Tom Waits Turns 70
The Man Behind the Myth
Published in Far Out Magazine, December 7th, 2019
It’s fitting to speak of Tom Waits in milestones, especially now that the gravel-throated luminary closes in on a new decade. Waits turns 70 this Saturday. It’s a milestone that caps off a year that featured the 20th anniversary of Mule Variations and a key part in Jim Jarmusch’s latest film The Dead Don’t Die.
Waits is one of those rare renaissance figures that, regardless of the time period or the story he’s stepping into, he brings heart, honesty, and truth to it. To casual fans and aficionados, it always feels like Waits is just playing himself, but that wasn’t always the case:
“I guess I’ve always lived upside down… I want things I can’t have. My wife thinks I have a syndrome called Reality Distortion Field. It’s kind of like drugs only you can’t come back from it. When I was a kid, I did want to be an old-timer. They were the ones with the big stories and the cool clothes and the great hats. I wanted to go there.” — Tom Waits in a 2011 NPR interview with Terry Gross
Waits has certainly gone there, and he’s taken us with him for the ride. He’s donned several hats along the way, too, as a musician and poet, performance artist, playwright, and actor. He was 29 when he took his first role as Mumbles, a lowlife barfly…
