David Simon reveals that Tom Waits' inability to work a VCR almost forced him into a Plan B.
“The first one I found was ‘Get Behind the Mule,'” explains Simon.
“And it didn’t quite work, lyrically.
Michael K. Williams on ‘The Wire’.Nicole Rivellli/HBO
It worked emotionally, but the verses were all way off point.
Finally, [executive producer] Bob Colesberry said, ‘I like the feel of it.
I like the guy’s voice, but it’s not quite getting there.’
Tom Waits.
And I had to agree.”
That’s when another option emerged.
“And that’s when we found ‘Way Down in the Hole.'”
The Cowboy Junkies.Gie Knaeps/Getty Images
Little did Simon know that his work in getting the song to the screen had only just begun.
“It worked perfectly, because for the voice to be African-American in that first season was important.”
Now he just needed to get permission tousethe song.
It was like, ‘Jesus, what are we going to do if he says no?
We got to get him to sign off on this thing!'"
He either wants to do it, or he doesn’t."
But if money wasn’t the issue, what was?
The team atThe Wiredidn’t know, and received little clarity back from the musician’s representatives.
“His management people were like, ‘We don’t know.
We keep telling him you have a deadline!'”
“So finally, they give our post-production producer, Karen Thorson, his number.
She calls him, and he picks up the phone.”
Once Thorson reached Waits on the phone, the issue became clear, as Simon recounts.
Wait until my wife comes home.’
And then, the next day, he approved it!
So I just imagine those tapes just sitting there next to his video cassette recorder.
They’d still be there now if she hadn’t made the call."
And what if shehadn’tmade the call?
Or if Waits’ wife had not been able to show him how to use his VCR?
“It’s a song I very much like,” says Simon.
“The chorus is great.
And the groove is great.
But it’s a little bit too much about the interpersonal.”
“We just changed it as the tonalities of the season changed,” notes Simon.
“We tried to keep pace with that, and we changed it each time.”
And history was made, all thanks to the magic of VCR technology.
