Waits wanders back into the world of the criminal with this cautionary tale of life on the run. And who better to talk about what is Criminal than our guests from a fortnight ago Phoebe and Lauren. Avoiding any more discussion of freeform jazz concertos, Song by Song discusses some of the history of the Murder Ballad, the educational/control value of these stories, as well as continuing to catalogue which of Tom Waits songs you can dance to. (Spoiler: the "can't" list is a lot longer than the "can"…)
Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include:
Gun Street Girl, Rain Dogs, Tom Waits (1985)
Stack O’Lee, American Epic: Mississippi John Hurt, Mississippi John Hurt (1928/2017)
Stagger Lee, Murder Ballads, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (1996)
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