Song by Song

Actor/musician David Ahmad joins Sam and Martin to discuss the religious material, consider the game-of-telephone lineage of folk classics, and celebrate this (perhaps overlooked) track of sorrow and loss.

Note: we mention Mark Rylance this episode; between recording and release, his brother Jonathan was killed - sympathies from all of us for this loss.

website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: [email protected]

Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Trampled Rose, Real Gone (remastered), Tom Waits (2004/2017) If It Wasn't For Dicky, Lead Belly: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection, Lead Belly (1941-47) Trampled Rose, Real Gone (original), Tom Waits (2004)

We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

As EE Cummings said… 'damn everything but the circus'… although Dominic, Martin and Sam question whether this Circus deserves praise or damnation itself. We compare to other sections of Waits's work, as well as other real and fictional songs, plus the value of talking to strangers on night-buses.

website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: [email protected]

Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Circus, Real Gone (remastered), Tom Waits (2004/2017) Moon Over Dog Street, single, Sour Sweet Tooth / Keith Sanders (2012) Circus, Real Gone (original), Tom Waits (2004)

We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

Dominic is back with Sam and Martin, thinking about both the beauty and exploitation-of-beauty that this song contains, and considering how it compares with the traditions of murder ballads.

website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: [email protected]

Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Dead and Lovely, Real Gone (remastered), Tom Waits (2004/2017) Long Black Veil, single, Jenny Owen Youngs (2017) Dead and Lovely, Real Gone (original), Tom Waits (2004)

We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

Musician and theatre-maker Dominic Conway gets his dancing shoes on with Sam and Martin for a conversation about the sonic feel of this track, the lack of lyrical focus in this album, and dance instructionals of the early 2000s.

website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: [email protected]

Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Metropolitan Glide, Real Gone (remastered), Tom Waits (2004/2017) Cha Cha Slide, Cha Cha Slide, DJ Casper (2004) Metropolitan Glide, Real Gone (original), Tom Waits (2004)

We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

Waits returns to vignettes this week, as well as incomplete stories and the longing for closure, as Molly rejoins Sam and Martin to talk about how these stories relate to fiction, journalism, and apocalyptic love songs.

website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: [email protected]

Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: How's It Gonna End, Real Gone (remastered), Tom Waits (2004/2017) The End Of The World, Skeeter Davis Sings The End Of The World, Skeeter Davis (1963) How's It Gonna End, Real Gone (original), Tom Waits (2004)

We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

The dark history of a barn in Kentucky is Waits's topic this week, as Molly, Sam and Martin examine how the story behind the barn relates to the Underground Railroad of the 1800. (Please note story is only metaphorically "behind the barn" - see local maps for geographical details)

website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: [email protected]

Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Don't Go Into That Barn, Real Gone (remastered), Tom Waits (2004/2017) Follow the Drinking Gourd, Songs of the Civil War, Richie Havens (1991) Don't Go Into That Barn, Real Gone (original), Tom Waits (2004)

We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

We welcome writer, poet and theatre maker Molly Naylor, digging into the fractured narrative of Shake it with Martin and Sam. We unpick some of the hidden stories, discuss the tribute to Bill Hicks, and then hit the dance floor for a big party anthem!

website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: [email protected]

Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Shake It, Real Gone (remastered), Tom Waits (2004/2017) Hey Ya!, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, Outkast (2003) Shake It, Real Gone (original), Tom Waits (2004)

We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

Three episodes of talking to Sam and Martin, and Shani is starting to check her watch, as Waits makes an exteeeeended exploration of generational trauma. Runtime does preoccupy our conversation, as well as density of imagery, hope for the future, and the logistics of bodies of water.

website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: [email protected]

Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Sins of My Father, Real Gone (remastered), Tom Waits (2004/2017) Can't Blame The Youth, single, Peter Tosh (1972) Sins of My Father, Real Gone (original), Tom Waits (2004)

We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

Groovy or bleak, polemic or afterparty, M.A.S.H or Generation Kill? Shani Erez rejoins Martin and Sam to look at the anthemic second track of Real Gone, exploring the anger of Waits, the song's effectiveness beyond its anti-war context, and the big remaster choices from 2017.

website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: [email protected]

Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Hoist That Rag, Real Gone (remastered), Tom Waits (2004/2017) Shipbuilding, My Middle Name Is Misery, Ruth Dolores Weiss (2012) Hoist That Rag, Real Gone (original), Tom Waits (2004)

We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

Season 21 launches into an opening track with surprising energy, as guest host Shani Erez joins Sam and Martin to climb the Real Gone mountain towards the top of that hill. The sonic qualities of this album, Waits's attitude to the stories he's telling, bawdy seafaring jokes about genetalia, and the utter delight of 1980s metal… it's a pretty standard episode really.

website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: [email protected]

Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Top of the Hill, Real Gone (remastered), Tom Waits (2004/2017) Run To The Hills, The Number of the Beast, Iron Maiden (1982) Top of the Hill, Real Gone (original), Tom Waits (2004)

We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.