I put on disc 1 of Tom Waits's "Orphans". After a few minutes, Jules says: Dad, who is this man singing?
I say: This is Tom Waits.
Jules says: Is he dead?
[I resist the urge to explain that, actually, Tom Waits sounded old when he was young, but that now, through some miraculous process of ageing backwards, he sounds like a young experimental noisemaker ready to take on the world on his own terms and tear it apart limb from limb. An almost-seven-year-old wouldn't understand.]
