, and retails for US$29.95.

Includes, in alphabetical order:
16 Shells From A Thirty-Ought-Six; A Little Rain; Anywhere I Lay My Head; Back In The Good Old World; Big Black Mariah; Black Wings; The Briar And The Rose; Cemetery Polka; Cold Cold Ground; Dirt In The Ground; Downtown Train; Earth Died Screaming; Fall Of Troy; Falling Down; Filipino Box Spring Hog; Frank's Wild Years; Gun Street Girl; Hang Down Your Head; Hang On St. Christopher; I Don't Wanna Grow Up; Innocent When You Dream; I'll Shoot The Moon; I'll Take New York; Jesus Gonna Be Here; Jockey Full Of Bourbon; Johnsburg, Illinois; The Last Rose Of Summer; Lucky Day; Murder In The Red Barn; November; Rain Dogs; Shore Leave; Singapore; Soldier's Things; Straight To The Top (Vegas); Strange Weather; Tango Till They're Sore; Telephone Call From Istanbul; Temptation; That Feel; Time; Train Song; Underground; Walk Away; Way Down In The Hole; Whistle Down The Wind; Who Are You; Yesterday Is Here.

Gravikords, Whirlies, and Pyrophones
CD Boxed Set collection by Bart Hopkin
Printed 1996?
Forward written by Tom Waits

Included this quote: "Here's something i stumbled upon at my daughter's birthday party: I rubbed the outside of a large tight balloon and obtained the familiar screaming warble you hear when clowns are making balloon animals. I found that if you put cornstarch on your hands and "play" it, it sounds very much like an Eric Dolphy solo, or a monkey with its hair on fire."

Sylvia Plachy's Unguided Tour
Published by Aperture, New York, New York
Printed 1990
Photographs by Sylvia Plachy
Music composed and performed by Tom Waits
US.ISBN 0.89381.393.1

Includes:
1 sound disc : analog, 33 1/3 rpm, stereo ; 7 in.
Single track "Serrano" (instrumental)

(Sheet Music & Interviews)
Published in Italy

Includes, in alphabetical order:
Music from Closing Time up to Raindogs.

Tom Waits: Big Time (Sheet Music)
Published by Amsco Publications
Printed 1988
US.ISBN 0.8256.1207.1
UK.ISBN 0.7119.1650.0
(also goes under ISBN 0.846.42467.3 because Beekman Publishing distributes it)

Includes, in alphabetical order:
16 Shells From a Thirty-Ought Six; Big Black Mariah; Cold, Cold Ground; Gun Street Girl; Johnsburg, Illinois; Rain Dogs; Red Shoes; Straight To the Top (Vegas); Strange Weather; Telephone Call From Istanbul; Time; Train Song; Way Down In the Hole.

Tom Waits - Anthology (Sheet Music)
Published by Amsco Publications
Printed 1988
US.ISBN 0.8256.2503.3
UK.ISBN 0.7119.1486.9
(also goes under ISBN 0.846.42466.5 because Beekman Publishing distributes it)

Includes, in alphabetical order:
Annie's Back in Town; Blue Valentines; Broken Bicycles; Burma Shave; Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis; Foreign Affair; Ghosts of Saturday Night (After Hours at Napoleone's Pizza House); Heartattack and Vine; I Never Talk to Strangers; I Wish I Was in New Orleans (In the Ninth Ward); Invitation to the Blues; Jersey Girl; Kentucky Avenue; Martha; New Coat of Paint; Ol'55; Old Boyfriends; On the Nickel; Red Shoes by the Drugstore; Ruby's Arms; San Diego Serenade; Semi Suite; Shiver Me Timbers; A Sight for Sore Eyes; Take Me Home; (Looking for) The Heart of Saturdy Night; This One's from the Heart; 'Til the Money Runs Out; Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen).

Miscellaneous Books

Freaks: We Who Are Not As Others
Published by Re/Search
Inside are pictures of Jo-Jo the dog-faced boy, Johnny Eck, the mule-faced woman etc., etc.,... I presume Tom referred to this book when doing Black Rider. If you read it then you'll see what I mean. Some of the references, such as "she's the homeliest woman in the world" are straight from the text.


Tom Waits Digest
Author : Seth Nielsen : snielsen@iadfw.net
Design : Andrew Boris King : boris@easynet.co.uk


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