When you're writing, you're conjuring. It's a ritual, and you need to be brave and respectful and sometimes get out of the way of whatever it is that you're inviting into the room.
Tom WaitsRead
I don't know if any genuine, meaningful change could ever result from a song. It's kind of like throwing peanuts at a gorilla.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that the impact of a song on bringing about real change is minimal, akin to a futile effort.
Tom Waits uses a vivid metaphor to express skepticism about the ability of music to create significant, meaningful change in the world. He implies that the effort to provoke change through songs is as ineffective as throwing peanuts at a powerful gorilla, highlighting the struggle between artistic expression and the harsh realities of societal issues.
Themes
ChangeMusicImpactSocietyArt
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on the influence of culture, this quote can highlight the limitations of artistic expression in effecting real change.
More from Tom Waits
All quotes βIf you're in the middle of the ocean with no flippers and no life preserver and you hear a helicopter, this is music. You have to adjust to your needs at the moment.
Tom WaitsRead
I knelt at the altar of Ray Charles for years. I worked at a restaurant, and that's all there was on the jukebox.
Tom WaitsRead
Don't plant your bad days. They grow into weeks. The weeks grow into months. Before you know it, you got yourself a bad year. Take it from me - choke those little bad days. Choke 'em down to nothing.
Tom WaitsRead
My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane.
Tom WaitsRead
Now its raining its pouring the old man is snoring now I lay me down to sleep I hear the sirens in the street all my dreams are made of chrome I have no way to get back home Iβd rather die before I wake like Marilyn Monroe and throw my dreams out in the street and the rain make βem grow
Tom WaitsRead
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I haven't chosen any party yet because people choose parties when they get older. When it's time, I'll look, and if I can't find one to join, I'll make another party.
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If the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s civil rights movement made demands that altered the course of American lives and backed up those demands with the willingness to give up your life in service of your civil rights, with Black Lives Matter, a more internalized change is being asked for: recognition.
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