Step Right Up (song)
Posted5 months agoActive5 months ago
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HN users discuss Tom Waits' song 'Step Right Up' and its connection to a lawsuit involving a sound-alike performance in a commercial.
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Aug 24, 2025 at 8:54 PM EDT
5 months ago
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Aug 27, 2025 at 8:19 PM EDT
5 months ago
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ID: 45009203Type: storyLast synced: 11/18/2025, 12:05:08 AM
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I thought this song deserved at least a weekend post due to the lyrics alone, but apparently there was also a lawsuit involved due to a sound-alike performance in a commercial, after Tom Waits was asked by Frito-Lay to perform and he refused. Reminds me the OpenAI ChatGPT ScarJo controversy, to be honest:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPT-4o#Scarlett_Johansson_cont...
https://www.georgetown.edu/news/ask-a-professor-openai-v-sca...
And it finds you a job. It is a job!
Here's the album version with the lyrics in the description (the album art is probably NSFW due to a nearly topless callgirl, but if you look closely, she has pasties/tassels, so I'm calling it artistic license, but fair warning all the same!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTdScE3Rqh8
Send before midnight, tomorrow terms available.
A SFW re-issue album art version for those who can't click the above:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYyCitIDzvI
And it strips the phone company free!
Here's an amazing live session from 1977, with Step Right Up being first on the setlist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4er0QVPABo&t=84s
It delivers a pizza.
A somewhat deeper examination of the lyrics:
https://genius.com/Tom-waits-step-right-up-lyrics
'cause it forges your signature!
The prices keep going up if you listen closely.
The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away.
Also, it's simply a great song.
I agree. His songs seem like unique and unusual gems.