I love watching this video, because during the interview Tom is completely calm and laid back, and you know that people in the audience who haven't heard of him are thinking "What a cool guy", and "Maybe he plays country music", expecting the song he'll do to be all mellow, and low-key . And then he does the song, a vocal Tour De Force which just wrenches out of him, and his persona totally changes into this..this...SORCERER, and those people in the audience all go "Oh."

The real miracle is that Tom made it out of the 70's and 80's alive.

"Sharpening their knives on my mistakes....." Poetic genius.

Like a fine single malt whiskey, Tom just gets better and better... and better. He stands alone as both a songwriter and a performer. We are so lucky that he is out there; his music and his art is a gift.

Tom is from another planet. What I would do to just be able to hang out with him once...no one else like him in the world.

4:48 ... there's writing on his hand ... 8:02 ... he looks at his hand for lyrical help = LEGEND.

Tom is always one of Dave's best guests. It is clear they really like each other.

Most of the world hasn't caught up to Tom Waite's , one of the creative geniuses of our time.

I love this so much. You can tell he's such an active, playful, and alive mind. Such a great soul.

That performance is still just as badass as it was 11 years ago when I first saw it.

I will never talk like him, but why do I enjoy so much watching Tom Waits talking!

Holy shit. This man just opened up my brain to a memory I had hidden in the dark recesses of my subconscious. As a toddler I ate my grandparents’ coffee table/ endtable. I would sit underneith of it and chew for hours until it was unrecognizable. I got in so much trouble I think? For cribbing... wow unlocking a memory of when I was like 1.5 yrs old. Amazing. Cribbing.

A true talent, a guy who writes his own stuff and knows how to lay down a song. Legendary with good reason: Tom is a modest man who lets his art speak for itself. Brilliant!

Quite a brilliant man and performer.

Tom is funnier than 3/4s of the comedians working today.

In 2004, when he produced this album, Tom Waits was 55. He just turned 70, in December 2019. I'm a long time fan of his music,....going back some years. I wasn't hep to his music at first,...not in the 70s or most of the 80s, not until the mid 1990s, then in 1999, when his Mule Variations came out, I really dug that album/CD. We're close in age,....I'm just 5 years his junior. Keep on going, brother!

the man's a freakin' genius

He is such an incredible live performer

He is the coolest man alive and I will hear nothing different.

On a scale from one to Tom waits, walking around and taking pictures of horse-cribbed wood, is definitely very Tom Waits.

What a performance!! Tom Waits is the man. He just fucking rocks that stage!!

Tom never fails to deliver.

Tom has a good eye most people don't look for art and symbolism in everything the way he does. That's more of a poets thing.

I have dipped my toes into the shallow end of Tom Wait's for a long time, but once you dive head first into the deep end of his work, you ain't never coming up for air...

hes got a very subtle sense of humour, unlike most people. a comedian like letterman who has heard every joke in the book can appreciate that.

We have music playing in our house most of the time and I would listen to Waits in the background. My girl left Bad as me in my CD player one day and I REALLY listened. I was blown away! He has a real gift. It is a shame he is not given credit for his music. You do not here him on the radio cause he does not sound like everyone else and that is sad. He could sing, or read for that matter, the phone book and I would listen! He also just gets better with age. Like wine!!!

Hey your welcome...saw him in concert a month ago and it was pretty cool of course...he played this song and more new ones, couldn't beat it...never thought I would see Tom in concert!

He has quite the sense of humour too.

Spend a day with Tom. Priceless !

Kids, try to copy that fire and glow this guy puts into his performance.. my god his good! Thanks for sharing and thanks Tom

I love how he does different versions with seemingly every performance.

Amazing. I've been a Waites fan for years, be cool to meet him in person

Absolute legend..! In an airbrushed society it’s so good to see real. Lives his truth and sings his music without his walls up. His passion and vulnerability gives me goosebumps. This is how songs should be sung 🎵🎶♾

I have been enchanted by Tom since I first saw him on Fernwood Tonight back in '77. Happy to say that I have stuck w/him ever since. Tom also appeared on the Roy Orbison special. (The one wonderfully recorded before Orbison's death) Look it up sometime. It's a very worthwhile special. It featured a young Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello and such a young Jackson Brown

He is one of the VERY few musicians that he interviewed at that time.

I have fallen in love with Tom all over again.

Thanks for keeping this up..up..up. Now my fav Let It Rain... Austin City Limits had Waits on a hot street, cool lamp post show a while back, check it out...

I have always loved the total weirdness of Tom Waites, my best friend in Sonoma County, waited on Tom Waites and his wife a few months ago. I remember an 1970’s show of Tom Waits on Austin City Limits on PBS I watched with my oldest son when he was about 14, my son loved him, because he’s so bizarre and talented.

I wish Tom Waits was my neighbor, I would bring him beer every day. We would never get any yard work done! :-)

Listened to Emotional Weather Report way way back when I was in High School, Love the guy and his ability to make people nervous...Alice is one of my favorite songs.

Perfect, Tom is perfection~~ What a talent!!!

"just....destroyed the resale value..." lmao you'd think a genius cult figure like Waits would be a weird, awkward dude in person: but he's a badass in person as well as on record. love it.

he's such an inspiration to me...amazing

awesome!!! Tom Waits is full of soul

I used to crib when I was a kid haha.

Maybe the greatest guest appearance I've ever seen.

Tom's more recent interviews (like this one) are SOOOO much better than his old ones.

Tom is one brilliant artist. Actor, song writer, singer, musician, and best of all, he's funny as hell. He's Dave's favorite guest.

Please, please, go to 1:56 it's an extremely rare anomaly, a high pitched note from Tom Waits.

Who else but Waits would drop a line from Goethe into the middle of a song? "A sad guest on this dark Earth." Picked it up from Wm. Burroughs, I bet.

Wouldn't mind if the snare wasn't so prominent, but great set overall. Tom Waits cracks me up. The guy is livin' the life. Seems like one of the few artists who never loses sight of who he is or what his artistic vision is.

horse number 2 was working on an abstract work!

Pouring rain here today. Had to listen.

this guys a fucking legend.

I like this version better than the album version. The fat thump of the stand up bass is what I think does it. Both are excellent.

My GOD his children must be awesome.

"Got to get behind the mule... in the morn'n and plow" Tom Waits

Never heard him been referred to as a sicknut, and my english teacher always claimed that only cakes are nice. Tom is a musical, lyrical, genius with the gift of comedy that some "comedians " would kill for,

It was a boring Sunday, then I found this...great work Tom...

Saw him do this song in a circus tent in Dublin and he bought down a thunderstorm. He is not of this world.

Thank God Paul & the band had the good sense to sit this one out.

OMG this made me so happy!!!

with the amazing and inimitable Marc Ribot. To see these two live is to experience blessed musical purgatory. Once you get to heaven, you're dead.

this was filmed on my birthday. i love tom waits.

dude...hes so awesome. thanks for putting this up!

some singers tend to lose there voices with age. Tom just evolves.

I only want to be this lucid.

Blues Explosion!

Tom is so cool, hilarious I laugh a lot with him, a genius musician I admire him

That horse picture is in the Orphans CD.

the pictureeeeeeeeeees, ahaeheaheah, oh my goooods if you think tom waits was fucking around, he was not. that man is my idol, and he performs "make it rain" scarily well, its just like on the record, almost better

Tom's wife, Kathleen, introduced Tom to Captain Beefheart.

Tom Waits = Cool. Don't question it, just accept it.

A National Treasure.....

Judah Bauer from the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Russell Simins from the same bend on drums.

Everyone...happend to record this by accident...man, saw Tom in Concert recently and excellent show! Anyone hear his NEW live CD from the tour last year? Excelllent!

The Rembrandt of modern music. A total fucking legend.

So cool !

this is one of my favorite configurations of tom waits band

has any one noticed when hes on letterman he always moves the mug

great version of this song!

Dieser Sinn für Klanglichkeit und Intensität (bei weitestgehender technischer Reduktion) ist sehr beeindruckend.

Oh yeah, Tom Waits. Life is good.

Tom Waits is the man.

I wish I was a storyteller like Tom :-)

God has a picture of Tom Waits in his wallet.

Great fun! :-)

...that.was...surreal.

I watch these videos at

That’s Blues Explosion backing Tom there. Epitome of cool.

please don't ever take this down

Tom with Judah and Russell... sweet!

Real rock'n'roll baby!!!

Let's face it-there's Tom waits and evreyone else

What an entertainer

Such a man

there is everyone else than there is you and me and all of them...

Someone should make a movie about this guy‘s life

Amen

Good goobillie woobillie. I would never have thought that this cat would make a funk record.