Gawker: Tom Waits

Add A ScarJo Album To Your Social Network!

Hamilton Nolan — Tue, 13 May 2008 11:39:57 EDT

Scarlett Johansson's *ahem* long-awaited Tom Waits cover album "Anywhere I Lay My Head" is hitting stores a week from today. But in order to demonstrate to your circle of friends that you are ahead of the curve when it comes to blonde starlets and their ego-driven vanity music projects, you can check out her album now on the social network imeem.com (she's "online now!"). It's more targeted than putting it out on laughably polluted Myspace, so from an online marketing perspective, it's a fair deal for ScarJo, and an even better deal for iMeem. But from the perspective of a Tom Waits fan, it's tragic. "I Don't Want To Grow Up" redone as a droning plinky synth-pop song? We're not friends any more. If all goes well technically, her playlist is embedded after the jump. Good credibility-builder for iMeem. Bad for ears:

[For a less harsh appraisal, earlier]

Stalk Scarlett Johansson Via Music Video

Ryan Tate — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 07:59:09 EDT

We now have one answer, at least, to the question of why actress Scarlett Johansson recorded an album of Tom Waits cover songs. It's not just the promo pictures! It's also so there can be a music video in which we, her many fans, get to follow Johansson around during one of her trying days, be all impressed as she hangs out with smarty pants writer Salman Rushdie and sympathize as makeup is painstakingly applied to her face and her hair curled. We also stalk Johansson as she jets off on an airplane and then, upon landing, washes her face. She also gets flowers from fans and shuttled around in the back of an SUV. I actually can't stop watching. And the song is growing on me. I have actually come to agree that Johannson's voice "works convincingly in the musical context" of the song. Frightening! Watch the pretty lady sing the scary song, over and over again, after the jump.

Scarlett Johansson Vs. Tom Waits

Hamilton Nolan — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:29:20 EDT

Uncut magazine in the UK got an advance listen to the new and unnecessary Scarlett Johansson album of Tom Waits cover songs, "Anywhere I Lay My Head." According to the scattered preview, ScarJo sounds at various times like Marianne Faithfull, Liz Frazer, Marilyn Monroe, and Joy Division [Uncut]. So there's that. They do point out the asinine spectacle of 24-year-old ScarJo crooning "I Don't Want To Grow Up." You're not, yet, so stop singing about it! The question about this album remains: why must it exist? Certainly not because the blonde it-girl actress is poised to improve on the music of Waits, America's coolest living man. Could it be...the promo photos? It must be the promo photos. After the jump, the plump-lipped ScarJo's recently released contemplative pictures for the album—she enjoys sitting and gazing into the distance, you'll see—along with some of Tom Waits, for comparison's sake.

[SCARJO PICTURES END HERE]

Scarlett Johansson Draws Closer To Unfortunate Album Release

Hamilton Nolan — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 13:27:18 EST

It-girl actress Scarlett Johansson held a listening party last night to preview her upcoming album of Tom Waits covers. Waits, America's coolest living man, has reportedly given his blessing to the album for reasons known only to his own enigmatic self. Singing ditties for Barack Obama has not satisfied Scarlett, alas. After the jump, a full track listing from Johansson's unnecessary "Anywhere I Lay My Head" and a bonus video of the real version of one of the badass Waits songs, "I Don't Wanna Grow Up," that the actress will be warbling in an unlikely fashion when her album drops in May.

Track Listing:

1. "Fawn"
2. "Town With No Cheer"
3. "Falling Down"
4. "Anywhere I Lay My Head"
5. "Fannin' Street"
6. "Song for Jo"
7. "Green Grass"
8. "I Wish I Was in New Orleans"
9. "I Don't Want to Grow Up"
10. "No One Knows I'm Gone"
11. "Who Are You?"

Covering Matilda

Richard Lawson — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:58:37 EST

Scarlett Johansson, already an actress and soon to be a director, will have her debut singing album drop in May. It's called Anywhere I Lay My Head (to which I hope many young men respond: "In my lap!") It consists of covers of 10 Tom Waits songs and one original ditty. Tom Waits! I guess her voice is a little gravelly. Can't wait until she's living in some shitty house in LA, fighting with Lily Tomlin. [US]