James: Hey! This is my friend Todd. Todd and I have been talking about Tom Waits a lot recently. We decided that everything is cooler when it involves Tom Waits. So, here is my day today as lived by Tom Waits."A Song, Sort of" IS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL AND MAY NOT BE DOWNLOADED, TRANSMITTED, PRINTED OR PERFORMED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR
(Todd begins playing a guitar and James starts smoking cigarettes.)
Well, I got up about one o'clock in the afternoon. Fell asleep in my clothes smoking a cigarette and reading bout geographic information systems and how they're used in economic growth projections.
Got up. Had some kimchee. Put two loads in the washer, had my first cigarette of the day. Decided to call Mary Fons. Remembered she was in Winterset. Finished my cigarette.
After folding my laundry, I went downtown to get some food. I went to Blimpie's cause I used to work there and I get free muffins. Saw Todd there. Said, "Todd. I was gonna call you, but you're here, so I'm not."
(in gravel-throated song)
Looooord! I ain't, no no I ain't.
Ain't no use in callin
no more.
No use in callin, so I won't.
I won't.Anyway, so Todd and me, we get on the bus, head back up to Coralville. Saw a girl wearing a ducklin yellow dress. Face like an angel's kiss and hair like the devil's embers on All Hallow's Eve. She read the paper, never saw us. That's life.
Looooord! Never sawr us, never sawr us.
Never sawr us
not once.
One more girl gone down the pike
that bus.Anyway, so Todd and me, we write this. Go down to No Shame. Some other stuff happened, but that was after the light booth got a copy of the script. Now I'm where you are, goin down this page the same speed. No idea what's round the corner. Guess that's just how it goes. But dear God, at the end of the day, gimme one thing. Lemme come home to your bed, part a curtain of hell's fire, and find an angel hiding there.
Looooord! All I ask, all I ask
Tonight, foooooor
tonight.
Three packs of cigarettes, two bottles of Jack,
and you- and you.Ladies and gentlemen, April 23, 1999.
(lights down)
"A Song, Sort of" debuted April 23, 1999, performed by James Erwin and Todd Bowser.
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