On the one hand, we've got mid '70s Waits, setting up a nightclub in a recording studio and banging out his poetic, boozy meditations with an invited audience to hoot and clap along...
http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/6443.jpg
On the other hand, we've got the most philosophical and oddly melancholy of the Muppets, similarly at the piano, banging through "Lydia The Tattooed Lady" and "Cottleston Pie" and a surprisingly moving version of "New York State Of Mind."
http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/8f/12/8182124128a0d8a156fd3010.L.jpg
What say you?
― unperson, Tuesday, 20 May 2008 14:12 (seventeen years ago)
Rowlf by a million trillion miles
― Tom D., Tuesday, 20 May 2008 14:18 (seventeen years ago)
Rowlf was always my favorite Muppet.
― Sparkle Motion, Tuesday, 20 May 2008 17:13 (seventeen years ago)
funny how kids shows are where showbiz archetypes go to die. there's a lot of nostalgia in them for a target audience that by definition won't remember. vaudeville and minstrel tropes survived in cartoons until even within my lifetime. the muppets played a lot on a midcentury sense of hip and cool. then again, i don't know anything about broadway and its touchstones, especially pre-disney/giuliani
― gff, Tuesday, 20 May 2008 17:24 (seventeen years ago)
You and I and George Cottleston Pie I Never Harmed an Onion
― jaymc, Tuesday, 20 May 2008 17:35 (seventeen years ago)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ggaWaK5d23Y
― latebloomer, Tuesday, 20 May 2008 17:38 (seventeen years ago)
You know, if you'd told me Rowlf was actually Waits . .
― Soukesian, Tuesday, 20 May 2008 18:47 (seventeen years ago)
I used to love it when Rowlf banged his head on the piano
― badg, Wednesday, 21 May 2008 14:09 (seventeen years ago)
Ha. I started to like Tom Waits a lot more when I imagined Rowlf singing. Same goes for the She & Him record; that one is sung by the girl rat in Muppets Take Manhattan and fellow diner rats.
http://www.toymania.com/custom/Galleries/Quinn/Quinn3/muppdinerrats.JPG
― La Lechera, Wednesday, 21 May 2008 14:56 (seventeen years ago)
nighthawks at the diner is maybe waits' most underrated. i love it and actually wore out the cd
― Charlie Howard, Wednesday, 21 May 2008 15:03 (seventeen years ago)