Tom Waits - Black Market Baby Lyrics

A ticket back to Spain is such a well thought sweet compliment

Drugs are such an ersatz life. Ersatz as in imitation and a very cheap one at that. Diamond as coal and a moth thinking a light bulb is the moon. These are brilliant metaphors. Tom is a genius in his craft and I can't get enough of him.

Never heard a blues with whales singing in the background before. That's clever, I always thought whales singing were kind of creepy.

it's a trumpet

@eelabob
It's both.
Mark Reichman sampled Whalesong for this.

Not only is he the best songwriter since the 30's, but he's also a musician, which has a lot to do with why he's the best songwriter since the 30's. Love his lyrics, love his music. Wish he didn't try to white guy singing the blues thing, but some things have to be forgiven.

Moth mistakes a light bulb for the moon and goes to hell!! Come on there's been nothing like this for awhile now I keep trying new but come back to the old!

In an interview with Magnet (June-July 1999), Tom Waits
admitted that a line in "Black Market Baby" was inspired by Arquette.
His wife observed of Paticia Arquette, "She's a bonsai Aphrodite".

I can imagine this guy being a cool mellow boxcar Willie wino like we used to see in much simpler days in the small towns with train tracks such as Moberly and La Plata, Missouri. These guys where shunned out of mostly being Vietnam veterans feeling shame, but they're just humans seeking freedom instead of debt slavery, war for profit, hypocrisy, propaganda, and fiat currency banks that only destroy freedom, democracy, and liberty while only allowing a tiny marginal population of whiny spoiled aristocrats, most often Machiavellian destructive deceptive sociopaths, entitled to full freedoms and lots of power.

Scott Bixler o"' pol

except he's talented famous and rich

Black Market Baby
She lives in a house
that's way back off the road
There's a man with a lantern
and he carries her soul
A coal stove and a bed
A skillet and a hound
She drove a camel through
A needle
In this sinking board walk town

She's my Black Market baby
She's my Black Market baby
She's a diamond that
wants to stay coal
wants to stay coal

I swang out wide with her
on hells iron gate
Anything that you wanted
you could have
My eyes say their prayers to her
sailors ring her bell
Like a moth mistakes a light bulb
For the moon and goes to hell

She's my Black Market baby
She's my Black Market baby
She's a diamond that
wants to stay coal
wants to stay coal

There's no prayer like desire
There's amnesia in her kiss
She's a swan and a pistol
and she will follow you like this
In Moberly, Missouri at the
Iroquois Hotel
She checked in with the President
and she ran up quite a Bill

She's whiskey in a teacup
She gives blondes a lousy name
She's a Bonzai Aphrodite
and a ticket back to Spain
She's a hard way to go
and there ain't no way
to stop
Every time you play the red
the black is coming up

She's my Black Market baby
She's my Black Market baby
She's a diamond that
Wants to stay coal
Wants to stay coal

for the roses

damn, this would be the best soundtrack for a noir film

El nostre noir film

Thank me when you make this noir film, you are talking of.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbe5CQEG74w

NON PENSO CHE SIA NORMALE QUESTA CANZONE!

Some of the most clever lyrics ever:  "She drove a camel through a needle in this sinking boardwalk town".

@Tanya S "A moth misakes a lightbulb for the moon and goes to hell"

@Tanya S A sock mistakes an odor for a scent and starts to smell.

+Joe Horizon Yeah, that's my favorite.

Best song writer ever in my opinion. Why? Because he doesn't patronize the listener's imagination with grade school clarity. Instead he paints a picture and lets you be an artist, creating layers upon layers of nuances, aside from the music. And he's edgy as hell, the way art should be. Otherwise it's simply misrepresenting the human spirit. 

exactly!

Hear-fucking-hear! Well said.

JackTheRipper677 my favorite album as a whole masterpiece!

JackTheRipper677 you're gay? All you had to say

He wrote many of his songs with Kathleen Brennan his wife I believe starting with Swordfish Trombones. I don't think she plays an instrument so her help is probably mostly with lyrics.

"Every time you play the red the black is coming up..." And who ever wants to play the black? Funny thing about Tom is that, in a way, his music is as if he is trying to scare people away. But, then, gotta feel sorry for those that don't see the scarecrow's welcome.

she is!