Kathleen Brennan is such an alluring and mysterious figure. It is remarkable how little is known about her and how much she has managed to stay out of the spotlight in spite of her massive contribution to Tom Waits' repertoire as a songwriting partner. I have a few disjointed facts and also just general statements to make about her here.
First off, I want to share this video. Likely many of you have seen it because it's one of the only videos of her you'll find on YouTube where you can not only hear her speak but see her in motion during her prime. Her wit is razor-sharp, her delivery is impeccable, her smile is bubbly, and her charm is to die for. These 67 seconds of footage are enough to easily understand what drew Waits to her. (EDIT: What I can’t understand is why more people in the audience didn’t laugh at her joke about being Irish!)
To further flesh out her obvious sense of humor displayed in the previous video, let's talk about all the times that Tom has mentioned her in "his" lyrics (some of these songs were co-written by her). There are three songs with a direct name-drop, the first of which is "On the Other Side of the World". The line from the song that name-checks her is one of the song's best: "on a bone-white mare lost in Kathleen's hair." The other two songs that mention her, while certainly being sweet in their own right, are surreal, bawdy, and downright hilarious. In "Filipino Box Spring Hog," Tom sings:
Kathleen was sittin' down in Little Red's Recovery Room in her criminal underwear bra
I was naked to the waist with my fierce black hound
In this song, Tom talks about sitting entirely naked at a bar with his half-naked wife who has writing credits on the song. In "First Kiss," similar bizarro imagery ensues, this time for the entirety of the song. In this song, Tom talks about a woman who "made her own whiskey and gave cigarettes to kids" and who "smelled like gasoline and root beer fizz" (in another version of the song, she "smelled like nutmeg and piss"). In the outro of the song, Tom croons, "Talkin' bout my little Kathleen-- / she's just a fine young thing. / Someday, she'll wear my ring." Kathleen also has songwriting credits on "First Kiss." How amazing is it that Kathleen not only allows Tom to conjure up such comedic imagery about her, but that she also potentially contributes some of those lyrics?
Here's a fact that some might not know that will shock those who understate her lyrical contributions: Tom has stated that Kathleen wrote most of "Black Market Baby". Kathleen approached Tom one day with the the title, along with the lyric, "She's a diamond who wants to stay coal," and with a large chunk of the rest of the song already written before Tom could even get his fingers on it. Another line from the song that she's confirmed to have written is "She's a bonsai Aphrodite." The lyrics of this song are certainly exemplary of Kathleen's talent for creating surreal imagery.
It begs the following question-- What other lyrics was she responsible for? Would Tom have ever had his surrealist renaissance without her input, or at the very least her influence?
And also, with respect to her desire for privacy in her personal life, what information do you have to share about Kathleen?
