Tom Waits, radical compassion and negative capability

"We all need to be reminded that the folks who need help getting back on their feet are all members of our family" Tom Waits

"I love beautiful melodies telling me terrible things" Tom Waits

Tom Waits's music is not for the fainthearted. His darkly poetic lyrics, his voice and use of instrumentation challenge the listener's assumptions. Waits is both social observer and social commentator.

Tom Waits's songs evoke and reflect a deeply felt compassion, what I call radical compassion- a way of seeing the world and seeing events and experiences from someone else's perspective, with a perspective that encompasses their views of the situation, past, present and future. Radical compassion is neither feigned nor manufactured and involves the imperative to act in the face of injustice and suffering.

The song Never Let Go appears on Waits 3 CD set Orphans. Released in 2006 Orphans contains 30 new songs and 24 rare songs. Never Let Go is one of many gems on the CD and like many of Waits songs, is grounded in the fragility and cycles of everyday life.

The song starts out as a slow ballad with piano introduction and Tom Waits singing in his characteristic growl: 

Well, ring the bell backwards and bury the axe
Fall down on your knees in the dirt
I'm tied to the mast between water and wind
Believe me, you'll never get hurt
Now the ring's in the pawnshop, the rain's in the hole
Down at the Five Points I stand
I'll loose everything
But I won't let go of your hand

But the song morphs into something more fierce as a snare drum and rolling bass kick in, turning a slow ballad into a plaintive dirge, a song of grace in the face of the mysteries of life and the grit and grime of the world we inhabit.

Waits's song speaks to the mysteries of love and evokes the devotion we all feel for those we love and have loved, those who have touched our lives and those who have passed on.

The song, like much of Tom Waits's music, seems to exemplify what the poet John Keats described as negative capability:

"when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason"

Negative capability describes a capacity for accepting uncertainty and the unresolved. It requires the ability to suspend judgement and allow the mysteries and realities of daily living to be present, whilst also being able to walk in the shoes of others. It is associated with a profound capacity for empathy and lack of self consciousness.

Intellectual endevour and artistic and creative expression- in the form of a photograph, a book, a movie, a poem, a song, an idea, an object- all have the potential to be vehicle for expression of negative capability.  The song Never Let Go, like so many songs on the Orphans CD, is such a vehicle.

Waits understood the power of the song Never Let Go when he allowed it to be used in a campaign to raise awareness of the extent of hunger among children and families in the US (see the quote that starts this piece). Waits has always steadfastly refused to allow his music to be used in any commercial or product advertisement. Never Let Go was the exception. A clip of the song can be found here.

Never Let Go
Well, ring the bell backwards and bury the axe
Fall down on your knees in the dirt
I'm tied to the mast between water and wind
Believe me, you'll never get hurt
Now the ring's in the pawnshop, the rain's in the hole
Down at the Five Points I stand
I'll loose everything
But I won't let go of your hand
Now, Peter denied and Judas betrayed
I'll pay with the roll of the drum
And the wind will tell the turn from the wheel
And the watchman's making his rounds
Well, you leave me hanging by the skin of my teeth
You can send me to hell
But I'll never let go of your hand
Swing from a rope on a cross-legged tree
Signed with the one-eyed Jack's blood
From Temple and Union, to Weyley and Grand
Walking back home in the mud
Now, I must make my best of the only way home
Marley deals only in stones
I'm lost on the midway, I'm reckless in your eyes
Just give me a couple more throws
I'll dare you to dine with the cross-legged knights
Dare me to jump and I will
I'll fall from your grace
But I'll never let go of your hand
I'll never let go of your hand
I'll never let go of your hand

Written by: Tom Waits and Kathleen Waits-Brennan
Published by: Jalma Music Inc. [?], © 1992