Song by Song is a podcast celebrating the music of Tom Waits, hosted by podcaster-musician Martin Zaltz Austwick and actor-musician Sam Pay. Sam and Martin set themselves the goal of listening to Tom Waits’s back catalogue from beginning to end, and devoting an episode to discussing each track. Song by Song is in no way officially linked to Tom Waits, or endorsed by Tom Waits, or associates. All excerpts are used for criticism purposes - please purchase your own copies of the music at your favourite shop, app, or platform to get the full experience and support musicians' work.
http://songbysong.libsyn.com/website
Gesamtlänge aller Episoden: 4 days 21 hours 11 minutes
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episode 15: Clang Boom Steam, Real Gone, Tom Waits [328]
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...
episode 14: Baby Gonna Leave Me, Real Gone, Tom Waits [327]
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...
episode 13: Green Grass, Real Gone, Tom Waits [326]
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...
episode 12: Trampled Rose, Real Gone, Tom Waits [325]
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;...
episode 11: Circus, Real Gone, Tom Waits [324]
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...
episode 10: Dead and Lovely, Real Gone, Tom Waits [323]
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...
episode 9: Metropolitan Glide, Real Gone, Tom Waits [322]
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:...
episode 8: How's it Gonna End, Real Gone, Tom Waits [321]
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...
episode 7: Dont Go Into That Barn, Real Gone, Tom Waits [320]
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...
episode 6: Shake It, Real Gone, Tom Waits [319]
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!...