Influence from Tom Waits Kazuo Ishiguro recalled how Tom Waits influenced The Remains of the Day: I thought I’d finished Remains, but then one evening heard Tom Waits singing his song "Ruby’s Arms". It’s a ballad about a soldier leaving his lover sleeping in the early hours to go away on a train. Nothing unusual in that. But the song is sung in the voice of a rough American hobo type utterly unaccustomed to wearing his emotions on his sleeve. And there comes a moment, when the singer declares his heart is breaking, that’s almost unbearably moving because of the tension between the sentiment itself and the huge resistance that’s obviously been overcome to utter it. Waits sings the line with cathartic magnificence, and you feel a lifetime of tough-guy stoicism crumbling in the face of overwhelming sadness. I heard this and reversed a decision I’d made, that Stevens would remain emotionally buttoned up right to the bitter end. I decided that at just one point – which I’d have to choose very carefully – his rigid defence would crack, and a hitherto concealed tragic romanticism would be glimpsed.
Influence from Tom Waits Kazuo Ishiguro recalled how Tom Waits influenced The Remains of the Day: I thought I’d finished Remains, but then one evening heard Tom Waits singing his song "Ruby’s Arms". It’s a ballad about a soldier leaving his lover sleeping in the early hours to go away on a train. Nothing unusual in that. But the song is sung in the voice of a rough American hobo type utterly una,ccustomed to wearing his emotions on his sleeve And there comes a moment when the singer declares his heart is breaking, that’s almost unbearably moving because of the tension between the sentiment itself a.nd the huge resistance that’s obviously been overcome to utter it. Waits sings the line with cathartic magnificence, and you feel a lifetime of tough-guy stoicism crumbling in the face of overwhelming sadness. I heard this and reversed a decision I’d made, that Stevens would remain emotionally buttoned up right to the bitter end. I decided that at just one point – which I’d have to choose very carefully – his rigid defence would crack, and a hitherto concealed tragic romanticism would be glimpsed.