Last Leaf

Album: Bad as Me (2011)
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Songfacts®:

  • This acoustic guitar-backed ballad finds Waits reflecting on how he's managed to stay alive for so long, when so many of his contemporaries haven't. "I'm the last leaf on the tree/The autumn took the rest/But they won't take me," he croaks.
  • Keith Richards, who we suspect can also readily identify with the song's sentiments, plays guitar and duets with Waits on this track. "I was talking to the record company and they say, 'Any guests you want on the record?' And I said, 'What about Keith Richards?' I was just joking, but somebody went ahead and called him," Waits recalled to Pitchfork. "And then he said, 'Yeah.' And I said, 'Now we're really in trouble.'"

Comments: 1

  • Wayne A from AustraliaIt’s such a beautiful song. Tom never lost his magic.
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