Sam and Simon return to Song by Song for more film-inspired musical discussion as Tom Waits sings of doomed love on the dusty roads of America, heading to (or trapped in) a little town called Burma Shave. The physical appeal of Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell, the early successes and failures of Nicholas Ray's debut film They Live By Night and the roadside rhyming stylings of the Burma Shave adverts all feature in this week's episode.
Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include:
Burma-Shave, Foreign Affairs, Tom Waits (1977)
They Live By Night (film), directed by Nicholas Ray (1948)
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