"I Don't Want to Grow Up" by Tom Waits

Perhaps my second favorite Tom Waits song off of his album Bone Machine, the recording sounds so incredibly dense and full, when, in reality, the only instruments being played are an upright bass, an acoustic guitar, and, of course, Waits’ voice (the trick is carefully placed microphones in a room with natural reverb - an old church, a cave, Rosie O’Donnell’s bathroom, etc.)

The song is not, by any means, suggesting that one ought to remain a puerile and immature dumbass. Instead, this song seems rooted in Thoreau’s oft-quoted remark about ‘most men leading lives of quiet despair.’ Without overtly attempting to do so, this song is a poignant critique of the unexamined life. The songs shares an intimate proximity with Tolstoy’s novella, “Death of Ivan Ilyich” and Kurosawa’s film ‘Ikiru.’ Both focus on individuals who are unable to grasp the majesty and grandeur of life until faced with their own mortality. In this way, ‘I Don’t Want to Grow Up’ compels us to move beyond our dreams of complacency and routine. I’ll drink to that. Amen.