This is a workshop designed for teachers of English on the music of American singer-songwriter Tom Waits. The activities included are for the songs, “Hold On,” “San Diego Serenade” and “Clap Hands” and they encourage students to develop their listening and speaking skills by exploring the uniquely American themes and landscapes of Waits’ music using a combination of individual and small group work.

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The Music of Tom Waits

Tom Waits was born in 1949 in California to parents who were both schoolteachers. He grew up in the 1960s, but did not identify popular American music of the day. Instead, he listened to more traditional blues, beat and jazz music. He was particularly fond of music that told stories and spoken word poetry performed in smoky night clubs after midnight.

This unique background set the stage for his very long and rebellious career. His first album, Closing Time was released in 1973. His early music is a mixture of traditional jazz and folk which, throughout the 1970s, became more and more cynical as he succumbed to the lifestyle of living on the road that had him staying in hotels, eating bad food and drinking heavily. Songs of this period include, “The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me),” “(Looking for) The Heart of Saturday Night” and “Bad Liver and a Broken Heart.”

n the 1980s, not only did his musical style begin to change, but also his career as an actor took shape. His music began to employ less common instruments like bassoon, bagpipes, marimba and violin. His music moved more towards the blues and even including tinges of spoken word and European folk music. As an actor, he appeared in several offbeat films and plays, even doing some writing for the stage.

In the 1990s, his acting career continued to flourish and his music now included elements of gospel music and even electronic music. His most successful album to date, Mule Variations, was released in 1999. His most recent collection of songs is the live recording, Glitter and Doom Live, from 2009.

Still relatively unknown in the United States, Waits has recorded more than 20 albums and is best known from the songs he wrote but are performed by other artists. Still, he has yet to gain the popularity at home which he has achieved in Europe and other parts of the world.

His music can be both horrifying and beautiful and is often about sad or lonely people who are between stages of their lives or wandering through the world with no direction. The characters in his songs lament about love gained and lost and opportunities never taken, about dreams unfulfilled and promises never kept. He sings about America as seen through the backseat window of a ’55 Chevy.

For more information, please see the following websites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Waits

http://www.allmusic.com

http://www.tomwaitslibrary.com

http://www.anti.com/artists/view/1