Tom Waits - Invitation to the Blues [Live at the Rex] video free download

Tom Waits Live at the Rex in Paris. By far the best recording of the 'Invitation to the blues' ever made.

Photograph by Antoine D'Agata

Well she's up against the register with an apron and a spatula,

Yesterday's deliveries, tickets for the bachelors

She's a moving violation from her conk on down to her shoes,

Well, it's just an invitation to the blues

And you feel just like Cagney, she looks like Rita Hayworth

At the counter of the Schwab's drugstore

You wonder if she might be single, she's a loner or likes to mingle

Got to be patient, try and pick up a clue

She said How you gonna like 'em, over medium maybe scrambled?,

Anyway's the only way, be careful not to gamble

On a guy with a suitcase and a ticket getting out of here

It's a tired bus station and an old pair of shoes

This ain't nothing but an invitation to the blues

But you can't take your eyes off her, get another cup of java,

It's just the way she pours it for you, joking with the customers

Mercy mercy, Mr. Percy, there ain't nothing back in Jersey

But a broken-down jalopy of a man I left behind

And the dream that I was chasing, and a battle with booze

An open invitation to the blues

But she used to have a sugar daddy and a candy-apple Caddy,

And a bank account and everything, accustomed to the finer things

He probably left her for a socialite, and he didn't 'cept at night,

And then he's drunk and never even told her that he cared

And they took the registration, they took her car-keys and her shoes

And left her with an invitation to the blues

Cause there's a Continental Trailways leaving local bus tonight, good evening

You can have my seat, I'm sticking round here for a while

Get me a room at the Squire, and the filling station's hiring,

And I can eat here every night, what the hell have I got to lose?

Got a crazy sensation, go or stay? now I gotta choose,

Im going to accept your invitation to the blues.