In the Details

Tom Waits talks about early influences in an old interview with Terry Gross (at about 9 minutes in):

I liked songs with the names of towns in them. I liked songs with weather in them. And something to eat. I feel like there’s a certain anatomical aspect to a song that I respond to. I think, “Oh, yeah, I can go into that world: There’s something to eat, there’s the name of a street, there’s a saloon.” I think probably that’s why I put things that like that in my songs.