Tom Waits
American singer-songwriter and actor · United States · On the map · Musicians · Born 1949 · age 76
Thomas Alan Waits is an American singer, songwriter, composer and actor. His lyrics often focus on society's underbelly and are delivered in his trademark deep, gravelly voice.
Tom Waits is read about 5,925 times a day, in 57 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 10 November 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 401 days, one point a day.
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Readers a day, 12 September 2026 to 10 November 2026, highest on 8 November 2026.
People around Tom
Francis Ford Coppola Directed Bram Stoker's Dracula and The Outsiders
Jim Jarmusch Directed Down by Law and The Dead Don't Die- Bones Howe Produced The Heart of Saturday Night (1974)
Roberto Benigni Directed The Tiger and the Snow (2006)
Fred Roos Produced The Outsiders and Rumble Fish
Terry Gilliam Directed The Fisher King (1991)
Steve Buscemi Also in The Dead Don't Die and Mystery Train
Martin McDonagh Produced Seven Psychopaths (2012)
Héctor Babenco Directed Ironweed (1988)
Nicoletta Braschi Produced The Tiger and the Snow (2006)
Robert Evans Produced The Cotton Club and The Two Jakes
Samuel Hadida Produced The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2010)
Graham Broadbent Produced Seven Psychopaths and Wild Horse Nine
Gray Frederickson Produced The Outsiders and One from the Heart
Jack Nicholson Directed The Two Jakes (1991)
Nicolas Cage Also in The Outsiders and Rumble Fish
Iggy Pop Also in Coffee and Cigarettes III (1997)
Sofia Coppola Also in The Cotton Club and Rumble Fish
Diane Lane Also in The Cotton Club and Rumble Fish
Carter Burwell Wrote Seven Psychopaths (2012)
Allen Garfield Also in Until the End of the World (1991)
Glenn Withrow Also in The Outsiders and Rumble Fish
Jodie Markell Also in Mystery Train and Queens Logic
Peter Czernin Produced Wild Horse Nine (2026)
Tom WaitsPartners
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![Waits as a high-school senior at Hilltop High School in Chula Vista, California in 1967. He dropped out at the age of 18.[10]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8a/Tom_Waits_%281968_yearbook_senior_portrait%29.jpg/330px-Tom_Waits_%281968_yearbook_senior_portrait%29.jpg)
Waits as a high-school senior at Hilltop High School in Chula Vista, California in 1967. He dropped out at the age of 18.[10]
The Troubadour in West Hollywood, where Waits's performances brought him to the attention of Herb Cohen and David Geffen
Waits met and had an intermittent romantic relationship with Bette Midler (pictured here in 1981) and collaborated with her on the song "I Never Talk to Strangers".
In 1977, Waits began a relationship with singer-songwriter Rickie Lee Jones (pictured here in 2008); their work and styles influenced each other.
Publicity photo of Waits taken by Greg Gorman, c. 1979-80
Francis Ford Coppola (pictured in 1976) convinced Waits to leave New York City and return to Los Angeles to score his film One from the Heart.
In New York City, Waits shared a workspace with jazz musician John Lurie (pictured in 2013).In their own words 4
, I collaborate with my wife on the songs, and every aspect of it, really - composing, and arranging, and recording, all that business. We have a rhythm and a way of working it.
The face forgives the mirror, the worm forgives the plough, the question begs the answer, can you forgive me somehow?
Come down off the cross, we can use the wood.
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About this person
He began in the folk scene during the 1970s, but his music since the 1980s has reflected the influence of such diverse genres as rock, jazz, Delta blues, opera, vaudeville, cabaret, funk and experimental techniques verging on industrial music. Jim Fusilli calls him "A keen, sensitive and sympathetic chronicler of the adrift and downtrodden" who "creates three-dimensional characters who, even in their confusion and despair, are capable of insight and startling points of view." His unique voice was described by 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."
