This past February, Tom Waits appeared in the final episode of The Human Factor, a documentary about homelessness in the American South, produced by Italian public TV channel RAI3. Titled “The Last Ride,” the episode sees the reclusive Waits both reading his poem Seeds on Hard Ground and performing music.
Waits has now released a rare performance from the docuseries of his 1976 song “Tom Traubert’s Blues.” Watch it below, followed by an excerpt of Waits’ reading of Seeds on Hard Ground.
“If you’re living on the street,” the 75-year-old artist says before sitting down at a piano. “We who live in abundance, we have to think what it must be like to be down to your last dollar, your last cup of coffee, and your last pair of socks that are dry. Maybe it’s just that some conditions, some situations seem to need a song for it.”
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As the clip transitions into Waits’ performance, he adds, “Facts and figures and statistics are one thing, but sometimes a poem contains the words that fell off the page, just like the people who fell off the sidewalk.” He also reveals the track was inspired by the Australian slang “waltzing matilda,” which he describes as “moving with all your belongings on your back.”
“Tom Traubert’s Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen)” is one of Waits’ signature songs, appearing on his fourth studio album, Small Change. In addition to borrowing the chorus from the Australian folk song “Waltzing Matilda,” the lyrics were inspired by his experiences in Los Angeles and Copenhagen.
“I am an individual who is deeply concerned with the inequities as we all are, but ill equipped to solve any of them,” Waits previously said in a press statement. “I tell the world in the only way I know how: through my music. I don’t deal with politics or laws, and I don’t have answers to the big questions that concern us all. All I can do is try — through songs and poems — to inspire someone. I’m here to open up the window and open up our eyes. I guess a little bit, if I can.”
The full episode is streaming now for free at RaiPlay.
Waits is set to appear in longtime collaborator Jim Jarmusch’s upcoming star-studded new film, Father Mother Sister Brother, as Adam Driver’s father. Check out a recent trailer before it hits US theaters on Wednesday, December 24th.