Tom Waits’ work may be timeless, but it hasn’t stopped time from catching up to the songwriting legend. Today, 50 years into his illustrious career, Waits turns 75, and the icon continues to surprise, delight, and move audiences around the world.
There’s never any telling what Waits will do next, and that is part of what makes him such a singular talent. Earlier this fall, Waits quietly released never-before-heard material, including a previously unseen performance of “Tom Traubert’s Blues,” recorded for the Italian documentary The Human Factor, along with a moving reading of his poem Seeds on Hard Ground. The pieces, centered on homelessness and human resilience, are the perfect example of what draws fans to the living legend: a gravelly, urgent, and unmistakeable voice filled compassion.
Many noted how his delivery, even after all these years, feels as raw and evocative as it did in the smoky coffeehouses of the early 1970s, during the era of his debut album Closing Time. That record, released more than 50 years ago, set the tone for a career defined not by commercial polish, but by storytelling grit and emotional truth.
“I really wasn’t part of a scene. I didn’t want to be part of a scene,” Waits told GQ in 2009. “I wanted to take it all in—and then kind of, y’know, set it all on fire and see what remained. I didn’t really want to be part of a clique or a niche. But I also was looking for my own voice, as a writer, y’know? And a world I could call my own.”
Born in 1949 and raised all around Southern California, Waits didn’t just write music, he built worlds. Shadowy barrooms filled with the midnight confessions of restless drifters; these are scenes Waits painted through songs. Albums like Swordfishtrombones, Rain Dogs and Frank’s Wild Years toe the line of where rock meets jazz and redefined what a singer-songwriter could sound like. Fast forward to 2011 and Waits found himself a newly minted Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, inducted by none other than the equally legendary Neil Young.
Tom Waits is honored at the PEN/Song Lyrics Awards for Literary Excellence in 2016. (Photo by Paul Marotta/Getty Images)But, perhaps most surprising of all given his notoriously private persona, was Waits’ unexpected acting career. He appeared in over 30 films, including The Outsiders, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and The Book of Eli. He even worked alongside famed director, Francis Ford Coppola, in The Cotton Club, playing club owner Herman Stark.
“He died in 1981, in Florida. His brother Lewis Stark operated the cash register at the Cotton Club,” Waits told Interview Magazine in 1984. “Herman was areal show biz-type entrepreneur. He was the manager of the club, overseeing most of the club’s activities. Tuxedo, cigar. He answered only to Onie Madden, who was the owner of the club. He’s kind of a sheepdog in a tux.”
Unsurprisingly, Waits also became one of the most covered songwriters of the modern era. “Ol’ 55,” “Downtown Train,” “Jersey Girl,” and “I Hope That I Don’t Fall in Love With You” all found new lives through other artists, introducing his songwriting to new generations, who eventually worked backwards to discover the original.
At 75, Waits remains one of the most distinctive artists in American culture. He’s private but ever-present, predictable only in that no one knows what he’ll do next, and deeply beloved around the world. He is truly one-of-a-kind, and his birthday is a day surely worth celebrating.
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