tao of tom

a little something from the mind of tom waits.

Introducing "A Little Rain" (Congres Centrum. The Hague/ The Netherlands: July 21, 1999): "This is a little story about the crooked tree and the straight tree. Do you know that story? [No response from the audience] Obviously you have heard that story... [laughter]. You see, once upon a time there was a forest and there were two trees in the forest, and there was a crooked tree and there was a straight tree. And the crooked tree used to look over at the straight tree and say, ‘Gee, look at you, you’re straight like that, I wish I was straight like that.’ The crooked tree would look up to the straight tree, and the straight tree would look down on the crooked tree and say, ‘Look at you, you’re crooked! You’re always gonna be crooked! You’re nothing but a crooked tree! You’re crooked and that’s all there is to it!’ So one day the lumberjacks came into the forest... [laughter] and they looked around, and they saw the trees... And one of the lumberjacks said, ‘Just cut off the straight trees!’ And the crooked tree is still there, till this day... growing strong and strange... That’s the story... [a rousing ovation]."