Waits performed a pair of songs and recited poetry in an episode of The Human Factor, which tackled homelessness in the American South and aired earlier this year
Tom Waits has released his performance of his 1976 song, “Tom Traubert’s Blues,” for the Italian docuseries, Il Fattore Umano (The Human Factor), which aired earlier this year.
Waits participated in the final episode of the eight-part series, which focused on human rights violations around the world. The finale, dubbed “The Last Ride,” centered on homelessness and poverty in the American South and featured Waits reading excerpts from his poem Seeds on Hard Ground and performing “The Fall of Troy” and “Tom Traubert’s Blues.”
While the full episode has been available to watch on RaiPlay for the past few months, Waits’ striking rendition of his signature ballad is now available on YouTube. In introducing the performance, Waits noted how his song’s interpolation of the Australian folk song “Waltzing Matilda” tied in with the themes of the documentary. In Australia, a “Matilda” is a backpack, so when you’re “on the road, and you’re on the run, when you’re out on the loose,” Waits explained, “they say you’re ‘waltzing Matilda.’ You’re moving with all your belongings on your back.”
Elsewhere, Waits said, “If you’re living on the street, we who live in abundance have to think what it must be like to be down to your last dollar, and your last cup of coffee, and your last pair of socks that are dry. Maybe it’s just that some conditions, some situations, seem to need a song for it. Facts and figures and statistics are one thing; but sometimes a poem contains the words that fell off the page. Just like the people who fell off the sidewalk.”
Waits’ appearance in The Human Factor was a rare public one for the artist, who hasn’t released a new album since 2011 or performed live since a short set at a 2022 tribute concert to Hal Willner. That makes 2025 a comparatively busy year for the singer-songwriter, who’s also set to star in Jim Jarmusch’s upcoming film, Father Mother Sister Brother. Waits plays a reclusive dad in one segment of the three-part film, which co-stars Adam Driver and Mayim Bialik as his two grown-up children.
