Blue Valentines. Original holograph draft manuscript for the title song from his album Blue Valentine, 5 pages, 4to, written with a blue felt-tipped pen, unsigned. (No date, but 1978) by WAITS, Tom

Blue Valentine was recorded in June and July of 1978, and was released in September with cover photographs of Waits and the soon-to-be-famous Jones, who was referred to as "the mysterious blonde," and a photograph of Chuck E. Weiss - the soon-to-be-famous subject of Jones's hit "Chuck E's In Love" - on the inner sleeve. Waits, who was living at the notorious Tropicana Motel in LA at the time, met Jones at the Troubadour in 1977, and the two singer-songwriters began a relationship that lasted almost two years, becoming the stuff of rock and roll legend - a legend both artists have refused to nurture. Jones' eponymous debut album was released in March 1979, and in the summer Jones went on tour in America and Europe with Waits accompanying her. Waits, however, was at a low point in his career - Blue Valentine, like his previous albums, had met with only limited success, and he was disillusioned with the entire music business, while Jones had achieved almost instant stardom. Catapulted to success following her performance of "Chuck E's In Love" on Saturday Night Live on April 7, 1979, and the attention it brought her first album, Jones was nominated for five Grammy Awards for Record of the Year; Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female; Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female; Song of the Year ("Chuck E.'s in Love"); and Best New Artist, which she won at the January 1980 ceremony. She was also voted Best Jazz Singer by Playboy and covered by Time magazine. Waits and Jones split up in the fall of 1979, and in January 1980, Waits moved to NYC. Jones was distraught, and turned her heartbreak into the songs on her next album, Pirates. Waits soon met Kathleen Brennan, whom he married in August 1980, an event that marked a turning point in Waits' life and music. After the album was released, "Waits told Circus that most of the ‘stories' on Blue Valentine ‘took place in Los Angeles in the last few months." The song "Wrong Side of the Road" was " half an account of Waits' wild romance with Rickie Lee." - Barney Hoskyns, Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits (N. Y.: Broadway Books, 2009), pp. 207-209. "Blue Valentines" is the tormented lament of a fugitive from a former love, whose memories and feelings of guilt he can't escape: "She sends me blue valentines / All the way from Philadelphia / To mark the anniversary / Of someone that I used to be / And it feels just like there's / A warrant out for my arrest / Got me checkin in my rearview mirror / And I'm always on the run / That's why I changed my name / And I didn't think you'd ever find me here." In this early draft version of the song, the stanza that is published as: "Why do I save all of this madness / In the nightstand drawer / There to haunt upon my shoulders / Baby I know / I'd be luckier to walk around everywhere I go / With a blind and broken heart / That sleeps beneath my lapel" reads: "I'd be luckier to walk around w/ polio / than a blind & broken heart / that sleeps beneath my lapel." The original version, however disturbing, clearly makes more sense than the published version, which appears to lack a critical counterpart: the singer already walks around with "a blind and broken heart", but exactly what is the alternative that would render this "luckier"? Another significant revision occurs in the last stanza of the song, which as published reads: "And I cut my bleedin heart out every nite / And I die a little more on each st. valentines day." In the present manuscript, these lines are: "I'd cut my bleedin' heart out if only I had a knife / to show you / prove to you / so you'd see you're not the only one that had to pay." In an interview in 1981, discussing "Kentucky Avenue", another song from Blue Valentine, Waits said "My best friend, when I was a kid, had polio. I didn't understand what polio was. I just knew it took him longer to get to the bus stop than me. I dunno. Sometimes I think kids know more than anybody. I rode a train once to Santa Barbara with this kid and it almost seemed like he lived a life somewhere before he was born and he brought what he knew with him into this world and so..." His voice fades off for a moment, then, "...It's what you don't know that's usually more interesting. Things you wonder about, things you have yet to make up your mind about. There's more to deal with than just your fundamental street wisdom. Dreams. Nightmares." (Source: "Tom Waits: Waits And Double Measures" Smash Hits magazine by Johnny Black. March 18, 1981). Blue Valentine introduced the electric guitar to Waits' music, most notably on the title song, which he sang a solo played by Ray Crawford. On his next album, Heartattack and Vine (1980), he would adopt his signature "junkyard orchestral" instrumentation which has so delighted his admirers. In 2011, Waits was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame A letter of provenance is included with the manuscript, which is lightly soiled, but otherwise in very good condition.