Song of the Week - Invitation to the Blues by Tom Waits

I may have featured this song before but, if so, here it is again. It's one of my favorite Waits songs.



Like all the best of Waits' songs, this one tells a story. I like that the video includes the lyrics as Waits can be hard to decipher (especially live) sometimes. Part of his booze-soaked, cigarette burned personality, I suppose.

This song tells the story of a two-bit drifter waiting for a bus in a small town greasy-spoon. While having his coffee he falls in love with the waitress. Or actually he falls in love with the idea of the waitress. She's lovely from her "conk down to her shoes" and he makes up a whole background story for her where she leaves her sugar-daddy husband in Jersey with just her "registration and her shoes". The story is so compelling he decides to stay in town, get a job at the local filling station, and accept her "invitation to the blues". "What the hell do I have to lose"? he muses.