Thomas Alan Waits(born December 7, 1949 in Pomona, California) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. He started his career in the early 70s as a singer in dirty bars. Initially, he was deeply influenced by the beat generation (poets like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs) He could not make a living from his music although he was well accepted by the critics. The people at that time didn't like his classical bar music, pre-rock and americanastyles reminiscent of musical genres of the 50s and 40s, such as blues, jazz, and vaudeville.
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16 Shells From A Thirty-ought-six Lyrics

Tom Waits

I plugged 16 shells from a thirty-ought-six
And a black crow snuck through
A hole in the sky
So I spent all my buttons on an
Old pack mule
And I made me a ladder from
A pawn shop marimba
And I leaned it up against
A dandelion tree
And I filled me a sachel
Full of old pig corn
And I beat me a billy
From an old french horn
And I kicked that mule
To the top of the tree
And I blew me a hole
bout the size of a kickdrum
And I cut me a switch
From a long branch elbow
Chorus
Im gonna whittle you into kindlin
Black crow 16 shells from a thirty-ought-six
Whittle you into kindlin
Black crow 16 shells from a thirty-ought-six
Well I slept in the holler
Of a dry creek bed
And I tore out the buckets
From a red corvette, tore out the buckets from a red corvette
Lionel and dave and the butcher made three
You got to meet me by the knuckles of the skinnybone tree
With the strings of a washburn
Stretched like a clothes line
You know me and that mule scrambled right through the hole
Repeat chorus
Now I hold him prisoner
In a washburn jail
That stapped on the back
Of my old kick mule
Strapped it on the back of my old kick mule
I bang on the strings just
To drive him crazy
I strum it loud just to rattle his cage
Strum it loud just to rattle his cage
Repeat chorus