Known covers:
Bukowski Waits For Us - Vol. 2. Michael Kiessling. September 25, 2000. Buschfunk (Germany)
Mistress. Mistress. 2002. Rage of Achilles (re-released in 2005 by Earache/ SPV)
Shanghai Show. Neues Frankfurter Schulorchester (Anne Bärenz and Frank Wolff). 2004. Büchergilde (Germany)
God Is A Tom Waits Fan. The Box Spring Hogs. May 2004. Self-released demo
Bangin' On The Table With An Old Tin Cup. Pascal Fricke. April 12, 2007. Self-released (Germany)

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Earth Died Screaming:
- Tom Waits (1992): "I have some new categories," he says. "The end of the world, that's kind of a new category for me. Suicide notes. Murder. "The Earth Died Screaming" that's one of my favorites; it's got kind of an apocalyptic, I don't know, African thing." (Source: Composer, musician, performer, actor - Tom Waits is a Renaissance man whose musique noir captures the sound of the Dark Age. PULSE!. September, 1992. By: Derk Richardson)
- Tom Waits (1992): "On 'The Earth Died Screaming,' we got sticks and we tried them everywhere, I wanted to try and get some of that sound of pygmy field recordings that I love so much, and we couldn't get it. We tried different places in the room, different microphones, nothing. Different kinds of sticks, sizes of sticks. And then we went outside and just put a microphone on the asphalt and there it was, boom, 'cause we were outside. (Source: Composer, musician, performer, actor - Tom Waits is a Renaissance man whose musique noir captures the sound of the Dark Age. PULSE!. September, 1992 By: Derk Richardson)
- Tom Waits (1992): "I like the Earth Died Screaming. We have a pygmy percussion unit on there called the Boners that we formed during the making of it and we recorded outside. Took the microphone outside onto the dirt and put it up and had everybody play sticks on the sidewalk cause we couldn't get the same sound in the studio. It's too resonant. And most of those field recordings that you hear were all recorded outside." (Source: "KCRW-FM Radio: Evening Becomes Eclectic" Date: Santa Monica/ USA. October 9, 1992 (?))
- Tom Waits (1992): "It's [bible imagery in Bone Machine] my wife's fault. She's a lapsed Catholic. It's her fault. Yeah, there's some Biblical stuff on there. Earth Died Screaming - that's from the Book Of Rudy actually. He was one of the lost disciples. He was in, then he was out, finally he opened up a cafe." (Source: "KCRW-FM Radio: Evening Becomes Eclectic" Date: Santa Monica/ USA. October 9, 1992 (?))
- Tom Waits (1992): "Went through a lot of different changes. Tried to get this pygmy drum thing. A field recording of people playing sticks outdoors. We had to go outside for that. The poker's in the fire, and the locust takes the sky, and the earth died screaming. There's an old science fiction movie called "The Earth Died Screaming."* I've never seen the movie, I just heard the title. but I could work with that. I could do something with that. That's Les Claypool from Primus playing bass on it, and then there's bones, and then I put on the Tennessee Ernie Ford vocal. It's one of my favorites. It seems to march over the hill --- a bone parade marching over the hill." (Source: Bone Machine press kit, Rip Rense. Late 1992)

* "The Earth Dies Screaming" (1964, UK). B&W low budget science fiction/horror movie directed by Terence Fisher, written by Harry Spalding. Cast: Willard Parker - Jeff Nolan, Virginia Field - Peggy Taggett, Dennis Price - Quinn Taggett, Vanda Godsell - Violet Courtland, Thorley Walters - Edgar Otis, David Spenser - Mel, Anna Palk - Lorna

Tom Waits (1993): "[Les Claypool] came up and played on "The Earth Died Screaming." He was in between fishing trips at the time. He's great, he's got such an elastic approach to the instrument: a fretless, spastic, elastic, rubberized plasticene approach. He's like a fun house mirror. He can take and elongate his face. He's a real pawnshop weasel, endlessly in pawnshops. I think that's why he tours." (Source: "Tom Waits" Thrasher Magazine (US skate magazine), by Brian Brannon. Date: February, 1993)

Brian Brannon (1993): "On that song "The Earth Died Screaming," do you think the Earth is dying and we're just living in our own little dreams and ignoring it?" TW: "I guess, but I think the world is going to be here a whole lot longer after we're gone. I'm just waiting for the whole world to open up and swallow us all in, scrape us all off its back. I think the world is a living organism. When you stick a shovel in the ground, have you ever heard the earth go "Uhhgm?" And we're living on the decomposed remains of our ancestors, both animal, mineral and vegetable. So it is a living thing. I don't think it's going to die screaming, I think we're going to die screaming, in the swamp of time." (Source: "Tom Waits" Thrasher Magazine (US skate magazine), by Brian Brannon. Date: February, 1993)

Tom Waits (1993): Well, ultimately it [Chamberlin] was mass produced, and they were out there like Fender Rhodes, only on a much smaller scale. But they were marketed, advertised and sold in music stores, and they had displays, and everyone heard this name Chamberlain. JJ: Did you use it on 'Bone Machine'? TW: Only on two songs, on "The Earth Died Screaming" and "The Ocean Doesn't Want Me". (Source: Straight No Chaser [Spring 1993]. Interview by Jim Jarmusch)

Jim Jarmusch (1993): There's a lot of strange religious imagery in your house. But on a kind of grotesque level. TW: Yeah, "The Earth Died Screaming" was an attempt at some of that. "Rudy's on the midway, Jacob's in the hole," that's all from the Book of Rudy, which is one of the lost books of the Bible, the Book of Rudy. JJ: I'm not familiar with the Book of Rudy. TW: No, it's the uh, it's still being held in a library in Russia. Give 'em back, give 'em back! So it's great to go into a room with somebody you really love and have known for a long time. JJ: What songs on 'Bone Machine' did you collaborate with Kathleen on? TW: About half of 'em. I don't know which ones, they all seem mixed up to me. "I Don't Wanna Grow Up", "The Earth Died Screaming". "All Stripped Down" is kind of a religious song, 'cause you can't get into heaven until you're all stripped down." (Source: Straight No Chaser [Spring 1993]. Interview by Jim Jarmusch)

Tom Waits (1993): "It's part of an interior design. (pause) Hey, that pygmy stuff that you sent me really flipped me! It really got me listening, because we struggled for a couple days with getting the sound of a stick orchestra inside the studio for "Earth Died Screaming". We tried every configuration and position of the microphone, and finally I said, "Well, why don't we go outside, isn't that where all these recordings are made?" And five minutes later we had a mike up, we were hitting it, it was there. It was that simple." (Source: Straight No Chaser [Spring 1993]. Interview by Jim Jarmusch)

Tom Waits (1994): "Earth Died Screaming" is kind of a cyber, a cyber-drama, umm... And the moon fell from the sky It rained macarell, it rained trout And the great day of wrath has come And here's mud in your big red eye And the poker's in the fire...locusts take to the sky Umm...Revelations. It's all in Revelations. It's a heavy chapter. The "Earth Died Screaming" is a warning I guess, It's one of those songs... I haven't written a song like that really before. Like that, what I mean is kind of a, it has a certain, it is a warning...ha...like the end is near. The guys that I used to always love on downtown LA - Fifth and Main - with the briefcase with the speaker in it and the crummy little amplifier in it, going back and forth on a little wire screaming about the end of the world. I used to just stop and listen to those guys. Oh! To keep a crowd on a corner, now that, that is where you cut your teeth as a public speaker, is on a busy corner at like 5:00 on a Friday afternoon, downtown Los Angeles...and you're talking about Jesus. Now...Those were thrilling moments for me. I guess, umm, if you can make somebody wanna stop and listen, you can pretty much tell them anything, at least for the period of time it takes you to tell them, and then they're going to move on." (Source: Bone Machine Operator's Manual. November 30, 1994)

⁽²⁾ Heaven is full: Notice the same phrase being used in Dirt in The Ground, 1992: "Cause hell's boiling over and heaven is full."

⁽³⁾ Bughouse square:
- n. [20C] (US) any centre of urban life, typically Union Square, New York City, or Washington Square, Chicago where tramps, vagrants, the more or less deranged and any other eccentrics gather. (Source: "Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang". Jonathon Green. Cassel & Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-304-35167-9).
- Bughouse: n.: An insane asylum (Source: Dictionary Of American Slang, Wentworth/ Flexner)

⁽⁴⁾ And the Army Ants, they leave nothin' but the bones: Later referred to in the spoken word piece Army Ants of Orphans (2006): "And as we discussed last semester, the Army Ants will leave nothing but your bones."

⁽⁵⁾ Mackerel, raining: Might refer to "A Mackerel Sky", a sky spotted like a mackerel. (Mackerel from the Latin, macula, a spot whence the French maquereau. German mackrele, Welsh macrell, etc.) (Source: "The First Hypertext Edition of The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable", E. Cobham Brewer. © 1997-99 Bibliomania.com Ltd)

⁽⁶⁾ Big red eye: Big eye:
- n. (US) 1. [19C+] avarice, greed; thus have the big eye for, to covet. 2. [1950s] a stare, esp. when hostile or curious; thus big eye, to stare at (Source: Cassel's Dictionary of Slang. Jonathon Green 1998. Cassel & Co., 2000).
- Have red-eye for/ red one's eye/ red eye after, to: phr. [20C] (W.1) to become obsessed with at first sight and thus to desire to possess immediately [the red eyes that are trad. associated with madness] (look with red-eye/ red-eye at, to) (Source: "Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang". Jonathon Green. Cassel & Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-304-35167-9)
- Here's mud to your eye! excl. [1910s+] a toast when drinking. [orig. milit. use; thus ref. ? to muddy trenches of W.W.1] (Source: "Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang". Jonathon Green. Cassel & Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-304-35167-9)

⁽⁷⁾ Locusts take the sky: Apocalyptic vision. One of the 7 plagues of Egypt was the plague of locusts, they cover the land and devour all plants in sight (Submitted by Tricia Pierce. Raindogs Listserv discussionlist. September, 2000)