Tom Waits

As a baseline I favour the writer as being the best interpreter of his/her own words. Even more so when the words come from a perspective that is so singular, so personal and from such an idiosyncratic person. We are not talking Yip Harburg or Cole Porter here. This does not mean I close my ears and mind to the versions of others. The reference to J. Warnes is timely. I will give Holly Cole a listen. I don't mean to sound dismissive, but again, to me, the limits of the performers voice, the lack of polish, the lack of training all contribute to what the performer is. Sorry about this "warts and all" approach, but I usually don't think that what we call in French a "chanson à texte" is in better hands when a more musical, better trained singer performs it. I find it usually loses something in the process. It sometimes work, but not often. I'm just as happy if the likes of Céline Dion never mangles a song with lyrics that go beyond the present equivalent of "moon" and "June". Believability is the one ingredient I can't do without. When the writing is so personal, the words coming out the mouth of someone else feels somewhat contrived to me. Not an absolute, just my own observation/prejudice.

Pbb,
I agree totally with your viewpoint.
That's not to say that there are no examples of artists producing a better version than the original songwriter-there are obviously cases where this is true but there are strongly in the minority imho,the whole album worth of cover versions is again imho a graveyard of creativity for most artists.
I'll probably get shot down for this but most Audiogoners (note most) are probably happier listening to safer,smoother versions of a lot of stuff.
In fact any occassional reading through of what music Audiogoners will throw the same lists over and over again-most audiophilles have stopped developing their musical tastes and are well happy listening to what they know.
It's interesting because the same people who accuse others of not realising what a top audio set-up can reproduce are in fact missing out on a whole world of music that is constantly being produced and released and whilst I wouldn't argue that anybody has missed out the new Beatles,the lack of investigation and open mindedness makes most music posts on this site extremely dull.
Again I like most of the stuff mentioned but life sure would be stale for me without searching out new music and not just the genres I know I like..........

One my favorite recordings is Tom Waits' "NIGHTHAWKS AT THE DINER".

I’ve been listening to Alice and Blood Money for a week now. Got ‘em on vinyl too.
What a great albums!
I’m with Mingus – IMHO, Holy Cole’s interpretation of TW’s songs is just boring. Thanks god Dana Kraal didn’t sing them yet.
For a good interpretation check out John Hammond’s Wicked Grin.

BTW, my 11 years old daughter likes Satisfaction sung by Britney Spears better then RS.

These are beautiful albums,'Im still here' almost reduces me to tears every time I play it,and I wish the wife and I had delayed our wedding until these albums were released,'Kommienzuspadt'would have been great as she walked down the aisle!By the way is this Yiddish or Berlin dialect written phonetically?