{"id":5649,"date":"2025-06-08T09:08:48","date_gmt":"2025-06-08T13:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=5649"},"modified":"2025-06-08T09:08:43","modified_gmt":"2025-06-08T13:08:43","slug":"drunk-on-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/drunk-on-the-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"Drunk on the Moon (Tom Waits)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Drunk on the Moon (Tom Waits)\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ddXzK6NpVDA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>A touch of early Tom Waits, and an apt follow-up to last week&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/ace-in-the-hole\/\">Ace in the Hole<\/a>,&#8221; with a similar blend of hipster slang and nostalgie de la boue. When I headed off to Europe at age 18, I had two or three Waits cuts on the handful of cassettes I brought with me. I wasn&#8217;t really equipped to learn them, <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-5713\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Tom-Waits-at-news-stand-e1745534107462.jpg?resize=245%2C243&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"245\" height=\"243\" \/>since in those days I was easily confused by any song with more than a basic I-IV-V or circle of fifths chord pattern, but I have a keen memory of spending a late night in Paris working out the chords to &#8220;Drunk on the Moon&#8221; &#8212; not that I got them right, but it was a memorable attempt.<\/p>\n<p>I lived in Paris off and on over several years, staying with a woman who had been a grad student of my mom&#8217;s &#8212; she let me sleep on a mattress in the living room of her small apartment on Rue du P\u00e8re Corentin, near Porte d&#8217;Orl\u00e9ans,\u00a0 and I did the cooking and read a bunch of her books, including medieval history, psychology, and other stuff I would not have read in another situation but am grateful to have explored. It was a relaxed, comfortable situation, and that apartment was a regular base as I moved between summers in northern Europe and winters in Spain, Italy, and North Africa.<\/p>\n<p>I was indulging in romantic fantasies shared by a lot of rambling young folks in that period, inspired by legends of Woody Guthrie, Hemingway, and all sorts of other characters who lived hobo or boho lives and nourished themselves on whiskey and <em>nostalgie de la boue<\/em>. <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-5721 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/TheHeartofSaturdayNight.jpg?resize=251%2C251&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"251\" height=\"251\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/TheHeartofSaturdayNight.jpg?w=300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/TheHeartofSaturdayNight.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 251px) 100vw, 251px\" \/>Waits was an obvious avatar, slouching drunkenly around the stage in a cloud of cigarette smoke, mumbling disjointed verses, or fingering slow jazz tunes on an upright piano, his lyrics limning the lives of small-time hustlers, hookers, diner waitresses, petty criminals, and other creatures of the urban night.<\/p>\n<p>There was an off-hand, half-formed quality to a lot of his lyrics, as if he was improvising them as he went along, and I spent a few nights improvising my own songs into a cassette recorder, under his spell and fueled by a liberal infusion of alcohol. I remember one effort that began:<\/p>\n<p><em>I know I&#8217;m drunk today, was drunk yesterday too,<br \/>\nI know it&#8217;s my own problem, got nothing to do with you.<br \/>\nIt ain&#8217;t because you left me that I&#8217;m feeling this way,<br \/>\nThough I ain&#8217;t saying it wouldn&#8217;t have been different if you&#8217;d stayed&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I hadn&#8217;t yet been seriously involved with a woman, had no memories to fit that lyric, but hell, I was a rambling musician, drinking deeply and wandering the night-time streets of Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Budapest, Copenhagen&#8230; a romantic character in my own mind and playing the part convincingly for people who led more prosaic lives.<\/p>\n<p>In keeping with the rest of this series, I&#8217;m playing this song as I remember it. I&#8217;m sure the chords aren&#8217;t exactly what Waits played, though they&#8217;re certainly closer than what I figured out in my teens, and the lyrics include some words and phrases I misheard and some that have evolved in my memory, as well as some I may have heard right, but wonder about, like the line I hear as &#8220;Come schemers and dancers, chary the light,&#8221; meaning, to me, seeking the comfort of darkness &#8212; the internet experts transcribe the last bit as &#8220;cherry delight,&#8221; which it surely isn&#8217;t, and prove they aren&#8217;t reliable by following with &#8220;I&#8217;ve hawked all my yesterdays,&#8221; which obviously should read &#8220;I&#8217;ve hocked all my yesterdays,&#8221; a perfect Waits phrase.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway&#8230; I can still picture myself learning this late at night in that Paris apartment, a soft glow coming through the glass doors leading to the balcony, cross-legged on my mattress on the floor, my guitar in my lap, whispering along in an approximation of Waits&#8217;s midnight rasp so as not to bother my host, and pleasantly drunk on French wine and moonlight.<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-5799\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/56-rue-du-Pere-Corentin-e1749001491356.png?resize=474%2C312&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"474\" height=\"312\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/56-rue-du-Pere-Corentin-e1749001491356.png?w=544&amp;ssl=1 544w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/56-rue-du-Pere-Corentin-e1749001491356.png?resize=300%2C197&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A touch of early Tom Waits, and an apt follow-up to last week&#8217;s &#8220;Ace in the Hole,&#8221; with a similar blend of hipster slang and nostalgie de la boue. When I headed off to Europe at age 18, I had two or three Waits cuts on the handful of cassettes I brought with me. I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/drunk-on-the-moon\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Drunk on the Moon (Tom Waits)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Drunk on the Moon (Tom Waits) - Old Friends: A Songobiography<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An old favorite from Tom Waits, with recollections of learning it during a youthful period in Paris and other late-night musings.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/drunk-on-the-moon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Drunk on the Moon (Tom Waits) - Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An old favorite from Tom Waits, with recollections of learning it during a youthful period in Paris and other late-night musings.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/drunk-on-the-moon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-06-08T13:08:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Tom-Waits-at-news-stand-e1745534107462.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"302\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"300\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/drunk-on-the-moon\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/drunk-on-the-moon\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Elijah Wald\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"headline\":\"Drunk on the Moon (Tom Waits)\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-06-08T13:08:48+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/drunk-on-the-moon\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":705,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/drunk-on-the-moon\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/02\\\/Tom-Waits-at-news-stand-e1745534107462.jpg\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/drunk-on-the-moon\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/drunk-on-the-moon\\\/\",\"name\":\"Drunk on the Moon (Tom Waits) - 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They were mostly jazz, in my memory, though my sister remembers the Commodores and Wild Cherry,\u00a0 and included Waits's Small Change, which made sense,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Waits-Small-Change-LP-1-e1749597079673.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5822,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/through-the-mill\/","url_meta":{"origin":5649,"position":1},"title":"Run You Through the Mill (Bill Morrissey)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"August 24, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Bill wrote a lot of mill-town songs, and in an odd mental disconnect I always put \"Run You Through the Mill\" in that context, imagining him and the woman racing each other through one of the big brick mill buildings along the river in Newmarket, New Hampshire; maybe the same\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Bill-Morrissey-LP-e1755542910821.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2627,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/king-jelly\/","url_meta":{"origin":5649,"position":2},"title":"King Jelly&#8217;s Good Morning Irene Song (Bill Morrissey)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"March 11, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"So there I was opening for Mose Allison at Palms Playhouse in Davis, California, back in 1983, and I wanted to play something appropriate for his audience and obviously couldn't fall back on \"Everybody Cryin' Mercy...\" so I turned to Bill Morrissey. Bill was one of my closest friends at\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Elijah-Wald-rayograph-blog.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2230,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/texas-blues\/","url_meta":{"origin":5649,"position":3},"title":"Texas Blues (Bill Morrissey)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"December 17, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"This is another song I did at that Passim Coffeehouse show in March 1983. I had just got my first mention in the Boston Globe, where Jeff McLaughlin called me \"a superb fingerpicker and distinctive singer\" -- \"distinctive\" being a word reviewers use when they're aware of problems but trying\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"jeff-mclaughlin","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Jeff-McLaughlin-196x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4299,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/blood-red-moon\/","url_meta":{"origin":5649,"position":4},"title":"Blood Red Moon (Dave Van Ronk)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"April 11, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"This was the title song of Dave's Going Back to Brooklyn LP and inspired the cover image, a blood red moon rising over the Brooklyn Bridge, worked in stained glass by Dave's wife, Andrea. As I explained in an earlier post, his original title for that album was \"Losers,\"\u00a0 but\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Going-Back-to-Brooklyn.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1550,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/lets-get-drunk\/","url_meta":{"origin":5649,"position":5},"title":"Let&#8217;s Get Drunk Again (Bo Carter\/busking)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"June 27, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"This was my favorite Bo Carter song, mostly for its easy swing, but I probably wouldn't have learned it if I had just been playing on my own. 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