Tom Waits – Jersey Girl

Song

"Jersey Girl" is a song composed and originally sung by American singer-songwriter Tom Waits from his 1980 album Heartattack and Vine.

Waits original

Waits wrote the song for his future wife Kathleen Brennan, who had been living in New Jersey.

He said in a 1980 interview that, "I never thought I would catch myself saying 'sha la la' in a song ... This is my first experiment with 'sha la la.'" Waits' recording includes drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, and glockenspiel, in an arrangement that captures the feeling of the seashore by way of "Under the Boardwalk" or "Spanish Harlem".

The song is included on Waits' compilation albums Bounced Checks (1981), Anthology of Tom Waits (1985), and Used Songs, 1973-1980 (2001). Waits also included a quiet performance of it during his 1999 appearance on VH1 Storytellers.

Springsteen version

The song, performed by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, was released as the B-side of the 1984 single "Cover Me". Springsteen slightly rewrote it to replace a Waits line about "whores on Eighth Avenue" with "the girls out on the avenue", and added a verse about taking "that little brat of yours and drop[ping] her off at your mom's" (This line was originally written for "Party Lights", an out-take from The River, which was not officially released until 2015).

The July 9, 1981, performance from this stand was used on the "Cover Me" release. A few weeks later on August 24, Waits joined Springsteen on-stage at the Los Angeles Sports Arena to perform the song together. The July 9 performance of "Jersey Girl" was used as the closing track of Springsteen's 1986 box set Live/1975-85, as Springsteen and producer Jon Landau felt it accurately represented the final phase of the loose story arc that connected the songs on the album together.

"Jersey Girl" would become a Springsteen favorite, played often in New Jersey and sometimes Philadelphia shows during the 1980s and early 1990s.

Its appearances then became even rarer, being picked to open the last of 15 Meadowlands shows in 1999 on the Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Reunion Tour – as what The New York Times termed "a reward for [the fans'] faith and perseverance," close the last of 10 shows at New Jersey's Giants Stadium in 2003 on The Rising Tour, and be the next-to-last song in the three-show run at Giants Stadium in 2008 on the Magic Tour.

Fan requested

The song was played as the first fan requested song at his October 3, 2009, show and was the final song performed during the last October 9, 2009, show before the demolition of Giants Stadium.

Because the Springsteen version of the song was more played on radio and because Springsteen was often associated with New Jersey, it was not unusual for people to mistakenly think Springsteen had written it.

The song is sometimes erroneously associated with the "Jersey Girl" cultural stereotype, but in fact it makes no mention of most of the traits — such as big hair — usually associated with that stereotype. One writer for The New York Times stated that "the Jersey girl, the one Tom Waits and Bruce Springsteen sing about, knows she'll get what she wants," and listed Springsteen's wife Patti Scialfa and Governor of New Jersey Christine Todd Whitman as examples that befit the song.

La canzone Jersey Girl  è stata scritta probabilmente per Kathleen, la moglie di Tom Waits, una storia d'amore iniziata dopo la conclusione del tormentato rapporto con Rickie Lee Jones. Kathleen comunque non viene dal New Jersey e quindi non c'è nessun legame realistico nei (volutamente) semplici versi d'amore di questo bellissimo brano.

Uno dei brani più noti dell'album di Tom Waits Heartattack and Vine del 1980, che contiene anche la intensa On the Nickel.

Bruce Springsteen ha inserito questo brano nei suoi concerti sin dal 1981, è molto vicino al suo mondo musicale ed inoltre il cantautore è del New Jersey, così come la moglie e componente della E-Street Band, Patty Scialfa, che è sicuramente una "Jersey girl", quindi questa canzone presa in prestito da Tom Waits non potrebbe essere più adatta. I due hanno anche cantato assieme il brano almeno in un concerto a LA.

Album

Heartattack and Vine è il settimo album del cantautore statunitense Tom Waits. In questo album è presente una delle canzoni più famose di Tom Waits, Jersey Girl, una canzone d'amore, della quale fu fatta la reinterpretazione da Bruce Springsteen, che la cantò in un concerto con lo stesso Waits.

Artist

Tom Alan Waits (Pomona, 7 dicembre 1949) è un cantautore, polistrumentista e attore statunitense. Ha esercitato una notevole influenza su molti cantautori delle generazioni successive alla sua, ed è ampiamente considerato dalla critica musicale come uno dei massimi autori del Novecento. Artista poliedrico, ha lavorato anche nel teatro e nel cinema. In quest'ultimo, in particolare, si riscontrano diverse collaborazioni con i registi Francis Ford Coppola, Jim Jarmusch e Terry Gilliam.

Ha ricevuto numerose candidature per premi e riconoscimenti in campo musicale, e ha vinto il Grammy Awards per due album, Bone Machine e Mule Variations. Il critico musicale Daniel Durchholz descrisse la voce di Waits: come se fosse stata immersa in un tino di whisky, poi appesa in un affumicatoio per qualche mese e infine portata fuori e investita con una macchina