"The ghosts of Saturday night" : Tom Waits and his relationship to American culture
Date
1998
Authors
Hutson, Anna Elizabeth
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Abstract
This thesis examines Tom Waits' changing relationship with American culture. It identifies and chronicles three phases of his career.
1. His use of certain identifiable American images, both in his music and his personae, in order to evoke nostalgia. This period is strongly characterised by the obvious influence of the Beat writers, specifically Jack Kerouac.
2. A transitory and experimental phase. During this period, he released a trilogy, the postmodern tone which runs through this work afforded him the detachment necessary to help him to break free of his self-created neo-Beat image.
3. This period can be seen as the culmination and combination of the two prior stages. While he is decrying the state of America on Bone Machine, he is doing so in a specifically American form, the jeremiad. The form thus contradicts the text.
This thesis will show that while his treatment of America changed, dependent upon personal and cultural shifts, his focus was unerringly on American culture.
All lyrical quotations have been copied exactly, when possible, from the liner notes. Otherwise, !me breaks have been inserted according to the singer's phrasing.