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: 6 days 3 hours 32 minutes
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episode 1: Somewhere (from West Side Story), Blue Valentine, Tom Waits [056]
A trip to the musicals for this first episode on Blue Valentine, as Martin and Sam are joined by Caspar Salmon and Elizabeth Sankey to discuss another of Waits's rare covers. The (perhaps inevitable) comparisons between this and other versions of...
Blue Valentine Series Teaser [055a]
Season Six of Song by Song features Blue Valentines Elizabeth Sankey and Caspar Salmon from High Brow Low Brow, Jen Adamthwaite and Dave Pickering from The Family Tree, and Kit Lovelace from Romantic Misadventures. We'll be back on November 16th, so...
episode 9: Foreign Affair, Foreign Affairs, Tom Waits [055]
It's the conclusion of another album and another season, as Martin, Sam, Sam and Simon discuss the thematic oppositions between this final track and the themes and ethos of the rest of Foreign Affairs. Song by Song is Martin Zaltz Austwick and Sam...
episode 8: Barber Shop, Foreign Affairs, Tom Waits [054]
The four-part harmony-group of Martin, Simon and two Sams wanders in for a quick short back and sides as Tom Waits visits Mr Snip-Snip-Snip for this penultimate track of Foreign Affairs. The variety of this album, the beauty/technicality of...
episode 7: Burma-Shave, Foreign Affairs, Tom Waits [053]
This week on Song by Song Martin, two Sams and a Simon head out onto the wide open roads of America to examine possibly one of the strongest songs on Foreign Affairs, with discussion of the origins of the Burma Shave advertising campaign, the...
episode 6: Potter's Field, Foreign Affairs, Tom Waits [052]
Joined by Sam Clements and Simon Renshaw, Sam and Martin dive into the pomp and bluster of the orchestral stylings of Potter’s Field. With the musical and lyrical setting clearly placed in the world of noir, we examine this song and its explicit...
episode 5: A Sight For Sore Eyes, Foreign Affairs, Tom Waits [051]
With some disagreement and friction, Martin and Sam discuss some of the musical borrowings and stylistic repetitions in this track from Foreign Affairs. Debating cliche, originality and their place in pop music, as well as Mary Hopkins’s...
episode 4: Medley - Jack & Neal/California, Here I Come, Foreign Affairs, Tom Waits [050]
Song by Song reaches its fiftieth episode as Waits returns to one of his greatest influences, the beat poets. With mixed feelings, Sam and Martin discuss extreme vocal styling (and its overuse) as a storytelling tool, the value (or lack thereof) of...
episode 3: I Never Talk To Strangers, Foreign Affairs, Tom Waits [049]
The regular duet of Sam and Martin explore one of the few vocal collaborations Waits includes on his studio albums, with this piano-bar seduction of (and by) Bette Midler. The verbatim nature of the lyrics, the locating nature of music, and...
episode 2: Muriel, Foreign Affairs, Tom Waits [048]
Dreaming of a(nother) girl who left him, Tom Waits returns to mournful yearning for the second track of Foreign Affairs. Martin and Sam continue discussing the possible influences on this song through the person of Edie Adams and Muriel cigars, as...