Listen to this when
Kentucky Avenue
To the friends who never saw limits 🛹
Who it's for
Tom Waits paints a vivid childhood memory of neighborhood adventures with a friend in leg braces, whom he promises to set free.
Wistful→Warmly nostalgic
Feelings it meets
What it is
"Kentucky Avenue" is a piano ballad on Tom Waits's 1978 album Blue Valentine. It is partly autobiographical: Waits grew up on Kentucky Avenue in Whittier, California, and the song draws on real people from his childhood, most strongly a childhood friend who had polio and used a wheelchair. It also draws on neighborhood characters and a childhood fantasy about a train running through his house.
Where to find it
All major streaming services.
Before you start
Age: All ages
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past,William Shakespeare, Sonnet 30
