Small Change

Image source: Wikipedia

One of the more interesting thing I used to love about music and albums, in particular, was the album cover itself. Take the above image for Tom Waits' album "Small Change".  I think it says just as much about the man and the music as the stuff that plays on the record. And how cool is it that the nearly naked woman posing as the bored dancer in the background is most likely Cassandra Peterson.  She of Elvira fame, of course.  She's not credited on the album, nor has she ever fully verified it. But she admits that it sure does look like her, and that was a time and place in her life when she doesn't really, ahem, remember exactly everything that went down.  Cool, huh?

In honor of the lovely and talented Mistress of the Dark, here's a little Tom Scat for ya.

Pasties and a G String

by Tom Waits

Smelling like a brewery,

looking like a tramp

I ain't got a quarter

got a postage stamp

Been five o'clock shadow boxing

all around the town

Talking with the old men

sleeping on the ground

Bazanti bootin

al zootin al hoot

and Al Cohn

sharin this apartment

with a telephone pole

and it's a fish-net stockings

spike-heel shoes

Strip tease, prick tease

car kease blues

and the porno floor show

live nude girls

dreamy and creamy

and the brunette curls

Chesty Morgan and a

Watermelon Rose

raise my rent and take off

all your clothes

with the trench coats

magazines bottle full of rum

she's so good, it make

a dead man cum, with

pasties and a g-string

beer and a shot

Portland through a shot glass

and a Buffalo squeeze

wrinkles and cherry

and twinky and pinky

and FeFe live from Gay Paree

fanfares rim shots

back stage who cares

all this hot burlesque for me

cleavage, cleavage thighs and hips

from the nape of her neck

to the lip stick lips

chopped and channeled

and lowered and louvered

and a cheater slicks

and baby moons

she's hot and ready

and creamy and sugared

and the band is awful

and so are the tunes

crawlin on her belly shakin like jelly

and I'm getting harder than

Chinese algebraziers and cheers

from the compendium here

hey sweet heart they're yellin for more

squashing out your cigarette butts

on the floor

and I like Shelly

you like Jane

what was the girl with the snake skins name

it's an early bird matinee

come back any day

getcha little sompin

that cha can't get at home

getcha little sompin

that cha can't get at home

pasties and a g-string

beer and a shot

Portland through a shot glass

and a Buffalo squeeze

popcorn, front row

higher than a kite

and I'll be back tomorrow night

and I'll be back tomorrow night