1,199.) Sun Mar. 15, 2020

The Song of the Day is:

Tom Waits – “Step Right Up”

From the album Small Change (1976)

Step right up, step right up, step right up,
Everyone’s a winner, bargains galore
That’s right, you too can be the proud owner
Of the quality goes in before the name goes on
One-tenth of a dollar, one-tenth of a dollar, we got service after sales
You need perfume? we got perfume, how ’bout an engagement ring?
Something for the little lady, something for the little lady,
Something for the little lady, hmm
Three for a dollar

Tom Waits

We bought a car yesterday. It was pretty essential for my new job (come to think of it, I should be playing “Debra” by Beck -“Lady, step into my Hyundai”). I can’t say the salesmen were too bad, they were a little pushy, but I suppose you have to be, especially for a cheapskate like me. I have a hard time buying shoes because I know the kind of mileage I’ll be putting on them. A car? Forget about it. If it weren’t for my wife, I probably would have just spent a grand on a shitbox. For those tireless salesmen who kept the store open for us, I’m playing the complete sales bible in the form of “Step Right Up”. Tom Waits, such an undeniable icon, examines every nook, cranny and angle to sell “it” in this song. There is an undeniable vaudevillian quality to Tom Waits’ act, and essentially his whole personality. That quality is in full display in this song, which is almost better qualified as a skit. I kind of feel like someone was going to do a version of this song eventually, so I’m glad it was Tom Waits. This comes from his fourth album, and it was about five years before he discovered his junk band sound (let’s credit his wife Kathleen Brennan here for exposing him to the work of Captain Beefheart). Tom Waits was still very much in his folk troubadour phase here and earning comparisons to Bruce Springsteen, but songs like “Step Right Up” show his intent to deviate. Tom Waits was weird here, but in a few years stuff was about to get a lot weirder…and despite the high quality of his e in arly career, thank God for that.

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