I'm Your Late Night Evening Prostitute - The Early Years vol 1 [231]

Is this a tender song, a wry observation about the music industry, or a badly-placed bit of bawdy humour? Helen & Amy rejoin Martin & Sam to listen to a Tom Waits track that may have killed at the Troubadour, but does not seem to land on the album. And then it all kicks off over poor, poor Billy Joel. He never asked for any of this…

Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include:
I'm Your Late Night Evening Prostitute, The Early Years vol 1, Tom Waits (1991)

Piano Man, Piano Man, Billy Joel (1973)

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Poncho's Lament - The Early Years vol 1 [230]

A second week with Amy and Helen sees everyone feeling that the work is slighter and possibly understanding why this track didn't make the jump onto a studio recording. Our guests discuss with Martin and Sam ideas of cliche and originality, the process of developing as a songwriter as well as some of the relationship politics that Gladys Knight navigates in her 1973 hit.

Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include:
Poncho's Lament, The Early Years vol 1, Tom Waits (1991)

Midnight Train To Georgia, Imagination, Gladys Knight & The Pips (1973)

Lonely This Christmas, live Top of the Pops performance (via YouTube), Mud (1974)

Are You Lonesome Tonight - Elvis corpses, via YouTube, Elvis Presley (1969?)

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Goin' Down Slow - The Early Years vol 1 [229]

Helen Zaltzman returns, along with new guest host Amy Smith, to join Sam & Martin for season 16 of Song by Song. We take a trip back to Waits's earliest writing from 1971 in this album of demos and unreleased tracks, discussing the temporal and osteopathic implications of a slow night with Tom, the tone he's aiming for at this early stage in his career, and bouncy ball music.

Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include:
Goin' Down Slow, The Early Years vol 1, Tom Waits (1991)

Hearbeats, Deep Cuts, The Knife (2003)

Sony Bravia "Bouncy Balls" advert, via YouTube (2005)

On A Night Like This, Planet Waves, Bob Dylan (1974)

Black Coffee, Black Coffee, Peggy Lee (1956)

Four of Two, No!, They Might Be Giants (2002)

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