Pitchfork Forkcast: New Music: Tom Waits With the Kronos Quartet: "Diamond in Your Mind" [Stream]

New Music: Tom Waits With the Kronos Quartet: "Diamond in Your Mind" [Stream]

Tom Waits is a good man to have around for events like the Healing the Divide concert, which can quickly turn hermetically self-serious. The event was staged in 2003 to "to bridge cultural gaps and forge revolutionary new bonds between peoples around the world," and proceeds from the live album are said to benefit the people of Tibet. Closing the evening with a short set accompanied by the Kronos Quartet, Waits cracks harmless but high-brow jokes about Jessye Norman and the Dalai Lama that add much-needed levity to the proceedings. Better than that, he finishes with "Diamond in Your Mind", a song written for Solomon Burke about high-society parties, Pinkerton raids, and a 102-year-old woman who's "a wrecking ball no longer connected to the chain." Such specific lyrics-- not to mention such specifically American details-- don't sound too much in line with the global scope of the Healing the Divide cause, but Waits is neither a clown nor an undermining presence. If his verses are typically raconteurish, the chorus is a simple life lesson that becomes a stirring sing-along. It's the kind of moment you always look for, but rarely get, on benefit albums-- simple, effective, and deeply felt.

[From Healing the Divide; out now on Anti]

Thu: 05-15-08: 03:30 PM CDT
The Dodos Extend Tour All the Way to the Fall