Tom Waits, Bukowski's "The Laughing Heart"

Tom Waits has one of the most recognizable voices in music history. His voice is raspy and deep and seems fuller of unintentional emotion than most others. He's one of my father's favorite artists, and has become one of mine as well.

Here's a video where Waits reads the poem The Laughing Heart by Charles Bukowski. Bukowski's work was known for highlighting the hard life, a writer's life, and his various excursions with sex and alcohol, with Time magazine once calling him the "laureate of American lowlife". Who better to read the work of Bukowski than Tom Waits?

"The Laughing Heart" 

by Charles Bukowski

your life is your life

don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.

be on the watch.

there are ways out.

there is light somewhere.

it may not be much light but

it beats the darkness.

be on the watch.

the gods will offer you chances.

know them.

take them.

you can’t beat death but

you can beat death in life, sometimes.

and the more often you learn to do it,

the more light there will be.

your life is your life.

know it while you have it.

you are marvelous

the gods wait to delight

in you.