Welcome to my Tom Waits wiki. On the eighth anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Thomas Alan Waits saw his first dawn as his mother gave birth to him on December 7, 1949 in Pomona, California. His parents were both school teachers.The blood that runs through his veins is a good mixture of Norwegian from his mother side and Scottish-Irish from his father side. When Tom was 10, his parents divorced. Soon after this, they moved to National City.
Tom discovered and developed his passion for music during his tender years. He was so obsessed with music that he began compiling Bob Dylan's lyrics and even framed some of them. To make sure that he would have something where he could jot on the lyrics he could think of in the middle of the night, Tom kept a paper and pencil beside him. He even learned playing the piano on his own by using their neighbor's piano and eventually learned to play the guitar on a Gibson.
In school, the telltale signs of what Tom Waits would be slowly appeared. He would entertain his classmates and teachers in secondary school. Some of his teachers even encouraged him to play the harmonica for the class or at times, he would be persuaded to get up on a table to perform his own version of a "soft shoe".
Tom Waits is such an interesting guy and I never get sick of listening to his music even though I find him just a little bit scary!