Early on we decided that at least one of the Excercises would be dedicated to the musical world of Tom Waits (it will actually be two – stay tuned).
We meticulously searched Queneau’s book, trying to find a text that would capture the melancholic atmosphere, vivid imagery, and gritty realism often found in Tom Waits’ lyrics.
Finally, we hit gold with Exercise no. 80 Antiphrasis, which is perhaps the most Waits-like of all Queneau’s variations (Antiphrasis can also refer to the record label Anti which has been the home for Waits’ music for the past 25 years).
The text has a raw, sometimes surreal quality, painting portraits of eccentric characters and forgotten corners of society:
“Midnight. It’s raining. The buses go by nearly empty. On the bonnet of an AI near the Bastille, an old man whose head is sunk in his shoulders and who isn’t wearing a hat thanks a lady sitting a long way away from him because she is stroking his hands. Then he goes to stand on the knees of a man who is still sitting down.
Two hours earlier, behind the Gare de Lyon, this old man was stopping up his ears so as not to hear a tramp who was refusing to say that he should slightly lower the bottom button of his underpants.”
Jarle first wrote the melody and chords (at his home piano in a slightly intoxicated state at 1 a.m.), which is basically the main theme of the Exercises in a setting reminiscent of darker Waits ballads such as “Alice.”
The original text lacked a typical song structure, so some effort was needed to convert the lyrics into verse form. Anders wrote a script to parse and extract the lyrics from all Tom Waits’ songs and albums from a website. The words were sorted by frequency, and after removing common and non-descriptive words (e.g., “the,” “and,” “it” etc.), they were fed into an AI along with Queneau’s text.
The product was verses that were structured based on the characters and the mood of the Original text but using words that often occur in Tom Waits lyrics. We interspersed a spoken word rendition of Quenau’s original for the intro and interlude, and voila—we had a song.
Verse 1
Midnight in Paris, rain starts to fall,
deserted streets, empty buses crawl.
A feeble old man, his head bowed low,
No hat to shield him from life’s cruel blow.
From a distance, a lady draws near,
Caresses his hands with tender care.
He rises, on a kneeling man’s knee
Seeking solace, a moment to be free.
Verse 2
Two hours prior, by Gare de Lyon’s train,
An old man fought the tramp’s refrain
The fellow implored, “Lower thy briefs, sir!
Find freedom there, no need to deter.”
But the old man turned, refused the plea
Keeping secrets locked, for no one to see.
At midnight, where dreams find their sway.
Love lingers, as night turns to day.
Outro
In Mr. Waits’ realm, where stories collide
Midnight’s whispers, secrets reside.
Rain-soaked alleys, where the weary roam
In lyrics of longing, they find their home.
To really nail the feel for this one, we decided to call in some outside help. And what a band it turned out to be:
Jakob Berg (from nationally acclaimed Tom Waits project Blow) – vocals
Erik Jøkling – drums
Anders K. Krabberød – bass ukulele
Jens Andreas Kleiven – livingroom piano
Jarle G. Storløkken – vibraphone, accordion
Marius Haltli – trumpet
Steinar Børve – tenor saxophone
Marius Hoven – trombone
Recorded at Avant Audio
Mixed by Jarle G. Storløkken
Mastered by Trond Gjellum
Enjoy!
Panzerpappa 