Tom Waits teams up with Marc Ribot on cover of Italian anti-fascist folk ballad "Bella Ciao"
Tom Waits seems to be sticking to covers for the time being as he teams up with Marc Ribot to give Italian folk song "Bella Ciao (Goodbye Beautiful)" a new twist.
"Bella Ciao (Goodbye Beautiful)" is the first track Tom Waits has appeared on in two years, after his Blind Willie Johnson tributes "The Soul of a Man" and "John the Revelator".
The new track is taken from legendary guitarist Marc Ribot's forthcoming album Songs of Resistance 1942 – 2018, and arrives with visuals of an anti-Trump protest in Washington DC, directed by Jem Cohen.
Speaking about the collaboration with Waits, Ribot explains, "I played Tom a bunch of the tunes and he immediately bonded with that one. Of course, he brings a certain gravitas to everything he does—my Italian friends say he sounds exactly like an old ‘partigiano’ (resistance fighter)!”
Ribot's new project is a protest record that began in 2016, the same year Trump was elected President of the US.
Speaking about the new project, Ribot explains, "I am alarmed by Trump and the movement he’s part of. I’ve spent a good chunk of my life running around the world on tour—I’m kind of an accidental internationalist—and I see that he’s not an isolated phenomenon. And if we don’t deal with what is going on, it is going to deal with us.”
Songs of Resistance 1942 - 2018 will also include contributions from Steve Earle, Meshell Ndegeocello, Justin Vivian Bond, Sam Amidon, and more.
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