They Say It’s Your Birthday celebrates an artist’s special day with other people singing his or her songs. Let others do the work for a while. Happy birthday!

The most unique individual to emerge from the Los Angeles suburb of Pomona – which also produced such “luminaries” as Jessica Alba and Mark McGwire – Tom Waits is 61 years old today. His music seems to have lived three lifetimes though. He started out singing twisted jazz/beat ballads soaked in booze, progressed to bizarre German musical theater in the ’80s and early ’90s and invented almost a genre of his own in his most recent work. Even at his strangest, though, he always has made the song of paramount importance. Continue reading »