{"id":15959,"date":"2019-04-23T15:51:30","date_gmt":"2019-04-23T19:51:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bsu.edu\/english\/?p=15959"},"modified":"2019-04-23T15:51:30","modified_gmt":"2019-04-23T19:51:30","slug":"wordy-world-tom-waits-nighthawks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bsu.edu\/english\/blog\/2019\/04\/23\/wordy-world-tom-waits-nighthawks\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wordy World of Tom Waits’ ‘Nighthawks’"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Anthony Miglieri<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Songwriting is literature, as much as critics of a <\/span>certain Nobel Prize recipient<\/span><\/a> might argue. Although we usually consume songs by ear, their words can be just as artful and transporting as any poem or novel. Throughout the many genres of his career (from folk to jazz to blues to rock to avant guard to hip-hop), Tom Waits\u2019 work has represented a pinnacle of creativity in songwriting. With a teeming arsenal of figures of speech, his words scrape the edges of imagination. Waits\u2019 1975 album <\/span>Nighthawks at the Diner<\/span><\/i> might not be his most mind-bending, but its writing is as absorbing as anything I\u2019ve heard or read.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Meterological Metaphor<\/span><\/h5>\n
\"\"

Tom Waits \u00a9 Barry Schultz, 1975<\/p><\/div>\n

Since <\/span>Nighthawks <\/span><\/i>is a live album, almost every song has a preceding intro track, wherein Waits jokes and rambles to his chortling, glass-clinking audience. On \u201cOpening Intro,\u201d technically the first track, Waits lifts a figurative oil can to his listeners\u2019 joints, loosening up their expectations, or perhaps their stiff shoulders from their respective days at work. Strutting alongside pulsating standup bass and saxophone accompaniment, Waits transitions seamlessly into the first real song on the album. \u201cEmotional Weather Report\u201d bursts like a cumulonimbus with imagery of \u201clate night and early morning low clouds.\u201d But it\u2019s not until later the that the metaphors roll in to redefine the song:<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWith tornado watches issued shortly before noon Sunday<\/span><\/p>\n

For the areas including the western region of my mental health<\/span><\/p>\n

And the northern portion of my ability to deal rationally<\/span><\/p>\n

With my disconcerted precarious emotional situation\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

His signature growl rumbles through each scene to grasp the real subject of the song: the narrator\u2019s mental state. From this point on in <\/span>Nighthawks<\/span><\/i>, the audience (both the physical, live listeners in 1975 and the ones today with Mp3s or YouTube) know that they no longer inhabit the world that they once knew; with his words, Waits molds his own version of the universe.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

“It was kind of an abandoned road…”<\/p><\/div>\n

The intro to the next song, \u201cOn a Foggy Night,\u201d directly inserts the audience into this new realm, as Waits observes the kinds of cars they arrived in (\u201cSubarus, Pintos, Malibus, Oldsmobiles\u201d). With the tale of nocturnal automotive intrigue in the track proper, Waits showcases his gift for conjuring vivid, sometimes surreal imagery from familiar scenes. Punctuated by elastic guitar snaps, he places the listener in the driver\u2019s seat on an abandoned road, \u201cIn a twilight mirror mirage,\u201d \u201cin a blurred brocade collage,\u201d in desperate search for \u201ca vacancy lodge.\u201d Even listening today on headphones, it\u2019s difficult not to see suspended mist creep onto the periphery of an ordinary bedroom or kitchen.<\/span><\/p>\n

Prandial Personification<\/span><\/h5>\n
\"\"

“Now the lead pipe morning falls”<\/p><\/div>\n

Waits unholsters another descriptive tool in the intro to the following track, \u201cEggs and Sausage (In a Cadillac with Susan Michelson)\u201d: personification. He chronicles some unsavory episodes in his culinary history at diners, including a dangerous veal cutlet that left the plate, walked down the counter, and \u201ctried to beat the shit of [his] cup of coffee.\u201d Alas, the coffee \u201cjust wasn\u2019t strong enough to defend itself.\u201d This sudden animation of the food isn\u2019t just meant to be humorous; it also continues Waits\u2019 idea of taking the world familiar to the listener and making it new, weird, and special. The world of <\/span>Nighthawks<\/span><\/i> only grows bolder and more absorbing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Residentiary Repetition<\/span><\/h5>\n

Another method Waits uses to unify <\/span>Nighthawks <\/span><\/i>is to repeat words and phrases central to the album\u2019s themes. For instance, he fortifies the album’s preeminent urban nighttime setting with liberal sprinklings of the words \u201cnocturnal\u201d and \u201cmetropolitan.\u201d Swizzle sticks, naugahyde, and double-knits also make several appearances. In addition, Waits re-uses some phrases like \u201csmooth music on the stereo\u201d in the intro to \u201cOn a Foggy Night\u201d and on \u201cSpare Parts I: A Nocturnal Emission.\u201d By using such an oddly specific phrase in two different contexts (\u201cFoggy\u201d is lilted and paranoid, whereas \u201cSpare Parts\u201d swaggers), Waits subtly establishes a unity among the disparate corners of his created landscape. Similarly, he uses the word \u201cjackknifed\u201d to describe legs over a bar stool on \u201cPutnam County\u201d and to illustrate a truck wreck in \u201cBig Joe and Phantom 309.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sprawling Setting<\/span><\/h5>\n
\"\"

“…when Joe and his rig pulled off into night\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Man, in nothing flat they was clean outta sight”<\/p><\/div>\n

Nighthawks at the Diner<\/span><\/i> is a distinctly American record, as Waits repeatedly names products (Velveeta, Campbell\u2019s, Coca Cola, Pepto Bismol, etc.), car makes (Ford, GMC, Malibu, Oldsmobile, etc.), and other objects associated with the country to establish a skeleton for his own universe. The most fascinating way Waits invokes the feel of America is in his geographical variety. Befitting an album named after <\/span>Edward Hopper\u2019s hallowed American painting<\/span><\/a> from 1942, a handful of songs capture night scenes in urban bars and diners (\u201cEggs and Sausage,\u201d \u201cNighthawk Postcards [From Easy Street],\u201d \u201cWarm Beer and Cold Women,\u201d \u201cSpare Parts I,\u201d and \u201cSpare Parts II\u201d). Other tunes nestle into the day-to-day life of small towns and suburbia (\u201cBetter Off Without a Wife\u201d and \u201cPutnam County\u201d). Still others find themselves on the backroads, on the outskirts of the city and reality (\u201cFoggy Night\u201d and \u201cBig Joe and Phantom 309\u201d). Each section represents the whole in its own way. The whole grants each section its identity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Waits’ World<\/span><\/h5>\n

When the needle spills into the inner groove on Nighthawks<\/em>, it feels like a long trip has ended. The paper yellowed, the edges torn, the landmarks pricked by red pushpins, Waits’ map lays out a sensitive American vision in and around the city. But rarely does he pinpoint the obvious details. Waits captures the perverse allure of the buzzing neon and naugahyde booths of nocturnal watering holes. He hangs his arm around youngsters who trick themselves into believing they’d rather stay out late than marry. He remembers where the kids’ lunch money resides (“it’s right over there on the draining board”). He embodies the campfire myth-making of America, telling ghost stories as he watches the orange embers scurry into the goosebump-raising nighttime breeze.<\/p>\n

Waits empties his toolkit of storytelling techniques to draw upon the world listeners know and create a new one before their very ears. Like individual panels of a fresco, the 11 songs on Nighthawks<\/i> (18 including intro tracks) interlock to create a whole more significant than the sum of their proverbial parts. As specific as it is sprawling, Tom Waits\u2019 Nighthawks at the Diner<\/i> is a spellbinding feat of creative writing.<\/p>\n

You can enter this album right now on YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Anthony Miglieri Songwriting is literature, as much as critics of a certain Nobel Prize recipient might argue. Although we usually consume songs by ear, their words can be just as artful and transporting as any poem or novel. Throughout the many genres of his career (from folk to jazz to blues to rock to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":15587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[1795,1796,1803,1809,1807,1808,1804,1805,1806,1797],"class_list":["post-15959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recommendation-station","tag-album","tag-album-review","tag-metaphor","tag-music","tag-nighthawks","tag-nighthawks-at-the-diner","tag-personification","tag-repetition","tag-setting","tag-tom-waits"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Wordy World of Tom Waits' 'Nighthawks' - Ball State English Department<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Songwriting is literature, as much as critics of a certain Nobel Prize recipient might argue. 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