Tom Waits released a new album a couple of weeks ago, Bad as Me. A friend recently described his music as “a circus cabaret — or an animal burlesque show.” Above is the cold open of the best indie movie set in New Orleans you’ve probably never seen, Jim Jarmusch’s Down By Law. Waits is singing “Jockey Full of Bourbon” on the soundtrack, and that’s him appearing as a drunken hipster crawling into bed at 6 am. (You can listen to the entire song here to experience uninterrupted Marc Ribot’s hard-luck guitar — not to mention that voodoo wood block .) If you hit the play button on this clip, be sure to watch all four minutes and four seconds of it to get the full effect.

After the jump, another scene from Down By Law featuring Waits. Roberto Begnini plays Bob, a displaced Italian felon who can recite long passages from Walt Whitman by heart and in Italian. After that, Waits reading Charles Bukowski’s “The Laughing Heart.” After that, the first video from Bad as Me, “Satisfied.” Review of the album in the Guardian here

Down By Law, “It’s a sad and beautiful world”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=va1t6a0zCkQ

“The Laughing Heart”

“Satisfied”