Lyrics to
Fumblin’ With The Blues

This version of Fumblin’ With The Blues was released by Tom Waits in 1974.

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Friday left me fumblin’ with the blues
And it’s hard to win when you always lose
Because the nightspots spend your spirit
Beat your head against the wall
Two dead ends and you’ve still got to choose

You know the bartenders
They all know my name
And they catch me when I’m pulling up lame
And I’m a pool-shooting-shimmy-shyster shaking my head
When I should be living clean instead

You know the ladies I’ve been seeing off and on
Well they spend your love and then they’re gone
You can’t be lovin’ someone who is savage and cruel
Take your love and then they leave on out of town
No they do

Well now fallin’ in love is such a breeze
But its standin’ up that’s so hard for me
I wanna squeeze you but I’m scared to death I’d break your back
You know your perfume
Well it won’t let me be

You know the bartenders all know my name
And they catch me when I’m pulling up lame
And I’m a pool-shooting-shimmy-shyster shaking my head
When I should be living clean instead

Come on baby
Let your love light shine
Gotta bury me inside of your fire
Because your eyes are ‘nough to blind me
You’re like a-looking at the sun
You gotta whisper tell me I’m the one
Come on and whisper tell me I’m the one
Gotta whisper tell me I’m the one
Come on and whisper tell me I’m the one

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Tom Waits has released many songs over the years besides Fumblin’ With The Blues. Tom Waits released songs from 1973 to 2004 spanning across albums like Closing Time, The Heart Of Saturday Night, Nighthawks At The Diner, Small Change, Foreign Affairs, Blue Valentine, Heartattack And Vine, Swordfishtrombones, Rain Dogs, Franks Wild Years, The Early Years Vol. 1, Bone Machine, The Black Rider, The Early Years Vol. 2, Mule Variations, Blood Money, Alice, and Real Gone. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Tom Waits.

If you're a fan of lyrics from 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1974 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Fumblin’ With The Blues by Tom Waits

When you decide to study the lyrics to Fumblin’ With The Blues, you're looking at the words, verses and background chorus from the 1974 song by Tom Waits. Some of the lyrics to Fumblin’ With The Blues have clear meanings and some contain metaphorical references. Like most songs, only Tom Waits and their collaborators know the full story behind any of the their songs.

You can understand the lyrics to Fumblin’ With The Blues if you take apart the structure of the words. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Fumblin’ With The Blues" means the words set to the music of Fumblin’ With The Blues, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Tom Waits. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Fumblin’ With The Blues and the lyrics to Fumblin’ With The Blues are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Tom Waits who came here looking just for the lyrics to Fumblin’ With The Blues, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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