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Waits, Tom - Blue Valentines
Identifier
021864
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
The album Blue Valentine (1978) displayed Waits's biggest musical departure to date, with much more focus on electric guitar and keyboards than on previous albums and hardly any strings (with the exception of album-opener "Somewhere" – a cover of Leonard Bernstein's song from West Side Story – and "Kentucky Avenue") for a darker, more blues-oriented sound. The song "Blue Valentines" was also unique for Waits in that it featured a desolate arrangement of solo electric guitar played by Ray Crawford, accompanied by Waits' vocal. Around this time, Waits had a relationship with Rickie Lee Jones (who appears on the sleeve art of the Blue Valentine album).
A description of the experience
Tom Waits - Blue Valentines
She sends me blue valentines
all the way from philadelphia
to mark the anniversary
of someone that I used to be
and it feels just like there's
a warrant out for my arrest
got me checkin' in my rearview mirrror
and I'm always on the run
thats why I change my name
and I didn't think you'd ever find me here
to send me blue valentines
like half forgotten dreams
like a pebble in my shoe
as I walk these streets
and the ghost of your memory
is the thistle in the kiss
and the burgler that that can break a roses neck
it's the tattooed broken promise
that I hide beneath my sleeve
and I see you every time I turn my back
she sends me blue valentines
though I try to remain at large
they're insisting that our love
must have a culogy
why do I save all of this madness
in the nightstand drawer
there to haunt upon my shoulders
baby I know
I'd be luckier to walk around everywhere I go
with a blind and broken heart
that sleeps beneath my lapel
she sends me blue valentines
to remind me of my cardinal sin
I can never wash the guilt
or get these bloodstains off my hands
and it takes a lot of whiskey
to make these nightmares go away
and I cut my bleedin' heart out every nite
and I die a little more on each st. valentine day
remember that I promised I would
write you...
these blue valentines
blue valentines
blue valentines