Track 7 – “Cold Cold Ground” (Tom Waits cover)
“Blankets and Covers: Volume One” – Track 7 – “Cold Cold Ground” (Tom Waits cover) (recorded November 10th 2010 at “Bayside” Keyport, NJ )
*with Joe Walsh of “The Believers in Things” on drums
“Cold Cold Ground” is a track off of Tom Waits’ 1987 album “Frank’s Wild Years”. It’s the last album in his so 1980’s so-called “Junkyard Trilogy”, all masterpieces.
Around the one minute and fifteen second mark Joe Walsh of “The Believers in Things” joins in on his drums spontaneously having never played the song with me before. It says a lot about what a great drummer Joe is because he is able to listen and feel out the perfect parts to add.
If you listen very carefully around the two minute and forty five second mark you can hear the previous people on the list discussing their other bandmate’s drunken meltdown which is Track 6. Bandmate #1 says, “He fucking destroyed, fucking destroyed that microphone,” and Bandmate #2 responds, “Did he?”
Around the three minute and twenty-seven second mark is the real gem, which you really have to listen for, but it’s there. After the Tom Waits’ line, “Beware of my temper and the dog that it’s found/Break all the windows in the cold cold ground,” which is eerily spot on for the feeling in the room at the time, you can hear the previous two guys talking again and Bandmate #3 who had the meltdown chimes in gleefully. Conversation transcript:
Bandmate #1: I don’t have a good feeling about tonight…
Bandmate #2: What?
Bandmate #1: I don’t have a good feeling about tonight.
Bandmate #2: So what don’t you have a good fucking feeling about, man?
Bandmate #3 (original meltdowner): It did feel good, man.
Crestfallen sidekick in an old cafe
Never slept with a dream before it had to go away
There’s a bell in the tower, Uncle Ray bought a round
Don’t worry ’bout the army in the cold, cold ground
Cold, cold ground
Cold, cold ground
Cold, cold ground
Now don’t be a cry baby when there’s wood in the shed
There’s a bird in the chimney and a stone in my *head
When the road’s washed out, we pass the bottle around
And wait in the arms of the cold, cold ground
The cold, cold ground
The cold, cold ground
The cold, cold ground
There’s a ribbon in the willow and a tire swing rope
Oh, and a briar patch of berries takin’ over the slope
The cat’ll sleep in the mailbox and we’ll never go to town
Till we bury every dream in the cold, cold ground
In the cold, cold ground
The cold, cold ground
In the cold, cold ground
In the cold, cold ground
Give me a Winchester rifle and a whole box of shells
Blow the roof off the goat barn, let it roll down the hill
The piano is firewood, Times Square is a dream
I find we’ll lay down together in the cold, cold ground
The cold, cold ground
The cold, cold ground
In the cold, cold ground
We’ll call the cops on **The Believers in Things, bring a Bible and a rope
And a whole box of Rebel and a big bar of soap
Make a pile of truck tires and burn ’em all down
Bring a dollar with you, baby, in the cold, cold ground
In the cold, cold ground
In the cold, cold ground
In the cold, cold ground
Take a weathervane rooster, throw rocks at his head
Stop talking to the neighbors until we all go dead
Beware of my temper and the dog that it’s found
Break all the windows in the cold, cold ground
In the cold, cold ground
In the cold, cold ground
In the cold, cold ground
In the cold, cold ground
*Supposed to be “bed”
**Original lyric is “The Breedloves”
Patience Belongings 
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