Observations placeholder
Waits, Tom - Take it with me when I go
Identifier
021875
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Waits's first album on his the ANTI label, Mule Variations, was issued in 1999. Billboard described the album as musically melding "backwoods blues, skewed gospel, and unruly art stomp into a sublime piece of junkyard sound sculpture." The album was Waits' first release to feature a turntablist.
The album won a Grammy in 2000; as an indicator of how difficult it is to classify Waits's music, he was nominated simultaneously for Best Contemporary Folk Album (which he won) and Best Male Rock Vocal Performance (for the song "Hold On"), both different from the genre for which he won his previous Grammy. The album was also his highest-charting album in the U.S. to date, reaching no. 30. It sold more than 500,000 copies world wide.
The album was backed by an extensive tour in Europe and North America during the summer and autumn of 1999, which was Waits' first proper tour since 1987. Other promotional stops included a solo performance on VH1 Storytellers.
In 2003, the album was ranked number 416 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
A description of the experience
Tom Waits - Take It With Me
"Take It With Me"
Phone's off the hook
No one knows where we are
It's a long time since I
Drank champagne
The ocean is blue
As blue as your eyes
I'm gonna take it with me
When I go
Old long since gone
Now way back when
We lived in Coney Island
Ain't no good thing
Ever dies
I'm gonna take it with me
When I go
Far far away a train
Whistle blows
Wherever you're goin
Wherever you've been
Waving good bye at the end
Of the day
You're up and you're over
And you're far away
Always for you, and
Forever yours
It felt just like the old days
We fell asleep on Beaula's porch
I'm gonna take it with me
When I go
All broken down by
The side of the road
I was never more alive or
Alone
I've worn the faces off
All the cards
I'm gonna take it with me
When I go
Children are playing
At the end of the day
Strangers are singing
On our lawn
It's got to be more
Than flesh and bone
All that you've loved
Is all you own
In a land there's a town
And in that town there's
A house
And in that house
There's a woman
And in that woman
There's a heart I love
I'm gonna take it
With me when I go
I'm gonna take it
With me when I go