peteg's blog - noise - music - 2007 03 17 GinsbergWaits America

Tom Waits and Allen Ginsberg: America

Sat, Mar 17, 2007./noise/music | Link

There's a classic mix of Allen Ginsberg's America and Tom Waits's maudlin saxophonic Closing Time (from the album of the same name) that Dave got me onto back in the late 90s. So when I was in San Francisco back in 2004 I naively asked at City Lights Bookshop if they had any recordings whatsoever of the poet, expecting that the place that published Howl would have a shrine or something. No joy. I now find that particular song is an unofficial home-job, most lovingly crafted.