Song Analysis 5 Tom Waits: Bad as Me

Tom Waits is 61 years old, and just released his 17^th studio album, “Bad as Me”. He is a smart, guttural, meticulous, sometimes vulnerable, bleak and comical artist. He has created a sound that matches his voice and lyrics, creating weird back-water characters of America, mad junk artsy experiments. He has created in himself a myth and a marvel.

Tom Waits has a voice that sounds like a seedy bar: it’s all smooth whisky and cigarettes, barking and hollering. Bad as Me is a sexy nasty track; Waits literally screams, “You’re the same kind of bad as me”, letting everything in his dirty soul loose, singing not just from the gut, but the lower intestines.

Full of attitude and wit, he sounds like a maniac as he compares two lovers: "You’re the head on the spear/ You’re the nail on the cross/ You’re the fly in my beer/ You’re the key that got lost/... I’m the blood on the floor/ The thunder and the roar/... You're the same kind of bad as me". It's an ode to a perfectly torrid love affair.

The song is a bluesy song that is raw and unnerving. The repetition of the chorus creates an almost sinister suffocating atmosphere.

The dragging, clattering blues beat, stabbing guitars, woozy saloon piano and bleating horns add to the unhinged characteristic of the narrator. The sound itself plays accomplice to the gritty unfolding in the song, Waits compares himself to his lover; creating vivid imagery with a mixture of old-timey and surreal.

Waits accuses his lover, putting her in her place opposite him, the same as him; not above him. They are cut from the same cloth. 

You're the head on the spear
You're the nail on the cross
You're the fly in my beer
You're the key that got lost

You're the letter from Jesus
On the bathroom wall
You're Mother Superior
With only a bra

You're the same, you're the same, you're the same 
Kinda bad as me
You're the same kinda bad as me

I'm the hat on the bed
I'm the coffee instead
I'm the fish or cut bait
I'm the detective of late
I'm the blood on the floor
The thunder and the roar
I'm the boat that won't sink
I just won't sleep a wink 

You're the same kinda bad as me
You're the same kinda bad as me
You're the same kinda bad as me.
You're the same kinda bad as me.

No good you say?
Ha ha
Well that's good enough for me

You're the the wreathe that caught fire
You're the pitch of the choir
You'd bite down on the sheet
But your teeth have been wired
You skid in the rain
You're trying to shift
You're grinding the gears 
You're trying to shift

And you're the same kinda bad as me
You're the same kinda bad as me
She's the same kinda bad as me
You're the same kinda bad as me

They told me you were no good
But I know you'll take care of all my needs
You're the same kinda bad as me

I'm the mattress in the back
I'm the old gunnysack
I'm the one with the gun
Most likely to run
I'm the car in the weeds
If you cut me I'll bleed

You're the same kinda bad as me
You're the same kinda bad as me

Same kinda bad as me
You're the same kinda bad as me
You're the same kinda bad as me

Uno, dos, tres, cuatro