Tom Waits – Heartattack And Vine

Heartattack and Vine” is a song from the Tom Waits album by the same name. The song describes the difficulties of life in the crime-ridden parts of Los Angeles, California (Cahuenga is a street in Los Angeles and the local bus system was formerly known as the RTD).

The song makes use of many double meanings and local references (street names, bus system, and colloquial drug slang), often alluding to the fact that nothing is sacred in that part of the city (“there ain’t no devil, there’s just God when he’s drunk”) and how people who moved there from other places looking for a better life end up prostitutes (“Well I bet she’s still a virgin but it’s only twenty-five ’til nine, you can see a million of ’em on Heartattack and Vine.”) and drug addicts (“Boney’s high on china white”) and would have been better off staying in their hometowns (“better off in Iowa against your scrambled eggs, than crawling down Cahuenga on a broken pair of legs”).

The song makes numerous references to the insufflation of cocaine and heroin (“…china white”, “taste of madness” and “let’s do another line”) and prostitution (Cahuenga is a double entendre meaning both the street in Los Angeles and an unusually large male sex organ).

Original album version:

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4 thoughts on “Tom Waits – Heartattack And Vine”

  1. 当时觉得这哥们儿喉咙被火钳烫过了…

    他小组里也有八卦哦

    一个评论家的比喻

    Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."

    哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈(我是分割线)

    还有这个:

    Nicolas Cage Broke

    Handed Tom Waits $1,000 every time he asked Unbeknownst to Cage

    尼古拉斯凯奇破产了,原因之一每次给他的亲密好友 Tom Waits 每次向他要钱,他都大方的拿1000美元给他。

    哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈(我是分割线)

    蜀黍参演了好多电影,我都没看过的- -,他竟然还演过德国人

    在科波拉两部电影《局外人》(The Outsiders)中饰演Buck Merrill、《Rumble Fish》中饰演Bennie。

    1982 在科波拉电影《棉花俱乐部》(The Cotton Club)饰演Irving Stark。

    1986在独立导演吉姆·加姆什(Jim Jarmusch)电影《Down by Law》中饰演主角Zack。

    在电影《Ironweed》中饰演德国人Rudy;在电影《Candy Mountain》饰演Al Silk。

    在电影《The Two Jakes》中饰演便衣警察。

    1991 在电影《绿林壮士》(At Play in the Fields of the Lord)中饰演Wolf;在《天涯沦落两心知》(The Fisher King)饰演伤残老兵乞丐;为Jarmusch电影《世界这分钟》(Night on Earth)配乐;在电影《Queens Logic》饰演Monte。

    在科波拉电影《惊情四百年》(Bram Stoker’s Dracula)中饰演R.M. Renfield

    在电影《人生交叉点(银色性男女)》(Short Cuts)中饰演Earl Piggott

    ……

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