Waits performed a pair of songs and recited poetry in an episode of The Human Factor, which tackled homelessness in the American South and aired earlier this year<\/p>\n
\n\tTom Waits<\/a> has released his performance of his 1976 song, \u201cTom Traubert\u2019s Blues,\u201d<\/a> for the Italian docuseries, Il Fattore Umano (The Human Factor), which aired earlier this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tWaits participated in the final episode of the eight-part series, which focused on human rights violations around the world. The finale, dubbed \u201cThe Last Ride,\u201d centered on homelessness and poverty in the American South and featured Waits reading excerpts from his poem Seeds on Hard Ground and performing \u201cThe Fall of Troy\u201d and \u201cTom Traubert\u2019s Blues.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \n\tWhile the full episode has been available to watch on RaiPlay<\/a> for the past few months, Waits\u2019 striking rendition of his signature ballad is now available on YouTube. In introducing the performance, Waits noted how his song\u2019s interpolation of the Australian folk song \u201cWaltzing Matilda\u201d<\/a> tied in with the themes of the documentary. In Australia, a \u201cMatilda\u201d is a backpack, so when you\u2019re \u201con the road, and you\u2019re on the run, when you\u2019re out on the loose,\u201d Waits explained, \u201cthey say you\u2019re \u2018waltzing Matilda.\u2019 You\u2019re moving with all your belongings on your back.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n \n\tElsewhere, Waits said, \u201cIf you\u2019re living on the street, we who live in abundance have to think what it must be like to be down to your last dollar, and your last cup of coffee, and your last pair of socks that are dry. Maybe it\u2019s just that some conditions, some situations, seem to need a song for it. Facts and figures and statistics are one thing, but sometimes a poem contains the words that fell off the page. Just like the people who fell off the sidewalk.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tWaits\u2019 appearance in The Human Factor was a rare public one for the artist, who hasn\u2019t released a new album since 2011 or performed live since a short set at a 2022 tribute concert to Hal Willner<\/a>. That makes 2025 a comparatively busy year for the singer-songwriter, who\u2019s also set to star in Jim Jarmusch\u2019s upcoming film, Father Mother Sister Brother<\/a>. Waits plays a reclusive dad in one segment of the three-part film, which co-stars Adam Driver and Mayim Bialik as his two grown-up children.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Waits performed a pair of songs and recited poetry in an episode of The Human Factor, which tackled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197733,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,86094,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-197732","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-tom-waits","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}