Tom Waits’ Favorite Yiddish Curses

Woodcut of rocker Tom Waits. (Artwork by author)

Tom Waits is a street poet with a heart of tarnished brass. With a voice like broken tiles spinning in an old washing machine, Waits fuses the pathos of Louis Armstrong, the ramblings of Charles Bukowski and the earnestness of Bing Crosby.

In the 80s, Waits lived in the Tropicana Motel on Santa Monica Boulevard. He drove the streets of Hollywood in his blue Cadillac Coupe De Ville, his arm slung out the window holding a cigarette. He played music at the Troubadour or the Burbank Airport.

Waits once witnessed an altercation between local musicians and plainclothes police officers at Duke’s Coffee Shop in Hollywood. When he and his pal Chuck E. Weiss came to the aid of the musicians, Waits was roughed up and arrested. Waits subsequently won a $7,500 settlement against the Sheriff’s Department for false arrest and false imprisonment.

Tom Waits in his 1970 Cadillac.

Waits shopped for percussive instruments at hardware stores. He once fashioned a string instrument out of refuse from a dumpster by stretching piano strings across the top. He cites his musical influences as Bob Dylan, Captain Beefheart, Thelonious Monk, Leonard Cohen and Frank Sinatra…