I don't know jack about Tom.

As much as I go on about Tom Waits, you'd think I knew something about him. It seems I'm listening to him every day. For maybe eighteen years, I've been listening to him off and on. Once a completist, I had everything commercially available by him. Now I have most of his stuff, but there are still Very Important Albums by him that I have don't currently own.

Anyway, as many times as I've played 1987's Frank's Wild Years, I just heard "More Than Rain" and it's the first time that the lyrics really grabbed me. It's like it's the first time I've ever given the song a spin. He calls it his "little Edith Piaf attempt and it's quite the woe is us kind of tune.

Excerpted lyrics:

And it's more than a bad dream, now that I'm sober
There's no more dancing
There's no more dancing

And it's more than trouble, I've got myself into
Nothing but sad times
Nothing but sad times

None of our pockets, are lined with gold
Nobody's caught the bouquet
And no dead presidents we can fold
Nothing is going our way

And it's more than goodbye, I have to say to you
It's more than woe-begotten gray skies now

The words are evidence of kind of a downer of a song, but the accordion gives it a bit of a playful French feel. For its intro in the Big Time concert film, Waits gives some good (and typical of him) advice about dealing with bad days:

"Eh this is about all the bad days in the world. I used to have some really bad days. And I kept them in a little box. And one day I threw them out into the yard. Oh, it's just a couple of innocent bad days. Well, we had a big rain... I don't know what it was growing in, but I think we used to put egg shells out there and coffee grounds too. Don't plant your bad days! They grow into weeks, the weeks grow into months, and before you know it you got yourself a bad year. Take it from me: CHOKE those little bad days! CHOKE 'em down to nothing! There are your days, CHOKE 'em! You choke my days, I'll choke yours! All right... It's more than rain..."

I love that I've been listening to him for all these years and still hear his songs sometimes as if I'm brand new to his art. I'll try to remember not to plant my bad days. Lord knows, I've been warned.