Song By Song

There's both delights and disappointments this week, as Martin, Sam and Jeu Jeu la Foille find a disappointingly straightforward Brawler with LowDown, a delightful and layered Bawler in You Can Never Hold Back Spring, and a creepy story guaranteed to disturb the little Bastards in your life. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: LowDown, Orphans: Brawlers Bawlers & Bastards, Tom Waits (2006) You Can Never Hold Back Spring, Orphans: Brawlers Bawlers & Bastards, Tom Waits (2006) Children's Story, Orphans: Brawlers Bawlers & Bastards, Tom Waits (2006) We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

Aaaaand… we're off! Guest host Jeu Jeu La Foille rejoins Martin and Sam to tackle the first tracks from our monumental Orphans season, digging into the first tracks of Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards. We examine the Elvis influence in another hot-and-bothered song for Kathleen, a children's song for an elderly bunny, and a very faithful cover from the Threepenny Opera. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Lie To Me, Orphans: Brawlers Bawlers & Bastards, Tom Waits (2006) Bend Down The Branches, Orphans: Brawlers Bawlers & Bastards, Tom Waits (2006) What Keeps Mankind Alive, Orphans: Brawlers Bawlers & Bastards, Tom Waits (2006) We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guaran

Next week begins season 22, the behemoth that is Orphans. And so we’re all on the same page, Sam and Martin explain how they (and we) will approach these three albums without breaking all our brains.   website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com   Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: If I Have To Go, Orphans: Brawlers Bawlers & Bastards, Tom Waits (2006) You Can Never Hold Back Spring, Orphans: Brawlers Bawlers & Bastards, Tom Waits (2006)   We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

While Sam and Martin prepare for Orphans, please enjoy a guest-podcast from our friends Fran and Babs of the Over/Underrated Music Podcast, featuring your regular SbS hosts as guests talking about some NY art rock, David Byrne’s lack of love, and the genius of the two Johns.   website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com   We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

Song by Song gets archeological, uncovering and piecing together muffled lyric fragments in this final episode on the Real Gone bonus track.   website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com   Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Chick a Boom, Real Gone (remastered), Tom Waits (2004/2017) Chick a Boom, Real Gone (original), Tom Waits (2004)   We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

Waits reaches out for a form out of his usual style, as Sam and Martin consider who and where this song is coming from, as well as the technique and attitude of Waits’s political work through Real Gone and beyond.   website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com   Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Day After Tomorrow, Real Gone (remastered), Tom Waits (2004/2017) Bella Ciao, Songs of Resistance: 1942-2018, Tom Waits / Marc Ribot (2018) Day After Tomorrow, Real Gone (original), Tom Waits (2004) We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

It's point/counterpoint on Song by Song again, as Martin and Sam divide over Waits's song of loss and yearning. Whether this is a pure form of a classic sentiment or an unnecessary retread of predictable tropes gets turned over, alongside a rare Tom Waits cover for the interval track. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Make It Rain, Real Gone (remastered), Tom Waits (2004/2017) Make It Rain, Live at Sidney Opera House, Spinefex Gum (2019) Make It Rain, Real Gone (original), Tom Waits (2004) We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

Waits flies solo for this horny-noise-fragment, as Sam and Martin pin down both some of the sonic design as well as images of travel and freedom. We look at Waits's reuse of phrases from other songs, his line between affection and objectification, and compare with the technical precision of Bobby McFerrin's vocal performances. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Clang Boom Steam, Real Gone (remastered), Tom Waits (2004/2017) Drive, Live from Montreal, Bobby McFerrin (2005) Clang Boom Steam, Real Gone (original), Tom Waits (2004) We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

High energy blues number - check. Harsh beat-boxing rhythmic tone - check. Mumbled lyrics and anti-poetic phrasing - check. David, Sam and Martin find all the required elements, but discuss whether it all comes together in this week’s song. Note: we mention Mark Rylance this episode; between recording and release, his brother Jonathan was killed - sympathies from all of us for this loss. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Baby Gonna Leave Me, Real Gone (remastered), Tom Waits (2004/2017) Babe I'm Gonna Leave You, In Concert, Joan Baez (1962) Baby Gonna Leave Me, Real Gone (original), Tom Waits (2004) We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen respo

Singing from beyond the grave, Waits bridges the green grass boundary between life and death as David, Sam and Martin question whether this week's song presents a tender or threatening love. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Green Grass, Real Gone (remastered), Tom Waits (2004/2017) Green Green Grass Of Home, Green Green Grass Of Home, Tom Jones (1967) Green Grass, Real Gone (original), Tom Waits (2004) We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

Actor/musician David Ahmad joins Sam and Martin to discuss the religious material, consider the game-of-telephone lineage of folk classics, and celebrate this (perhaps overlooked) track of sorrow and loss. Note: we mention Mark Rylance this episode; between recording and release, his brother Jonathan was killed - sympathies from all of us for this loss. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Trampled Rose, Real Gone (remastered), Tom Waits (2004/2017) If It Wasn't For Dicky, Lead Belly: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection, Lead Belly (1941-47) Trampled Rose, Real Gone (original), Tom Waits (2004) We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

As EE Cummings said… 'damn everything but the circus'… although Dominic, Martin and Sam question whether this Circus deserves praise or damnation itself. We compare to other sections of Waits's work, as well as other real and fictional songs, plus the value of talking to strangers on night-buses. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Circus, Real Gone (remastered), Tom Waits (2004/2017) Moon Over Dog Street, single, Sour Sweet Tooth / Keith Sanders (2012) Circus, Real Gone (original), Tom Waits (2004) We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

Dominic is back with Sam and Martin, thinking about both the beauty and exploitation-of-beauty that this song contains, and considering how it compares with the traditions of murder ballads. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Dead and Lovely, Real Gone (remastered), Tom Waits (2004/2017) Long Black Veil, single, Jenny Owen Youngs (2017) Dead and Lovely, Real Gone (original), Tom Waits (2004) We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

Musician and theatre-maker Dominic Conway gets his dancing shoes on with Sam and Martin for a conversation about the sonic feel of this track, the lack of lyrical focus in this album, and dance instructionals of the early 2000s. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Metropolitan Glide, Real Gone (remastered), Tom Waits (2004/2017) Cha Cha Slide, Cha Cha Slide, DJ Casper (2004) Metropolitan Glide, Real Gone (original), Tom Waits (2004) We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

Waits returns to vignettes this week, as well as incomplete stories and the longing for closure, as Molly rejoins Sam and Martin to talk about how these stories relate to fiction, journalism, and apocalyptic love songs. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: How's It Gonna End, Real Gone (remastered), Tom Waits (2004/2017) The End Of The World, Skeeter Davis Sings The End Of The World, Skeeter Davis (1963) How's It Gonna End, Real Gone (original), Tom Waits (2004) We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

The dark history of a barn in Kentucky is Waits’s topic this week, as Molly, Sam and Martin examine how the story behind the barn relates to the Underground Railroad of the 1800. (Please note story is only metaphorically “behind the barn” - see local maps for geographical details) website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Don't Go Into That Barn, Real Gone (remastered), Tom Waits (2004/2017) Follow the Drinking Gourd, Songs of the Civil War, Richie Havens (1991) Don't Go Into That Barn, Real Gone (original), Tom Waits (2004) We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

We welcome writer, poet and theatre maker Molly Naylor, digging into the fractured narrative of Shake it with Martin and Sam. We unpick some of the hidden stories, discuss the tribute to Bill Hicks, and then hit the dance floor for a big party anthem! website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Shake It, Real Gone (remastered), Tom Waits (2004/2017) Hey Ya!, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, Outkast (2003) Shake It, Real Gone (original), Tom Waits (2004) We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

Three episodes of talking to Sam and Martin, and Shani is starting to check her watch, as Waits makes an exteeeeended exploration of generational trauma. Runtime does preoccupy our conversation, as well as density of imagery, hope for the future, and the logistics of bodies of water. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Sins of My Father, Real Gone (remastered), Tom Waits (2004/2017) Can't Blame The Youth, single, Peter Tosh (1972) Sins of My Father, Real Gone (original), Tom Waits (2004) We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

Groovy or bleak, polemic or afterparty, M.A.S.H or Generation Kill? Shani Erez rejoins Martin and Sam to look at the anthemic second track of Real Gone, exploring the anger of Waits, the song's effectiveness beyond its anti-war context, and the big remaster choices from 2017. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Hoist That Rag, Real Gone (remastered), Tom Waits (2004/2017) Shipbuilding, My Middle Name Is Misery, Ruth Dolores Weiss (2012) Hoist That Rag, Real Gone (original), Tom Waits (2004) We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

Season 21 launches into an opening track with surprising energy, as guest host Shani Erez joins Sam and Martin to climb the Real Gone mountain towards the top of that hill. The sonic qualities of this album, Waits's attitude to the stories he's telling, bawdy seafaring jokes about genetalia, and the utter delight of 1980s metal… it's a pretty standard episode really. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Top of the Hill, Real Gone (remastered), Tom Waits (2004/2017) Run To The Hills, The Number of the Beast, Iron Maiden (1982) Top of the Hill, Real Gone (original), Tom Waits (2004) We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.