Heavy duty and without touching my top three Waits tracks. Insanity is good, temporary or not.

I'm glad we agree on Alice, that is pretty close to my favorite Waits, though everything here is spot on.

I don't see my top three Waits tracks either, but that's neither here nor there. There's scarcely any Waits you can go wrong with at all. This looks great...what a great exercise!

feel free to tell me what your favorite Tom tracks are. i love a good debate.

I'd have to go with Tom Traubert's Blues, Clap Hands (always had a strange preoccupation with that one), and (currently) Down There By the Train. That third slot tends to change from week to week. Your #13 & 14 are both frequent contenders as well.

i was expecting to hear about Tom Taubert's blues. clap hands has a lot of competition on rain dogs, my favorite album.

The other Gutbucket Brother agrees about Tom Traubert's Blues, definitely one of my Waits favorites. Which song here knocked off "Blind Love"?

Ahh, leave it to you to force me to do my own evaluation (and 4th all-Waits mix on this site.) Not a bad song on here but amazingly, we only match on 5 of 20. Of course I could have had 3+ from Small Change, Blue Valentine, Heartattack and Vine, Swordfishtrombones, Rain Dogs, Bone Machine, Mule Variations, Real Gone, Bawlers and Brawlers. My version will be up shortly.

doowad, Jockey full of bourbon is also on rain dogs thus knocking out blind love. blind love may make my top twenty. this list of near misses also include I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love with You, New Coat of Paint, Jersey Girl (i am guessing one of Hemizen's top three),and Long way home. Numbers one through four would get bumped for four of these. my bet right now would be that long way home would be the last song cut.

it's always interesting to see a new waits compilation on this site, as none of them are alike yet they're all pretty spot-on brilliant. it's hard to go wrong with such a rich back catalogue, & the fact that none of my favorites are represented here yet i still love it pretty much proves that notion. well, scratch that, "bottom of the world" is quite possibly my favorite waits tune, & that's here, so kudos.

"Down In The Hole" is top Waits for moi.

Great notes and a fine mix, for sure.

Great mix. My personal favourites on here are 4,9,11,15 & 20. Although my favourite TW track doesn't feature on here, but does on Marks...

Stellar stuff mon ami, just one gripe, no place for 'On The Nickel'?

heart attack and vine was a hard one to chose a favorite.
not only did on the nickle lose out but ruby's arms and jersey girl as well.
no one every said it would be easy.

Interesting mix and fine notes.

But what does become of little boys who never comb their hair?

Well, Tom, you've sure raised the bar on intricacy of TW scholarship. Lessee... here's my current favorites, from the albums I know well enough to come down: Closing Time: Rosie, probably, though if I'm in a pop mood Ol' 55, or if I'm in a classic Tom Waits mood Grapefruit Moon; Nighthawks: Better Off Without A Wife (and its intro!); Small Change: Tom Traubert's Blues (sorry); Heartattack: Mr. Siegel (which beat up about four other songs on its way to the top); Swordfishtrombones: Swordfishtrombone (ding!); Rain Dogs: Time (yeah, it's sort of a boring choice); Frank's Wild Years: Cold, Cold Ground; Bone Machine: Whistle Down The Wind; Black Rider: Lucky Day (damn, and it got beaten by your *least favorite* of your favorite TW songs? this song is the HEART of TW, man!); Mule Variations: Hold On (ding! again; probably my favorite of all Tom Waits songs); Alice: this one's hard, but probably that snippet called No One Knows I'm Gone is actually my favorite; Blood Money: Another Man's Vine (this is my least favorite TW album, despite -- or because of -- being *very* representative of him, and sometimes I think the rest of the album even sucks); Real Gone: Sins Of The Father, which recently leapt over Hoist That Rag; Brawlers: Bottom Of The World (ding! this song is my new blustering-in-the-streets anthem); Bawlers: Widow's Grove; Bastards: First Kiss. ranking them all, I'd probably put: #1 Hold On, #2 Lucky Day, #3 the dark horse Kentucky Avenue (I don't have Blue Valentine, but I do have Asylum Years), #4 Whistle Down The Wind, #5 Bottom Of The World. clearly anyone who doesn't know Tom Waits's career will think this is all just a ridiculous, formless mumbo-jumbo of titles.

Well, Tom, you've sure raised the bar on intricacy of TW scholarship. Lessee... here's my current favorites, from the albums I know well enough to come down: Closing Time: Rosie, probably, though if I'm in a pop mood Ol' 55, or if I'm in a classic Tom Waits mood Grapefruit Moon; Nighthawks: Better Off Without A Wife (and its intro!); Small Change: Tom Traubert's Blues (sorry); Heartattack: Mr. Siegel (which beat up about four other songs on its way to the top); Swordfishtrombones: Swordfishtrombone (ding!); Rain Dogs: Time (yeah, it's sort of a boring choice); Frank's Wild Years: Cold, Cold Ground; Bone Machine: Whistle Down The Wind; Black Rider: Lucky Day (damn, and it got beaten by your *least favorite* of your favorite TW songs? this song is the HEART of TW, man!); Mule Variations: Hold On (ding! again; probably my favorite of all Tom Waits songs); this will be continued in another comment as I think I've exceeded the limit....

Well, Tom, you've sure raised the bar on intricacy of TW scholarship. Lessee... here's my current favorites, from the albums I know well enough to come down: Closing Time: Rosie, probably, though if I'm in a pop mood Ol' 55, or if I'm in a classic Tom Waits mood Grapefruit Moon; Nighthawks: Better Off Without A Wife (and its intro!); Small Change: Tom Traubert's Blues (sorry); Heartattack: Mr. Siegel (which beat up about four other songs on its way to the top); Swordfishtrombones: Swordfishtrombone (ding!); Rain Dogs: Time (yeah, it's sort of a boring choice); Frank's Wild Years: Cold, Cold Ground; Bone Machine: Whistle Down The Wind; Black Rider: Lucky Day (damn, and it got beaten by your *least favorite* of your favorite TW songs? this song is the HEART of TW, man!); Mule Variations: Hold On (ding! again; probably my favorite of all Tom Waits songs); this will be continued in another comment as I think I've exceeded the limit....

Well, Tom, you've sure raised the bar on intricacy of TW scholarship. Lessee... here's my current favorites, from the albums I know well enough to come down: Closing Time: Rosie, probably, though if I'm in a pop mood Ol' 55, or if I'm in a classic Tom Waits mood Grapefruit Moon; Nighthawks: Better Off Without A Wife (and its intro!); Small Change: Tom Traubert's Blues (sorry); Heartattack: Mr. Siegel (which beat up about four other songs on its way to the top); Swordfishtrombones: Swordfishtrombone (ding!); Rain Dogs: Time (yeah, it's sort of a boring choice); Frank's Wild Years: Cold, Cold Ground; Bone Machine: Whistle Down The Wind; this will be continued in another comment as I think I've exceeded the limit....

Well, Tom, you've sure raised the bar on intricacy of TW scholarship. Lessee... here's my current favorites, from the albums I know well enough to come down: Closing Time: Rosie, probably, though if I'm in a pop mood Ol' 55, or if I'm in a classic Tom Waits mood Grapefruit Moon; Nighthawks: Better Off Without A Wife (and its intro! ding!); Small Change: Tom Traubert's Blues (sorry); Heartattack: Mr. Siegal (which beat up about four other songs on its way to the top); Swordfishtrombones: Swordfishtrombone (ding!); Rain Dogs: Time (yeah, it's sort of a boring choice); Frank's Wild Years: Cold, Cold Ground; Bone Machine: Whistle Down The Wind; Black Rider: Lucky Day (damn, and it got beaten by your *least favorite* of your favorite TW songs? this song is the HEART of TW, man!); Mule Variations: Hold On (ding! again; probably my favorite of all Tom Waits songs); Alice: this one's hard, but probably that snippet called No One Knows I'm Gone is actually my favorite; Blood Money: Another Man's Vine (this is my least favorite TW album, despite -- or because of -- being *very* representative of him, and sometimes I think the rest of the album even sucks); Real Gone: Sins Of The Father, which recently leapt over Hoist That Rag; Brawlers: Bottom Of The World (ding! this song is my new blustering-in-the-streets anthem); Bawlers: Widow's Grove; Bastards: First Kiss. ranking them all, I'd probably put: #1 Hold On, #2 Lucky Day, #3 the dark horse Kentucky Avenue (I don't have Blue Valentine, but I do have Asylum Years), #4 Whistle Down The Wind, #5 Bottom Of The World. clearly anyone who doesn't know Tom Waits's career will think this is all just a ridiculous, formless mumbo-jumbo of titles.

err, i'm tryin' to post a long comment here, but i seem to be fumblin' with some sort of character limit, or maybe just internet troubles... hope to get it out here soon....

fuck, uh, that's stupid. i kept getting this result that my comment wasn't being posted, could you, um, please delete the replicas (and this comment, and my other apology comment)? i'd do it myself if the program would let me.

Oh, also, some more comments: If you want to look at my own, laughably outdated submission for the Favorite Songs Ever mix exhibit, it's here (Me in 2004: "King Crimson? Who the fuck is that?"). As you can see my Tom Waits selection is Hold On, squeaking past Lucky Day by a smidgen... Swordfishtrombone is plenty noble, too, of course. Also... I'm wondering how you made this mix you've got right here. If I tried to slap it together myself (which might take a while as I'm missing a couple of the songs) like I did with your Orphans mix, would you consider it to be the same mix?