Continuing our season of specials on material outside the show’s main remit, Philippa Spanos returns to help Martin and Sam consider the creative and commercial aspects of Waits’s music videos. Starting with a long-overlooked animation experiment from the 70s, we chart how these films function in relation to the music, the commercial purpose of a video, as well as all the tiny tiny guitars.
Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include:
Tom Waits For No-One / The One That Got Away, short film feat. Tom Waits, dir. John Lamb (1979)
Aragorn trips and falls in Lord of the Rings, dir. Ralph Bakshi (1978)
An Exhaustive History of Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings, video essay via YouTube, Folding Ideas (2021)
In The Neighbourhood, Tom Waits music video from Swordfishtrombones, dir. Haskell Wexler (1983)
Welcome to the Black Parade, My Chemical Romance music video, dir. Samuel Bayer (2006)
Rain Dogs Promos, dir. Chris Blum (1985)
Pachinko adverts feat. Nicholas Cage, dir. ???? (mid-2000s?)
Downtown Train, Tom Waits music video from Rain Dogs, dir. Jean-Baptiste Mondino (1985)
Blow Wind Blow, Tom Waits music video from Rain Dogs, and Limousine Interview promo, dir. Chris Blum (1987)
Temptation, Tom Waits music video from Franks Wild Years, dir. Betzy Bromberg (1987)
Lee Baby Sims Obituary, Media Confidential Blog (2015)
It's Alright With Me, Tom Waits music video from Red Hot + Blue, dir. Jim Jarmusch (1990)
Going Out West, Tom Waits music video from Bone Machine, dir. Jesse Dylan (1992)
Closer, Nine Inch Nails music video from The Downward Spiral, dir. Mark Romance (1994)
Ricky Jay Plays Poker, dir. Jesse Dylan (2007)
I Don’t Wanna Grow Up, Tom Waits music video from Bone Machine, dir. Jim Jarmusch (1992)
Coffee and Cigarettes III - Somewhere in California, dir. Jim Jarmusch (1993)
Log into the Spotify web player to hear these tracks.