Wild Years: The Music and Myth of Tom Waits
by Jay S. Jacobs
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jay S. JacobsEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-05-28
ISBN: 1550227165
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: ECW Press
Book Reviews of Wild Years: The Music and Myth of Tom Waits
Book Review: Can you really write good biography of Tom Waits?
Summary: 3 Stars
To really answer that question, one should first ask himself why shouldn't it be possible? After all, even a "living myth" like Tom Waits is actually a real person. Born and raised, breathing and drinking (more drinking than breathing I should think :), so it would be perfectly possible for anyone, with enough acces to data, to write a biogrpahy of Tom Waits. But what kind of biography that would be, and would it actually put some light on his songs? My answer is, however you will judge it, as that you cannot.
But Jacobs tried as best as he could.
To write about Waits is to write about every character ever portrayed in any of his songs. Every one has it's own story, however sad, drunken, miserable or, eventually, happy character it actually is. and writing stories about one life is hard enough in itself. And Waits is as real as his characters and his songs are. To forget about them means concetrating about factography of Waits's life, and every factography is boring as hell without some kind of story to support it. Starting that story puts one in a risky state, in which he may find himself not being able to finish what he started.
And this is exactly what happened to Jacobs. Somwhere along the way, he loses the perspective and starts to talk about Waits in a manner of a hardcore fan. Finding himself lost, not being able to return himself to a storyline that he left behind, Jacobs loses his critical perspective and starts to make out statements like "very good" "best" "legendary" without any manner of backing up those words. Whole biography suddenly starts to be too much factual and thing dissolves in itself. Magic of Tom Waits is lost.
One useful thing, though, is a helpful discography of Tom Waits's records which can help one alot if he tries to collect all of it. But even so, that can hardly be reason for buying a book...
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