Tom Waits Ol' 55 story Lyrics

Ol' '55 Story

(Live version, 1974. Also known as: 12 Inches)

Well, before I do anything I gotta tell you a story 'bout Johnny Cash and June Carter. Unbeknownst to anybody in the entire metropolitan area, let me relate a little piece of metropolitan hot news. It's about Johnny Cash and June Carter. Yes, June Carter went and left Johnny Cash sittin' in his Winnebago playin' solitaire. Run off to Memphis to marry Hank Snow of all people. Yes, Hank Snow of all people. They hooked up matrimonially, and folks around those parts are sayin' that's the first time they've ever seen six inches of snow in June. Now I'm not gonna say anything...

Which reminds me of a story that I heard... I was down at a little place called Charlie's Place across the street from my motel in Harvard Square, a tweaky little... Twenty-three bucks a night they stick you for, ferchrissakes! I can stay at the Y for six. [edit]

There was a little sucker about four-five in there. With color television test pattern double-knit slacks. He had Foster Grant wrap-arounds and a jackal-striped jacket with blue denim dye. And he set that whole bar up, called the bartender over, set it up one elbow to the other, and we all had a beer. And I swear to God, a little twelve inch sucker jumped out of the guy's breast pocket, 'bout that big. Little sucker jumped down on the bar, went down all the way to one end, started spilling drinks, messing up people's hair, spilling ashtrays, making a hell of a nuisance of himself. Jumped back in the guy's pocket. The bartender come over and said, 'Ferchrissakes, I've been a bartender twenty-seven years, I've never seen anything like it. Sir, I run a respectable place here, ferchrissakes. This ain't no kind of joint!' 'Well,' the guy said, 'I'm sorry, Sir. It won't happen again!' Sure enough, that little twelve inch man jumped out of the guy's pocket, jumped down on the bar, tweaky little sucker, 'bout that big, starts spilling drinks, messing up people's hair. People tryin' to slap him on his way down. Sure enough, jumped back in the guy's pocket. The bartender come over and says, 'I've been a bartender for years and I've never seen anything like it. You're gonna have to cough up some sort of explanation.' The guy said, 'I do apologize.

But it all happened one afternoon in Atlantic City, New Jersey. In Atlantic City, New Jersey, I was walking on the beach, and what did I find but a José Cuervo bottle. And I picked that sucker up and I stroked it. I stroked it till a big genie came out. And that genie took one look at me and said, 'You can have one wish, any wish. Any wish you want in the whole wide world.' And, well, I had to go and be a fool and wish for a twelve inch p____ and that's just what I got.

Written by: Tom Waits
Published by: unpublished
Unofficial release: Tales From The Underground Volume 4, PMS Records, 1999
Recorded at a Mothers of Invention concert at the Orpheum Theatre, Boston, November 9, 1974
(Transcribed by Ulf Berggren. Listserv Raindogs discussionlist, 2000)