{"id":411855,"date":"2026-04-22T14:15:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T14:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/411855\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T14:15:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T14:15:10","slug":"no-onell-weep-when-you-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/411855\/","title":{"rendered":"No one’ll weep when you die"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom Waits<\/a> has shared a taster of his new spoken word piece \u2018The Fly\u2019, the B-side to his Massive Attack<\/a> collaboration \u2018Boots On The Ground\u2019.<\/p>\n

Last week,\u00a0the two artists shared the surprise release<\/a>, alongside a pointedly political\u00a0film from Massive Attack and US photo artist\u00a0thefinaleye. It was Waits\u2019 first\u00a0new music\u00a0since his 2011 album \u2018Bad\u00a0As\u00a0Me\u2019 and it also featured vocals from his son Casey.<\/p>\n

Now, Waits has posted an excerpt of \u2018The Fly\u2019, a wry, darkly comic spoken word poem, in the tradition of his previous tracks \u2018What\u2019s He Building In There?\u2019 and \u2018The Ocean Doesn\u2019t Want Me\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo-one\u2019s\u00a0had a life stranger than you\u00a0\/ You know famine, you know war, you know danger \/ You were brushed from the slacks on the President\u2019s thigh \/ You lived for a day on a dead fish\u2019s eye,\u201d\u00a0the piece begins.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know you probably had family in the manger \/ Roaches, rats, gnats, fleas, flies, no-one\u2019s gonna weep when you die \/ Twitch and stutter, scrub and laugh, and do that dance that your weird mother choreographed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike two lazy violins braided together in a low spastic siren to warn us of nothing \/ And you\u2019re named only after your ability to do so,\u201d he continues.<\/p>\n

Check it out here:<\/p>\n

All\u00a0of Waits\u2019\u00a0proceeds\u00a0from the exclusive vinyl release (pre-order\u00a0here<\/a>)\u00a0will be donated to\u00a0organisations\u00a0funding mental health resources for veterans and legal advocacy for immigrant communities.<\/p>\n

Waits revealed last week that he accepted the invitation to collaborate with\u00a0Massive Attack \u201cmany years ago\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWay back then, we sent them \u2018Boots On The Ground\u2019,\u201d he continued. \u201cTheir long release delay never worried me. Today, as in all of mankind\u2019s yesterdays, guarantees this song will never go out of style. Man\u2019s fiasco folly is a feast for the flies. Hence, the b-side of Massive Attack\u2019s upcoming 12 inch \u2018The Fly\u2019 features my appreciation for the winged nuisance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Massive Attack have said about the project as a whole: \u201cIt\u2019s a career honour to collaborate with an artist of the magnitude, originality and integrity of Tom, but this track is arriving in an atmosphere of chaos. Across the western hemisphere, state authoritarianism and the militarisation of police forces are fusing again with neo-fascist politics. Seen within the American emergency, at home and overseas, this track contains pulses of callous impulse and abandoned mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2023,\u00a0Waits\u2019 longtime music agent Paul Charles claimed that the US singer-songwriter and actor had been \u201cwriting again<\/a>\u201d with the hope that the 76-year-old may tour.<\/p>\n

As well as starring in\u00a0Jim Jarmusch\u2019s new film\u00a0Father Mother Sister Brother<\/a>\u00a0alongside Adam Driver, Waits\u00a0will release \u2018Where The Willow And The Dogwood Grow\u2019 \u2013 a curated \u201cessential collection\u201d of covers of songs by himself and wife Kathleen Brennan<\/a>\u00a0recorded by the likes by\u00a0Johnny Cash<\/a>,\u00a0Bruce Springsteen<\/a>,\u00a0Ramones<\/a>,\u00a0Willie Nelson<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Marianne Faithfull<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 on May 29.<\/p>\n

Waits and Springsteen are also set to appear on the upcoming tribute album\u00a0\u201920th Century Paddy \u2013 The Songs Of Shane MacGowan\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Waits has shared a taster of his new spoken word piece \u2018The Fly\u2019, the B-side to his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278,640,147256],"class_list":{"0":"post-411855","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-rock","13":"tag-trip-hop"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}