Tom Waits and I are very close in age. This song, a train of childhood memories laces into an abstract pictures of growing up in the 1950s. It's particularly touching, especially as I had a friend with polio who wore braces. One day we planned to cut them off with a hacksaw. I suppose that was because we were age six, or maybe seven, and those braces kept our friend from the kinds of freedom we took for granted.
I can identify with this song. My grandmother lived next door to a boy I used to play with when we crossed town to visit her. Jimmy and I were the same age, but one day, I was told he couldn't come out to play. From that time on, I could see his hospital bed in their many-windowed sunroom. We had a sign-language, of sorts, but he was never able to come out and play again. It was late 40s, prime polio season, and the adults never told me what was wrong or why he died. I get the feeling that although Tom could wreak havoc on the neighborhood, he was the only one who was compassionate enough to be a true friend to the boy who is the subject of this song.
They say that learning a foreign language, especially a complicated one (like Japanese) changes your brain. That was what happened to me the first time I heard Tom Waits. It was the "Blue Valentines" album and music has never been the same.
Only Tom could weave a tale that brings you back and rips at the depths of your your soul at the same time. Timeless and incomparable. Peerless in the history of performers.
This is definitely biographical -- about a friend he had as a youth. I think many of us can identify with his emotion about his young friend as he describes the "antics" they can only dream of and how he wishes his friend weren't hindered by the shackles of polio. He even breaks down near the end when he can do nothing but continue on the piano chorus when he leaves out the line that he carved his initials on his arm with a rusty nail. Tom's heart is showing because in that moment it's breaking.
gotta say something in my poor english... there is no song out there that brings me to tears like this one. Don´t know exactly why, but the way he sings about his childhood is more intense to me than any lovesong could be. So whenever somebody asks me what my favourite song is or which one touches me the most, the answer is always "Kentucky Avenue". Since more than 20 years now.
Herb Felho Van Morrison has been known to say "It's not the words but the feeling behind them". Something like that. In this case it's both. He's also just a great teller of stories.
It's when he says/sings "I'll take those spokes from your wheelchair and a magpie's wings and I'll tie them to your shoulders and your feet....I'll steal a hacksaw from my dad, cut the braces off your legs and we'll bury them th'night out in the cornfield............" that tears out my heart
So its not just me that is reduced to tears every time they listen to this incredible song. Tom at his genius best, this will still stun folk in a thousand years time. Fantastic !!!
When I was a kid I wanted my cousin to see our tree fort. He had MD which I didn't understand so well. He kept saying don't do it.don't do it, but pushed his chair on .....and he fell out of the wheelchair. The next 15 minutes he spent SCREAMING "I hate you" "I hate you"....but you see I wanted him to see our tree fort....That's what this song reminds me of.
I had a friend with MS when I was young. Most the kids in the neighborhood didn't like him because he was an asshole. Which he admittedly was, but I mean you try being 11 when you start using a cane and by 14 your stuck in a wheelchair. I played video games with him, and raised hell round the neighborhood when I could sneak him out at night. He died just after he turned 16. I miss him. He didn't deserve the hand he was dealt. That's what this song reminds me of.
No one can match old Tom Waits. He was born, he came in 1949 to this world carrying something magic and diferent with his soul that no other human being can share with him. Yes, that is right, in his talent, in infinite sensitiveness and perception of really, Mr Tom Waits, the Guy from California, is lonelist guy in this planet. All my respect to you, Mr. Waits!
With this song Tom manages to completely focus the listener. There is nothing else happening. It's completely consuming. They used to talk about Miles Davis getting on stage in a club, aim that trumpet down, and play really quietly in a noisy club. He pulled all the energy of the room toward him....everybody shut up, and then there was nothing else heard besides him. He got your full attention. There was only THIS..
Spent most of my life being Bob Dylan....that was until I discovered Tom Waits.... You could read the words and be blown away, but when he sings it...and performs it.... I personally think no one comes close.....
Dad&Son Gamingworld: I so much agree. His is a unique and breathtaking talent. He wrote such amazingly and universally insightful lyrics and melodies, and different from anything else at the time. When I've introduced someone (usually younger than I) to his music, so many times he or she has asked, "So, what kind of music does he play, anyway?" The only reasonable answer I've been able to think of is, "He plays Tom Waits music."
Having grown up in Brooklyn in the 1950's, this song means so much to me. I've listened to Tom's Blue Valentine album more times than I can count and still cry every time I hear Kentucky Avenue.
I am shedding tears as i watch this clip of Kentucky Avenue. It is such a touching piece of work and it reminds me of people who i know and who i have lost along the way in my life. Tom waits is simply astounding!
Show me a 29-year old musician today, who has the ability to write something this fantastic! It's just so well-written, well-performed and heartfelt that it transcends mere singer/songwriting and becomes something higher, something deeper , something infinitely more beautiful. My undying love for Tom Waits is the only thing in life that I'm really sure of ...
Tom is a f@*#ing genius. He 's one of the few writers/musical artists that can plumb this depth of feeling and not turn it into a saccharine Hallmark special.
I Was Crying my eyes out in the front row; it was soooo beautiful. Tomee looked at me and said "Don't Let It Get To You!" all Raspy --been my motto for forty plus years.
Aw Tom.... this is you at your best. You said what I felt years back for a kid and I'm still that kid and I'll always feel it. If you don't feel a tear coming after this you got nothin' in your heart
Es difícil decir que es la mejor. En mi opinión también es la mejor de Tom. Y también lloro, desde luego, pero no por la tristeza de mi vida, sino por la belleza de la canción
Impossible to have a "favorite" Waits song, but this one packs an emotional wallop. He is a rare artist, capable of deep melancholy and humor sometimes in the same line. He and Ray Davies are my favorite songwriters.
Thanks 2 Tom one does not have 2 "suffer" in search of metaphors...he did it 4 me...or in stead...What a piece...what a poetry...what a music...what a genius ....
The song brings so many people back to place and time very relatable to this. EVERYTHING. Not every crime or nefarious act ….but I can attach a name to everyone of them. That’s the genius of a song writer. They know where we’ve all been.
"Growin' up". It's about empowerment. Here's the testimony of an adolescent cataloguing that which empowers boys of that age: a catalogue of mischief : breaking windows, smoking cigs', jumping off roofs, etc. But the real empowerment is love: the braggart loves a wheelchair bound friend who could never participate in such acts of empowerment on his own, so the braggart will take action to share such exploits with him, thus empowering his friend also. I can't stop weeping. Thank you Tom.
How do you choose, say, just ten masterpieces from the oeuvre of a prolific genius such as Waits? For me, this has always been in the top ten since I first heard it on 'Blue Valentine' in '78. A magnificent piece of nostalgic Americana, Tom at his lyrically evocative best, which is most of the time. And the title is so cryptic as well - it gives you no anticipation of the hidden theme within. Indescribable poignancy, a great artist at work.
In the days before ipods and CZcams, when getting access to music was much harder, many music lovers used to watch the The Old Grey Whistle Test on BBC2 to see what was new. I still remember being blown away when TW was first featured. I'd never heard of the guy before. It was the beginning of a very long love affair with his music.
heard this whispering to me through the speakers at a party one night, followed by somehwere ,had sufficient articulationto ask who was singin,and though gassed to the eyeballs went out and bought asylum years the next day, twenty years on, lost the album but not the memory of this song. thank you .
@EwolDJ You are so right................."indescribable poignancy" perfectly sums up the power within this song. I'm a cynical, 40 something, who should know better but this transports me to childhood, evoking images and memories and invariably reduces me to tears..........simply wonderful in every sense.
I had this on dvd. Forced to burn my belongings because my job made me homeless and I walked down a very lonely dark path. Almost murdered in January this year. A year later I'm a home owner, I left Dublin in Ireland and bought a house on an acre in Croatia after my inheritance came through. I want to homestead. I have a pregnant momma dog and her two pups. So many dreams.
I just found a skull and crossbones ring and I'm giving it to my X-wife 17 years too late. Thanks for this video, This song touched me in a way that left me changed.
I think if I was ever on Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4, this would be one of my choices. This isn't a song, it's a poem, a story, it captures your imagine of where he lived. The cornfield is so strong an image. Yes, the skull and cross bone ring! Is this a boy or a girl that he sings about? does it matter? No, it doesn't, it his friend!
Was not edited...Valid is just being a dick, trying to correct someone, who made something a bit more wordy than he had to, but it still made sense...Valid was just too dumb to comprehend it, and tried to make Stay at home brad, look bad...in order to make himself seem more intelligent...WAY TO GO DOUCHEBAG..You're whats wrong with the internet...End rant... :D
![TOM WAITS "On the Nickel" [LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN 1983]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/fi068_YlQvY/mqdefault.jpg)
![TOM WAITS "On the Nickel" [LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN 1983]](/img/tr.png)
"I was born at a very young age" went right over their heads
Tom Waits and I are very close in age. This song, a train of childhood memories laces into an abstract pictures of growing up in the 1950s. It's particularly touching, especially as I had a friend with polio who wore braces. One day we planned to cut them off with a hacksaw. I suppose that was because we were age six, or maybe seven, and those braces kept our friend from the kinds of freedom we took for granted.
This is the ONLY known video recording of Kentucky Avenue. Thanks for sharing.
I can identify with this song. My grandmother lived next door to a boy I used to play with when we crossed town to visit her. Jimmy and I were the same age, but one day, I was told he couldn't come out to play. From that time on, I could see his hospital bed in their many-windowed sunroom. We had a sign-language, of sorts, but he was never able to come out and play again.
It was late 40s, prime polio season, and the adults never told me what was wrong or why he died. I get the feeling that although Tom could wreak havoc on the neighborhood, he was the only one who was compassionate enough to be a true friend to the boy who is the subject of this song.
Quite simply one of the most beautiful songs ever written.
The best ❤️
They say that learning a foreign language, especially a complicated one (like Japanese) changes your brain. That was what happened to me the first time I heard Tom Waits. It was the "Blue Valentines" album and music has never been the same.
Same here buddy.
Simply golden. When he talks about those spokes and wings and wheal chairs i just about near cried myself silly!
I feel the same way. My life changed after I traded by copy of Alice in Chains' "Dirt" for "Small Change"
Tears at the end of this song , every time 😢
Just the same for me.....
Only Tom could weave a tale that brings you back and rips at the depths of your your soul at the same time. Timeless and incomparable. Peerless in the history of performers.
If Tom had only done this one song...he'd still be the best thing that ever happened to me in the last 35 years.
This is definitely biographical -- about a friend he had as a youth. I think many of us can identify with his emotion about his young friend as he describes the "antics" they can only dream of and how he wishes his friend weren't hindered by the shackles of polio. He even breaks down near the end when he can do nothing but continue on the piano chorus when he leaves out the line that he carved his initials on his arm with a rusty nail. Tom's heart is showing because in that moment it's breaking.
gotta say something in my poor english... there is no song out there that brings me to tears like this one.
Don´t know exactly why, but the way he sings about his childhood is more intense to me than any lovesong could be.
So whenever somebody asks me what my favourite song is or which one touches me the most, the answer is always "Kentucky Avenue". Since more than 20 years now.
Herb Felho Van Morrison has been known to say "It's not the words but the feeling behind them". Something like that. In this case it's both. He's also just a great teller of stories.
Herb Felho I feel the same way , it’s perfection. I have to hear it at least once a day.
Herb Felho yup.
It's when he says/sings "I'll take those spokes from your wheelchair and a magpie's wings and I'll tie them to your shoulders and your feet....I'll steal a hacksaw from my dad, cut the braces off your legs and we'll bury them th'night out in the cornfield............" that tears out my heart
Same. Thank you for saying so.
there's nothing like a Tom Waits binge for falling in love with an old song, for the first time.
i can understand this song i am also in a wheel chair with no legs thank you tom for this beautyful piece of music
I hope one day we can make you fly, so you never have to walk.
Love comes to us in many ways. To me, this is the most heartfelt way I've ever heard someone say... I love you.
Even after hearing this song 20,000 times give or take 5k, this song still manages to make me tear up...
So its not just me that is reduced to tears every time they listen to this incredible song. Tom at his genius best, this will still stun folk in a thousand years time. Fantastic !!!
Exactly sir...
I'm so glad someone else feels the same as me.
REPLY
Nobody can break my heart like Tom Waits being tender. No one.
One of his most underrated songs and one his best period.
By who's standard ?
@@crystalbluewire3339 Mine :)
After more or less 35 years still bring tears in my eyes....
best song ever, EVER, written about childhood, for us urbanites..
Beautiful - makes me yearn for a place I wasn't, a time that will never be, and a person I will never know. The Tom Waits Magic I suppose...
I know exactly what you mean
When I was a kid I wanted my cousin to see our tree fort. He had MD which I didn't understand so well. He kept saying don't do it.don't do it, but pushed his chair on .....and he fell out of the wheelchair. The next 15 minutes he spent SCREAMING "I hate you" "I hate you"....but you see I wanted him to see our tree fort....That's what this song reminds me of.
I had a friend with MS when I was young. Most the kids in the neighborhood didn't like him because he was an asshole. Which he admittedly was, but I mean you try being 11 when you start using a cane and by 14 your stuck in a wheelchair. I played video games with him, and raised hell round the neighborhood when I could sneak him out at night. He died just after he turned 16. I miss him. He didn't deserve the hand he was dealt.
That's what this song reminds me of.
@@faalonikdovah982 That’s rough man. It’s story’s like that that make me see how lucky the rest of us are.
This song is to be played at the celebration of my life... swear... it's in my will...
No one can match old Tom Waits. He was born, he came in 1949 to this world carrying something magic and diferent with his soul that no other human being can share with him. Yes, that is right, in his talent, in infinite sensitiveness and perception of really, Mr Tom Waits, the Guy from California, is lonelist guy in this planet. All my respect to you, Mr. Waits!
I'm not a American, and I don't fully understand lyric of this song
but I love this song and lyric
And feel how Tom waits have lived.
With this song Tom manages to completely focus the listener. There is nothing else happening. It's completely consuming. They used to talk about Miles Davis getting on stage in a club, aim that trumpet down, and play really quietly in a noisy club. He pulled all the energy of the room toward him....everybody shut up, and then there was nothing else heard besides him. He got your full attention. There was only THIS..
The most beautiful, sentimental & hopeless song i've heard. One of my alll all time favs!
god, it's a true "hairs on the back of your neck" song.... cannot get past the "magpies wings" lyric without a lump in my throat. just amazing.
every single time...
Its beautiful isn't it - I had tears in my eyes the first time I ever heard this.
This is my favourite song ever written. If I had one song to listen to before I passed away, this would be the song.
Spent most of my life being Bob Dylan....that was until I discovered Tom Waits.... You could read the words and be blown away, but when he sings it...and performs it.... I personally think no one comes close.....
Daniel Marchant the same here
Daniel Marchant Nobody is remotely close. What a breath of fresh air.
Dad&Son Gamingworld: I so much agree. His is a unique and breathtaking talent. He wrote such amazingly and universally insightful lyrics and melodies, and different from anything else at the time. When I've introduced someone (usually younger than I) to his music, so many times he or she has asked, "So, what kind of music does he play, anyway?" The only reasonable answer I've been able to think of is, "He plays Tom Waits music."
D&S: Tom surpasses Dylan by lightyears.
Dylan gets all the kudos...I think Waits should.
Tom walks a path nobody can follow. In a world of x factored dross he shines like a diamond. Bless you Tom. Thanks for the music.
Having grown up in Brooklyn in the 1950's, this song means so much to me. I've listened to Tom's Blue Valentine album more times than I can count and still cry every time I hear Kentucky Avenue.
This is my fave tom song, always makes me cry at the end
The finest Tom Waits song Ever. And there's so, so many. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOM FOR 7th DEC 08 59yrs. Sorry, mate, no secrets in the world any longer!
Tom waits, "don't talk to strangers" 1979
one year after the release of "blue valentine"
god bless
I am shedding tears as i watch this clip of Kentucky Avenue. It is such a touching piece of work and it reminds me of people who i know and who i have lost along the way in my life. Tom waits is simply astounding!
During the worse days/moments, this song is always the warm arms that provide comfort.
Each and every time I hear this song I'm 10yrs old again with my 8 and a half year old brother Dave. I'm transported... true genius. Thanks Tom
One of the saddest, and most moving songs ever written.
I love this man.
i tried cohen, i tried cave, i tried dylan... but i always come back to old tom....
you're awesome!
Yep, you've got it. One of the most brilliant songs ever written.
he could write the best xmas songs ever
Well you're in for a real treat
czcams.com/video/mxVo5mjK4eg/video.html
OMG! U just burst me into tears...I´m an old man and u just made me remeber true love..
One of my favourite Tom Waits songs. I just love this performance.
only a few songs you will ever hear in your life will make time stand still.....this is one of them
i love and adore tom waits this song never fails to reduce me to a weeping wreck fantastic.
this is most special. Means something to anybody that grew up with disabled siblings. The only guy who ever spoke to me. f. sympathy d. duh.
such a touching song, captures the essence of childhood very well
This artist is so unique. This song never fails to send copious tears from my eyes.
I'm so glad someone else feels the same as me.
I just love the way that the comments on Tom waits songs are as poetic and emotional as his songs x 💕💕💕💕
Haha exactly.. absolutely love them, including yours :)
Show me a 29-year old musician today, who has the ability to write something this fantastic! It's just so well-written, well-performed and heartfelt that it transcends mere singer/songwriting and becomes something higher, something deeper , something infinitely more beautiful.
My undying love for Tom Waits is the only thing in life that I'm really sure of ...
Tom is a f@*#ing genius. He 's one of the few writers/musical artists that can plumb this depth of feeling and not turn it into a saccharine Hallmark special.
He has been breaking my heart since I saw him in a tiny venue in Toronto in 1976.
+Mary Gowdy Ngai
You've been very lucky Mary, i wish i was there too, in that tiny venue in 1976.
I Was Crying my eyes out in the front row; it was soooo beautiful. Tomee looked at me and said "Don't Let It Get To You!" all Raspy --been my motto for forty plus years.
says everything...
lucky Mary Gowdy Ngai
Mary Gowdy Ngai OMG! I only was born in 1976, but love Tom so much!
Aw Tom.... this is you at your best. You said what I felt years back for a kid and I'm still that kid and I'll always feel it. If you don't feel a tear coming after this you got nothin' in your heart
My favourite love song makes me cry
Es difícil decir que es la mejor. En mi opinión también es la mejor de Tom. Y también lloro, desde luego, pero no por la tristeza de mi vida, sino por la belleza de la canción
Impossible to have a "favorite" Waits song, but this one packs an emotional wallop. He is a rare artist, capable of deep melancholy and humor sometimes in the same line. He and Ray Davies are my favorite songwriters.
i would have never thought that tom was born in a very young age
This song always makes me wanna help someone out who might be having hard times...
Best Song Ever...
Same for me buddy. Him forgetting the words makes it even more real in weird way.
@Mightyplayer how true, i am 50 and came across tom when i was 18. i am devoted, this song kills me i love it to the core
Thanks 2 Tom one does not have 2 "suffer" in search of metaphors...he did it 4 me...or in stead...What a piece...what a poetry...what a music...what a genius ....
The song brings so many people back to place and time very relatable to this. EVERYTHING. Not every crime or nefarious act ….but I can attach a name to everyone of them. That’s the genius of a song writer. They know where we’ve all been.
"I'll take the spokes from your wheelchair and a magpies wings, and I'll time em' to your shoulders and your feet" gives me chills everytime
One of my favourite songs of all time!
"Growin' up". It's about empowerment. Here's the testimony of an adolescent cataloguing that which empowers boys of that age: a catalogue of mischief : breaking windows, smoking cigs', jumping off roofs, etc. But the real empowerment is love: the braggart loves a wheelchair bound friend who could never participate in such acts of empowerment on his own, so the braggart will take action to share such exploits with him, thus empowering his friend also.
I can't stop weeping. Thank you Tom.
msirt beautifully put my friend.
Such a beautifully constructed tune
You are definitely not weird. You love music. Tom is one of the best.
One of the greatest songs ever
can't listen to this without crying, and I still listen to it.
poetry, music, mixed togheter: we can't ask anything else to an artist.
and Tom is such an Artist
It's one of the deepest Waits Songs.... Great, beautyful and fragile.... unbelievable
How do you choose, say, just ten masterpieces from the oeuvre of a prolific genius such as Waits? For me, this has always been in the top ten since I first heard it on 'Blue Valentine' in '78. A magnificent piece of nostalgic Americana, Tom at his lyrically evocative best, which is most of the time. And the title is so cryptic as well - it gives you no anticipation of the hidden theme within. Indescribable poignancy, a great artist at work.
I truly don't believe there are any similar artists. He is one of a kind. A genius.
Beverly I hope you are still around. If you are I so agree with you.
unmathcatchable. This is the kind of piece that leaves you without words to properly represent it.
In the days before ipods and CZcams, when getting access to music was much harder, many music lovers used to watch the The Old Grey Whistle Test on BBC2 to see what was new. I still remember being blown away when TW was first featured. I'd never heard of the guy before. It was the beginning of a very long love affair with his music.
My favourite song x
This is one of my favorite songs of Tom's.. It is truly written the heart... and some dear childhood memories.
heard this whispering to me through the speakers at a party one night, followed by somehwere ,had sufficient articulationto ask who was singin,and though gassed to the eyeballs went out and bought asylum years the next day, twenty years on, lost the album but not the memory of this song. thank you .
Best Tom Waits Song !!
the best romance song ever written! ***** AWESOME
@EwolDJ You are so right................."indescribable poignancy" perfectly sums up the power within this song. I'm a cynical, 40 something, who should know better but this transports me to childhood, evoking images and memories and invariably reduces me to tears..........simply wonderful in every sense.
This is my TW jam.
@MrDiederikDuck everytime I hear this song, always bring me to tears...
Helena, for you - a thousand times over.
Tom Waits for President ...
Gets ma vote ...
Danny Green sent me This..man did I cry for JoythiisiLtove(it hits the mark) Biggest Love imaginable. Mathebag
I had this on dvd. Forced to burn my belongings because my job made me homeless and I walked down a very lonely dark path. Almost murdered in January this year.
A year later I'm a home owner, I left Dublin in Ireland and bought a house on an acre in Croatia after my inheritance came through. I want to homestead. I have a pregnant momma dog and her two pups. So many dreams.
I just found a skull and crossbones ring and I'm giving it to my X-wife 17 years too late. Thanks for this video, This song touched me in a way that left me changed.
As Herb so beautifully put it, tears are the only possible response.
I love the way his lyrics seem to be taking you down a certain path and then all of a sudden they bitch slap you until you cry like a baby.
I think if I was ever on Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4, this would be one of my choices. This isn't a song, it's a poem, a story, it captures your imagine of where he lived. The cornfield is so strong an image. Yes, the skull and cross bone ring! Is this a boy or a girl that he sings about? does it matter? No, it doesn't, it his friend!
A new insight into Tom. He was a paperboy, i was too. i been lookin for K.A. finally....
this is absolutely precious.
one of my favourites :)
This tune is beautiful. One of my favourites
Kentucky Ave., a heart resurrected from the dirt, brushed off and found still of value. Sad that be buried it in the first place. LovingWill.
This is my favorite song. It has so many references to my childhood.
me too peace
Genius. Its an overused term......bit not for tom waits.
Outstanding!
This is one of the first of his songs I ever heard and it's one of my favorites!
How is it not?
"one of the first *OF HIS SONGS*" is what I read here. Was it edited?
Was not edited...Valid is just being a dick, trying to correct someone, who made something a bit more wordy than he had to, but it still made sense...Valid was just too dumb to comprehend it, and tried to make Stay at home brad, look bad...in order to make himself seem more intelligent...WAY TO GO DOUCHEBAG..You're whats wrong with the internet...End rant... :D