Known covers:
Ravenswood. Jeff Lang. 1994. Black Market Music (re-released in 2001)
A Little Rain. David Weaver. 1998. Bridge Records

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ A Little Rain:
- Tom Waits (1992): "Around here, these smalltown newspapers, they cover a lot of murders and a lot of car accidents. I don't know if there are more car accidents and more murders, or if they just get more upset over them. There's something in the way they write about them...it's like a warning. For some, you know, murder is the only door through which to enter life. That's a rough one to think about. Maybe in the cities it seems more commonplace because it's against a backdrop that is also violent. Here, where you see the golden fields or whatever, it's in greater relief. Stark contrast." (Source: "Tom Waits at work in the fields of song". Reflex nr. 28: Peter Orr. October 6,1992)
- Tom Waits (1992): "Oh, l love those expressions. I'm always writing those things down - a little rain never hurt no one. Kathleen had this melody, and I saved it from the fire. She has all these Irish melodies. Then we read one of those terrible articles in a newspaper about a kid in a van that went out of control and went over a cliff, and they all died. Goes through some different time periods. Starts out with the ice man's mule, then it goes to the dancing on the roof with the ceiling coming down, and ends up in the van. So I think it comes forward in time, a little bit, with the images. But it's a song you can add another verse to, if you want." (Source: Bone Machine press kit, Rip Rense. Late 1992)
- Tom Waits (2006): "Well she's [Kathleen] from the Midwest. Like the song A Little Rain, which is on Bone Machine. [Sings in a bleary manner] "Well, the ice-man's mule is parked outside the bar/ Where a man with missing fingers plays a strange guitar/ And the German dwarf dances with the butcher's son/ And a little rain never hurt no one..." She says, 'Why do you have to take his fingers off? Why can't you just let him play the guitar like a normal guy in a bar? God! And why does the German guy have to be dwarf? And if he is, why do we have to know? It's not a film!" "But honey, sometimes you gotta shorten people, lop off a limb. It's just artistic licence." (Source: "My Wild Years And The Woman That Saved My Life", Word magazine (UK), November 9, 2006. By Mick Brown)

⁽²⁾ Clyde:
Q: I notice it's dedicated to Clyde. Who the hell is Clyde? Tom Waits: "A friend of ours who drives a dump truck. He's bigger than most human beings." (Source: Bone Machine press kit, Rip Rense. Late 1992)

⁽³⁾ A man with missing fingers:
- One tends to relate this to Django Reinhardt: "Django Reinhardt was an accomplished musician working in Paris when at the age of eighteen the caravan in which he was sleeping was ravaged by fire. Apparently his wife had filled the caravan that day with bunches of dried flowers. During the night Django got up and knocked a candle over setting the flowers ablaze. His left leg, and the third and forth digits on his left hand were terribly burnt. The doctors wanted to amputate the leg as it was so badly damaged, but Django refused. This was the end, thought by his contemporaries, to a promising career. Due to the foresight of Djangos doctor, he recommended that Django be given a guitar as therapy. Django rose to the challenge and persevered, giving rise to the style of playing that was eventually to create a storm the world over." (Source: The Django Reinhardt Swing Page. Steve/ Michael Dregni, 2003)
- Further reading: The Django Reinhardt Swing Page, Django Picture Gallery, Django reinhardt at JazzImprov